We get to our third instalment, revealing my thoughts on Madonna’s album. We get to a super interesting period of Madonna’s catalogue and peak controversial Madonna. Thing is, what Madonna did for women at this time, paved the way for all women artists that came after, and gave her contemporaries permission to express themselves even more.
Give it up, do as I say
Give it up and let me have my way
I’ll give you love, I’ll hit you like a truck
I’ll give you love, I’ll teach you how to- (uh)
I got tickets to see Erasure at the O’Keefe Center/Sony Center/Humingbird Center – I don’t remember the current name for the theatre. My friends Dean and Christian had gone to the same concert though I bought my ticket late so sat solo.
This was when Chorus and ABBA-esque had come out. I had second-row seats to that concert and it was an amazing gay cultural moment for me on so many levels. I had started becoming very aware that I was gay starting around 1990 despite being outed in 1986.
In front of me was a group of clearly gay men dressed up. They were amazing. One of the guys had Madonna’s Erotica album they had just purchased and I am pretty sure it was my first time really connecting with another gay man about music. It felt good.
That’s my best memory of this album.
Erotica is incredible! Such a great song, and she doesn’t hold back on expressing eroticism in different ways on this album, expressing so much about relationships, the power of communication. To think people were so focused on the controversy again. It speaks more about the media than it does Madonna.
Shep Pettibone is an amazing dance producer and remixer. I adore his remixes and his contributions to this album are incredible. Definitely a uniting of two music forces.
Erotica – wow, such a great track and it certainly garned a lot of attention.
Her cover of Fever, wow!
Bye Bye Baby – a feminist breakup anthem about reclaiming power and abandoning a toxic lover, yes! The hip-hop vibes are amazing! Critics were critical of her vocal performance? It’s prefect for this track
Deeper and Deeper will get me on a dance floor. That piano line, the strings, ahhhhhh, this is quite possibly the PERFECT Madonna song. Deep house and 1970s disco vibes.
Someone said that romance was dead
And I believed it instead of remembering what my mama told me
Let my father mold me
Then you tried to hold me
You remind me of what they said
This feeling inside
I can’t explain
But my love is alive
And I’m never gonna hide it again
This song is about queer liberation. It’s coded given the time, but this stanza says it all.
Iconic!
Where Life Belongs is amazing, for some cringey, for others, well they just couldn’t handle the song’s content. My Baptist Grandfather, Grandmother and Step-Grandmother would immediately explode and catch fire if they knew I was listening to this.
I just told Scott, “I’m listening to that oral sex song again!” – I played it recently to Scott and he laughed and chucked.
Seriously, Madonna singing about stuff that people can’t handle. Even today!
Bad Girl is one of the most important tracks on this album, exploring how people use self-destructive habits like excessive drinking and casual sex to mask deep emotional pain and heartbreak. It’s said to be a response to the exhaustion of friends who she had lost to HIV/AIDS and the rejection of perfection.
When this album came out I had moved out of my childhood home and in with my aunt and uncle after finally reaching the breaking point with being abused and used where I was physically assaulted, my interpretation of this song showed me the path I didn’t want to take and to keep looking forward, following my dreams. I could very much relate.
In the themes of communication and empowerment, Waiting is a poignant exploration of unrequited love, vulnerability, and relationship fatigue. It’s a great track.
Every time I hear Thief of Heats, I think of a drag queen laying down the law about someone not stealing her man. I love how tough Madonna is on this track, completely unapologetic. The house and hip hop is alive on this one. It’s a beautiful melding of sounds.
You’ll do it, you’ll take it
You’ll screw it, you’ll fake it
Undo it, you’ll break it
You’re over, you can’t take it
Words explores the pain of verbal manipulation and emotional dishonesty in relationships. This song hits harder these days, and hit hard back when I first heard it.
But your actions speak louder than words
And they’re only words, unless they’re true
Your actions speak louder than promises
You’re inclined to make and inclined to break
Rain is a beautiful ballad, and probably my second most favourite track on the album. This song gave me hope that there were much brighter and better days ahead, which has definitely happened since this time.
Rain is what the thunder brings
For the first time I can hear my heart sing
Call me a fool but I know I’m not
I’m gonna stand out here on the mountain top
‘Til I feel your
Rain
The video with the Japanese elements is amazing. Directed by Mark Romanek.
Why’s It So Hard is a great song about everything that’s fucked up in this world. Why can’t we come together, why are there so many divisions? Why’s it so hard to show each other some love. I get the frustration. I have a brother that’s so “anti-woke” and I’m like, what the fuck? You’re someone who shows great love to people, you would give the shirt off your back, and yet you’re on that conspiracy theorist train?
In This Life is a tribute to her friends who passed away from HIV/AIDS – Martin Burgoyne and Christopher Flynn. I always knew this song was about HIV and the impact on loved ones. It asks some great questions, and this song is one that reminds me of why I’ve volunteered in safe sex education and mens outreach. Another mother Madonna moment.
Have you ever watched your best friend die
Have you ever watched a grown man cry
Some say that life isn’t fair
I say that people just don’t care
They’d rather turn the other way
While we wait for this thing to go away
Why do we have to pretend
Some day I pray it will end
Secret Garden caps the album – an empowering ode to female identity, self-discovery, and natural sexuality. Bring it on!
Critics panned Erotica because of the sexual content and all the taboo stuff that she very well knew that people couldn’t handle. I applaud Madonna for this album, for what she was trying to accomplish. Along with the book Sex, which again, people couldnt’ handle.
I’ve seen Sex. A former boyfriend of mine has it and it’s a great book. That said, Vanilla Ice? Okay, whatever floats your boat Madonna.
This is an album I panned. I am most definitely not a fan of R&B and with the plethora of R&B that was being produced at the time, I ignored it.
That said, it’s grown on me over time and there are truly some epic tracks on this album. Björk, Nellee Hooper and Madonna? Oh yes! The hip-hop and funk elements? Absolutely!
Survival sounded too much like typical girl groups at the time so I completed panned it. Listening to it again, it’s a great song and given what’s just been released with Confessions II, it’s super interesting to listen to this, and I feel like I need to give Madonna an apology for only just appreciating this album:
Secret resonates with me today. The themes of self love – “Until I learned to love myself, I was never ever loving anybody else” highlights the realization that healthy, fulfilling relationships are only possible once you heal your own insecurities.
I’d Rather Be Your Lover was supposed to be with Tupac Shakur! I get the theme. Meh.
Don’t Stop brings Madonna’s political tone much lower, in that, we’re finally back to pure dance floor Madonna. It’s a grove, and I like it. It’s likely to not be a regular for me. It’s not Madonna really story telling which she does best. Honestly, filler at best.
By this time of Madonna’s career, you figure a song with the Inside of me is going to be erotic, but it’s not, despite her high voice, R&B and Hip Hop vibe. It’s a track about her mother and quite tender. It just feels disconnected, and I’m not sure it feels like authentic Madonna. The lyrics certainly are, for sure, hands down. The voice? It’s think it could have been done in a different way. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I’m not, given why this album exists, to calm down the media circus and controversy.
Human Nature is amazing, the video even more amazing with Madonna in full fetish gear! This track is clearly a big fuck you to everyone that stirred up the media backlash and were completely blind to her true message.
And I’m not sorry (I’m not sorry)
It’s human nature (It’s human nature)
And I’m not sorry (I’m not sorry)
I’m not your bitch, don’t hang your shit on me (It’s human nature)
My reaction at the time was possibly a bit of shock, but then it was, YES! Again, another one of those mother Madonna moments.
Forbidden Love is actually a beautiful track. I wanted to like it back in the day, but themes of love I immediately panned. I was jaded on what love of any kind was, I very much thought it was a fallacy despite very much wanting any kind of love.
I get the themes of rejection and longing as an aphrodisiac and I very much appreciate the song now. Babyface’s voice is smooth, Madonna’s is perfect.
Love tried to welcome me, is not a song I paid any attention to when listening to this album. Relooking at the themes, wow – exploring themes of worthiness, being drawn to sadness, loneliness. Lyrically it’s great!
Sanctuary is incredible and definitely one that stood out. This is one of the tracks with Nellee Hooper, very trip-hop. The song explore love and intimate connection as a safe, transcendent space from the world’s pain. It questions is pain so necessary to then appreciate joy.
Who needs the sun, when the rain’s so full of life?
Who needs the sky when the ground’s open wide?
It’s here in your arms I want to be buried
You are my sanctuary
We then arrived at the Björk-penned Bedtime Story. My understanding is, Madonna wanted Björk to write a whole album, but she declined. Björk, Nelee Hooper, Marius de Vries and Madonna. Just wow.
Bedtime Story is an amazing trance trip-hop experience. The video is a total 90s experience. It’s a meditation, it’s communicating without words, you just have to listen to it.
And to think it came out of words Björk had always wanted to hear Madonna say? LOL
Take a Bow is an incredible ballad with Babyface. It’s about unrequited love, saying goodbye and love being taken for granted and the final curtain call. I have a weird association to this song. Saying goodbye and the feeling that I was taken for granted by my family.
The show is over say goodbye
This is a weird album to me. To be blunt it feels like at times it’s inauthentic yet I know it is Madonna. The lyrics, absolutely are 100% Madonna. Honestly, it’s one or two tracks that I’m letting paint the picture versus the tracks I like. Maybe it’s because a good part of this album is reactionary – she felt she had to tone things down, she was pressured to tone things down. At the same time I need to acknowledge that it’s good to experiment, so I could be completely wrong about this album.
There genuinely are some great tracks on this album, especially the second half.
With the release of the Something to Remember compilation of ballads, I felt Bedtime Stories had a long release period despite primarily 1994 and 1995. I always associate You’ll See with Bedtime Stories when it was a single from Something to Remember.
While I know that You’ll See is about the break up of a romantic relationship, this song hit harder for me. I was living in the UK when this came out. I was in Frankfurt, Germany working around Christmas 1995 and it was the first time I felt truly alone, and defiant.
It was the start of a tumultuous time. Losing my father, becoming my own person, coming out and questioning everything about how I grew up.
These lyrics pretty much say it all:
All by myself
I don’t need anyone at all
I know I’ll survive
I know I’ll stay alive
All on my own
I don’t need anyone this time
It will be mine
No one can take it from me
You’ll see
A year and a half later or so, I’ll Remember from the same compilation would become my first breakup song. It really is a beautiful song.
Massive Attack on I Want You – incredible.
I’m not going to talk about the other tracks, these are the ones that are closest to my heart.
This compilation felt like a return to form for Madonna. Did she really go to far with Erotica? I don’t think, but she did hit the wall at the right point. Bedtime Stories still feels like an odd album in her catalogue, but I have a much better appreciation for that album as an adult.
Having lived in the UK and really exploring more dance and electronic music, it’s not surprising that that album didn’t gel with me, and that’s okay. You can’t like everything an artist does – it’s art. Being a producer myself, I know my music is quirky at times and I can’t expect people to like it.
I’m not going to talk much about Evita. I saw the movie and thought it was good. I think Madonna does a great job of singing.
Another Suitcase in Another Hall, Don’t Cry for me Argentina, and You Must Love me – Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice good
And I think here is a good place to stop for the introduction of Madonna’s Veronica Electronica years.