May 17, 2003

Madonna fans sometimes like to bring up the fact that Madonna wrote some of her songs, or at least co-wrote a few. I will grant that the music, the melody, to some of Madonna's songs is catchy. But she is no musical genius.

Madonna's current attempt at learning the guitar seems to be a pathetic attempt at gaining some sort of credibility -- with whom, I am not sure. One of the only things I can think of is that Madonna must realize that she is becoming an old hag who cannot rely on shaking her butt in music videos anymore.

After all, what young man would get turned on by either her (a) drooping or (b) overly-muscular, steroid- enhanced butt? And what young female would want to emulate a middle-aged woman with either (a) a drooping or (b) an overly-muscular, steroid- enhanced butt?

I vaguely remember the songwriting (and instrument performance) credits for her first 2 - 3 albums, and if I remember correctly, it was largely people like Patrick Leonard, Quincy Jones (on guitar), Steve Bra y, Dan Gilroy, Mark Kamins, and Reggie Lucas who wrote (or played instruments on and who produced) these songs.

One article mentions that

..."Like a Prayer," [was] written with the enormously gifted Patrick Leonard. (Leonard, along with her old friend from Detroit, Stephen Bray, are her main collaborators.) [source: Madonna Digest; originally appeared in Song Talk magazine, Summer 1989 issue (Vol. 2 No. 11)]

In the same interview we read:

Madonna: That's the great thing about Pat. I mean, Pat puts together these really strange chord progressions and these really great time signatures, and I'll listen to it and I won't even think about it.

I'll just put it on, and I'll just keep playing it over and over again; it's like free association. I'll start singing words to it and making them fit. I don't thing of structure. I don't think of first chorus, first bridge.

Interviewer: Did you come up with the melody for "Oh Father"?

Madonna: No, no, Pat thought of that melody.

Later in the same interview:

Interviewer: "Act of Contrition," the closing track of Like a Prayer, has backwards masking and other mysterious elements. Did he have anything to do with that one as well? The credits only say, "Produced by the powers that be."

Madonna: Yeah, he did. He played guitar on it. He also played guitar on "Keep it Together."

As we can see by Madonna's own admission, she gets a lot of help in writing her songs.

Some of Madonna's biggest hits, the ones that propelled her to worldwide fame, the ones most memorable, such as Like a Virgin, Material Girl, and Dress You Up, were not written by her.

Madonna fans need to pay attention because in the Song Talk interview, Madonna admits that

... [ Patrick Leonard and I] have a very good working relationship because we both come from the Midwest, and we both worked our butts off to get where we are. But, you know, he's the one who studied music. He knows how to read music, how to write music. I don't know any of that. I'm completely instinctual and he's completely intellectual. So it's a really good combination.

Madonna may not have meant to, but she has just admitted in that quote that Leonard is the real musical talent. He is the one with the know-how, training, and education. She is the trained monkey.

Elsewhere in the Song Talk interview, though, she laps up praise that the journalist heaps upon her, e.g., 'but Madonna, yes, you do play instruments when you said you did not! You just said that you played keyboards when writing Lucky Star!'

I took piano lessons for five years when I was a kid. I would love to point out to this journalist that there is a difference between actually being able to 'play the keyboard' and pecking out notes, making a simple melody, on a keyboard. Does anyone care to guess which category Madonna falls into?

I have noticed that Madonna's songwriting is not always original. I am surprised that she has not been sued yet.

Unforunately, because Madonna mimics songs that are a bit before my time, I cannot always discern exactly who she is ripping off. In her song Like a Prayer, for example, there is a line, "Just like a prayer, I'll take you there!" that gets repeated many times over.

I know I have heard the lyrics "I'll take you there!" in a fairly well- known song by a black band; this song probably dates from the 1960s.

Off the top of my head, another example that comes to mind is Madonna's 'Cherish' song. There was some boy band back in the '50s, or maybe the '60s who had a line in their song that went, "Cherish is the word I use to remind me of our love." I do not think it unreasonable to conclude that Madonna was ripping off that band.

I do not have a problem with musicians borrowing phrases from other famous songs, doing covers of old songs, and what have you.

My problem when Madonna does these sort of things is that either

a.) she tries to pass the lyrics off as her own invention;

b.) fans think it was Madonna's idea first (and Maddy won't correct their thinking on this); and then there is the sheer extent of it:

c.) Madonna, as I point out in other articles on the site, has based an entire career of stealing material, fashions, trends, and whatever else from others

Madonna is not 'paying tribute' to musicians when she mimics their work -- she is blantantly profitting from their work, as she is largely incapable of making decent music herself. She is a greedy, money- sucking vampire who does not have a shred of true artistic talent in her entire body.

Madonna has gotten especially lazy with her newest release, "American Life:"

And in the lyrics, these swipes from popular songs: "This bird has flown," "Everybody's looking for something," "I got you under my skin," "Love will keep us together." Perhaps the point is transcendence through detachment, but finally American Life comes across as defeatist more than anything else -- as if to say, why bother writing new lyrics? [source: BEN RATLIFF
(From Rolling Stone 922, May 15, 2003) ]

What takes place [on the American Life record]are vocoderized expressions of departure and a lackadaisical desire to dazzle her audience. No surprise, though, that she often finds herself swiping titles of popular classics in her lyrics (“love will keep us together,” “I’ve got you under my skin,” etc.) that virtually questions the need to write new lyrics. [source: The Manila Times]

I am surprised that any Madonna fan would want to willingly admit that Madonna is responsible for writing some of her own songs, or to act as though this is a laudable thing or lends Madonna credibility, since some of Madonna's lyrics are just laughable and simplistic.

You 'fans' should be embarrassed for Madonna, not parading her about as though she has any musical ability, as this only encourages her to keep making horrible albums like American Life.

Really, what is so brilliant about lyrics such as these:

"My father had to go to work / I used to think he was a jerk" (from Mother and Father)

"In the midnight hour I can feel your power" (from Like a Prayer)

"I'll give you love, I'll hit you like a truck" (from Erotica)

"In my heart I know we've come apart and I don't know where to start" (from Bad Girl)

"Stop bitch now sit your ass down!" (from Thief of Hearts)

"Sugarplum fingertips kissing your honey lips / Close your eyes sleepy head, is it time for your bed" (from Dear Jessie)

"Siegmund freud / Analyse this / Analyse this / Analyse this, this, this." (from Die Another Day)

As reviewer Lehua Chong points out,

Madonna's strangely nasal voice [on American Life] kind of stings in your ears and that's before she starts rapping again. "My mother died, when I was five." The words just fall flatly, and you have to snicker. [source: Daily Pennsylvanian, Yoga, Pilates, Hotties! Brit wannabe tries to reclaim her Yankee roots ]

If anything, my cat could have written more in- depth, original, and meaningful lyrics.

And what of Madonna's over- reliance on the same rudimentary rhyming schemes and themes? I do not take it as evidence of Madonna reasserting the same themes for artistic merit but rather as her 'creative well' being bone dry.

After surveying the above list, you should be asking yourself what I did: what would Madonna ever do without the English word "door?"

Notice, also, how Madonna apparently runs out of ideas later in her career so she has to rip of lyrics or themes she has already used on previous albums. I hope Steve Bray is getting royalties from Ray of Light, Erotica, and all the rest.

I wasn't the only one to notice that Madonna is rehashing her old themes:

'Mother And Father' [from Madonna's American Life album] pointlessly revisits the same old themes covered in 'Oh Father' and 'Promise To Try' from 'Like A Prayer' 14 years ago. [source: Playlouder Review]

... 1994's mediocre "Bedtime Stories" (a musical and thematic rehash of 1992's far superior "Erotica")...

And [with the track 'Mother and Father' on American Life] we've already heard way too much about her troubled relationship with her dad [in 'Oh Father' from Like a Prayer] and the loss she felt after the death of her mom. [source: Madonna sounds spent on this 'American Life']

As for the use of the word and concept of 'home' in her songs, I recall Oprah Winfrey, the talk show hostess, asking Madonna what she meant by the phrase "and I feel like I just got home" in her "Ray of Light" song. I don't remember Madonna's answer, and besides, it is irrelevant.

Oprah was operating under the assumption that Madonna actually expends deep thought and energy on her lyrics, which she does not. Not only will a simple listen to any Madonna- penned song reveal this, but Madonna has said in interviews that it usually takes her about ten mintues to write lyrics for a song.

Oprah was under the false impression that Madonna singing about 'home' is meaningful to Madonna, when, in reality, it is merely filler.

Incidentally, there are no less than five names accredited to the Ray of Light song: Madonna, William Orbit, Clive Muldoon, Dave Curtis and Christine Leach.

Additional observations about Madonna's idiotic lyrics:

Nobody Knows Me has embarrassing lyrics such as, "I'm not that kind of guy/ Sometimes I feel shy/ I think I can fly/ Closer to the sky."

And Mother and Father (which had the potential to be moving, given it's about growing up without a mother) gives us this bogus rhyme: "There was a time that I prayed to Jesus Christ/There was a time I had a mother/It was nice." [source: Madonna: American life Review, from smh.com.au ]

The following lyrics (from "Candy Perfume Girl") are stupid, yes, but they also just do not make any sense:

Candy Perfume Girl Young velvet porcelain boy Devour me when you're with me Blue wish window seas Speak delicious fires I'm your candy perfume girl Your candy perfume girl Moist warm desire Fly to me I'm your candy perfume girl candy perfume girl candy perfume girl Candy Rush me ghost you see Every center my home Fever steam girl Throb the oceans Your candy perfume girl you're a candy perfume girl you're a candy perfume girl Candy Perfume girl Did I lie to you? candy perfume girl Did I lie to you? Magic poison You're a candy perfume boy candy perfume boy You're a candy perfume boy Candy perfume girl The sacred nerve is Magic Poison It's candy It's candy I'm your candy perfume girl boy girl boy girl boy Candy

When Madonna is not busy writing insipid lyrics, she is busy removing perfectly good ones from cover songs she performs. Read excerpts from a review of the single American Pie:

My other big complaint about the music is the fact that Madonna has massacred the song lyrically as well. She has cut out several verses, shortening the song and thereby making it more "radio friendly." The song doesn't carry the same meaning any longer. She rearranged the lyrics a bit as well, changing it so she repeats "I started singing" over and over and over and over.

This cover is just bad and it should never have been made. [source: Duncan's Litterbox Madonna: The All-American Piece of Pie]

I have to disagree, at least a little, with one music critic, in his comments on the 2003 album American Life, who wrote:

Similarly, mocking her for writing about her own life rather than sticking to lyrics about picking up boys in bars and busting poses on the dance floor is fatuous. She isn't 20 any more; she has two kids and a bloke, and enough life experience to have acquired a few insights. [source: Madonna: American life Review, from smh.com.au ]

True, Madonna is now age 44 and it would seem silly to expect her to dance about in music videos in skimpy little outfits as though she were still 25 years old, and it would seem a tad unrealistic to have songs about the nightclub life coming from a middle-aged woman.

What this reviewer is overlooking, though, is that Madonna is being hypocritical on her newest album. She is now against the very culture that made her financial success possible.

All very well and good if Maddy wants to tackle serious issues on her current album, but why at the expense of Americans and American society? She needs to show some gratitude towards America, not disappointment or condemnation.

Secondly, her more 'serious' and 'introspective' songs are alienating her fans, or just the general public who otherwise might consider buying her records.

To put this a different way, even though I do not like Madonna, and even though some of the lyrics to her songs are idiotic, I still enjoyed some of the cute and bubbly songs she did in the past.

If I, who hate Madonna's guts, was willing to fork over some dough to buy Madonna albums but now no longer will buy them because she has changed her musical style from fun and catchy to dreary, depressing, and weird, then who exactly is going to buy them?

No 13 year old kid with extra spending money is going to buy a record with weird techno sounds backing some rich middle-aged woman singing about the emptiness of materialism and fame.

If anything, Madonna needs to get back to singing some of the same material she did in the 1980s. Just a few years ago, Cher, who is now over age 50, was able to sing a cute and perky dance hit, "Believe," proving that an older singer can in fact create youthful sounding, fun music but without looking pathetic.

The messages on American Life are dour indeed. Remember the old ecstatic catchphrases about reaching, about bliss? Getting into the groove, getting over the borderline, striking a pose, finding your lucky star, music making the people come together? Now there is only retreat and a halfhearted will to puzzle things out in public with a vocoder. [source: BEN RATLIFF
(From Rolling Stone 922, May 15, 2003) ]

Madonna's songs are simply not fun anymore (and unlike the following critic, I'm not a fan of Madonna's Ray of Light and Music era; I found both, like American Life, to be dull records and the electronic sounds were just weird, not cool):

Ahmadzai is back at the helm on "American Life." But neither he nor Madonna is having nearly as much fun with the grooves this time out. The 11 tunes are more mid-tempo, less energizing and much less joyful. It's hard to imagine any of them get the blood pumping on the treadmill or at the aerobics class, much less making a spirited party mix tape. [source : Madonna sounds spent on this 'American Life' by Jim Derogatis ]

As one Mr. Prindle remarks:

Madonna's 'rapping' on American Life? Terrible! From reviews for "American Life:"

But too often the sounds are let down by Madonna's melodies (which are dull and predictable) her singing (which sometimes seems too remote given the personal nature of the lyrics) and her occasional rapping (which is stiff and unconvincing, like someone who has read about the craft but never heard it performed). [source: Madonna: American life Review, from smh.com.au ]

"I tried to stay on top, but somehow I forgot", [Madonna]. . . warbles in the opening title track. As if to illustrate what she means, she launches into a rap so weak, my toes curl into ringlets. It's not just that her flow is appalling, which it is. It's the risible nursery rhyme lyrics which must leave even little Rocco snorting in derision. I can't even bring myself to quote them, they're that bad. . .

Oh hang on, here comes another abominable rap. "My father had to go to work / I used to think he was a jerk". [source: Playlouder Review]

Here's a test [to see if you think you'll like American Life]: listen to the title track of Madonna's new album, American Life, and if you don't wince when she starts rapping, you're a true fan. Because as evocative as Madonna is known to be, there's something inherently lame about a 44-year-old mommy rapping, "I do yoga and pilates and the room is full of hotties." All you wincers may want to skip this one. [source: Daily Pennsylvanian, Yoga, Pilates, Hotties! Brit wannabe tries to reclaim her Yankee roots by Lehua Chong April 24, 2003 ]

Madonna's lyrics are so awful that they've got a music critic confused:

Madonna sounds spent on this 'American Life' by Jim Derogatis ...But the biggest problem is the lyrics. It has always been a fool's game to look for undue meaning in Madonna's words--her music is supposed to be empty-headed dance-pop fun, after all-- but "American Life" is mixed in a way that thrusts the singer's voice front and center, virtually screaming, "Pay attention to what I'm saying!" (especially during the . . . folkie-acoustic passages). So what does Madonna have to say? Unfortunately, not a damn thing. The new age navel gazing is far more obtrusive here than on her last two albums, and it's much more confusing and befuddled. "I'm not religious," the singer insists on "Nothing Fails." Yet Jesus Christ and Satan pop up in several songs, and there are more empty feel-good aphorisms dished out over the course of the disc than there are in a month's worth of "Oprah." Maddy's rap against materialism in the title track is hard to accept, considering she has always celebrated vapid consumerism in the past, while her rant against the film industry in the song "Hollywood" is hypocritical coming from a star with a filmography like hers. . . . It all adds up to a confused and confusing mess, and Madonna admits as much. "I don't know who I am. ... I don't know who I'm supposed to be," she croons in "X-Static Process." What the heck is Madonna going on about in the lyrics for "American Life"? Damned if I know, but maybe you can figure it out. Here is a sampling of some of her more lunkheaded lyrical utterances. From "American Life": "I'm drinking a Soy latte/ I get a double shoté/ It goes right through my body/ And you know I'm satisfied/ I drive my Mini Cooper/ And I'm feeling super-dooper/ Yo, they tell me I'm a trooper/ And you know I'm satisfied/ I do yoga and Pilates/ And the room is full of hotties/ So I'm checking out the bodies/ And you know I'm satisfied." From "I'm So Stupid": "Please don't try to tempt me/ It was just greed/ And it won't protect me/ Don't want my dreams/ Adding up to nothing/ I was just looking for/ Everybody's looking for something." From "Love Profusion": "There are too many questions/ There is not one solution/ There is no resurrection/There is so much confusion." From "Mother and Father": "There was a time I was happy in my life/ There was time I believed I'd live forever/ There was a time that I prayed to Jesus Christ/ There was a time I had a mother/ It was nice." From "Nobody Knows Me": "I've had so many lives/ Since I was a child/ And I realize/ How many times I've died/ I'm not that kind of guy/ Sometimes I feel shy/ I think I can fly/ Closer to the sky."

How any Madonna fans or journalists who ~(gag)~ admire Madonna can actually write that Madonna has any musical talent what-so-ever and do so while keeping a straight face have a special talent themselves, wouldn't you agree?

The next time you find yourself talking to a Madonna fan who thinks she's a brilliant composer, send him a link to this page.