This is going to be long. Very long.
* * *
The year was 1985. It was one of those mundane afternoons and somehow I was alone in the living room, propped in front of the television. Which was rather odd because for me to be watching TV in the afternoon would mean it was a weekend and by right the whole family should be home. Perhaps I had ten minutes to myself before anybody else came into view, I don't remember.
What I do remember is watching this blonde coquette in a bright pink strapless gown surrounded by a throng of gents who were so transfixed by her that they couldn't help but to shower her with jewellery. I didn't really bother understanding the lyrics so I had no idea what she was squeaking on about. I was just mesmerised by the whole imagery but above all else the song, a catchy little ditty about living in a material world and being a material girl, snared me.
* * *
The year was 1985. It was one of those mundane afternoons and somehow I was alone in the living room, propped in front of the television. Which was rather odd because for me to be watching TV in the afternoon would mean it was a weekend and by right the whole family should be home. Perhaps I had ten minutes to myself before anybody else came into view, I don't remember.
What I do remember is watching this blonde coquette in a bright pink strapless gown surrounded by a throng of gents who were so transfixed by her that they couldn't help but to shower her with jewellery. I didn't really bother understanding the lyrics so I had no idea what she was squeaking on about. I was just mesmerised by the whole imagery but above all else the song, a catchy little ditty about living in a material world and being a material girl, snared me.
Though I didn't know who she was at the time, for weeks I would start singing my own version of the chorus: 'cause we are living in a world of joy, and I am a material boy! The song added a bounce in my steps. I was 8. My piano teacher had insisted, “That's not how the song goes!” but what did I care?
And that in itself explains but a fraction of why I love Madonna. She taught me not to care about what people say. Just go on doing what I want as long as I'm enjoying myself and if there's a catchy song to sing while I'm doing it, then by all means, sing and dance to it.
* * *
I grew up listening to bits of Bee Gees, The Carpenters, Air Supply, Azlina Aziz, Francesca Peters, Sheila Majid, Sudirman, Noorkumalasari, Rahimah Rahim, Anuar & Elina. Out of all of those, my favourite was Boney M because their songs made me wanna dance. I didn't know what Ma Baker was doing with her guns or why Daddy was so cool but when noone was around, I'd play that cassette and just dance.
At the age of 10-11, when we followed Pap to Buckinghamshire as he was doing his law degree, I started developing interests in more current artistes because it was what kids at school talked about. And being 1987-88, 'current' meant the Stock, Aitken & Waterman stable. I went wild for Kim Wilde, Mel & Kim, Rick Astley and Bananarama. I would memorise Bananarama steps and then teach them to my girlfriends at school.
Madonna was always in the background but I wasn't truly invested in her yet. La Isla Bonita and Who's That Girl? were big hits then and I liked the songs but I was more interested in Michael Jackson. Nonetheless, I got into Cherish when I was 13 for the very same reasons that Material Girl hooked me. It was 1990 and music had only started to become an integral part of my life with the purchase of my first walkman. I didn't know about Like A Prayer then since the video was banned and I didn't really listen to radio 'cause Mom was in charge of the boombox. But Cherish was regularly aired on TV and that sparked a deeper interest in the singer, partly because the video was directed by Herb Ritts, one of my favourite photographers (it was my fantasy to pose with Cindy Crawford for Herb - that was the year I started reading fashion magazines).
Later that year, that spark of interest turned into a blaze of obsession: Vogue was introduced to the global consciousness, and my life changed.
Who could resist the music video? Shot entirely in black and white, as polished and slick as the stylised choreography, I hadn't seen as spectacular a music video as Vogue. It depicted a confident woman who pulled off various looks and outfits (or lack thereof) with great panache, so confident that she didn't need a bra for her lace blouse. That the video coincided with a cultivated interest in fashion and magazines perhaps influenced the love for the song and video more.
Defined by gorgeous men, mad choreography, pointy boobs and buoyed by one of pop's most delicious raps, Vogue the video was so groundbreaking that by end of the year, Smash Hits called it “perhaps the best music video ever made.” Still, though the video was brilliant, the song on its own was equally excellent and I just had to have the album.
So one night, as the family went out shopping in Wisma Saberkas, I asked Pap if we could drop by the cassette store. I persuaded him to buy I'm Breathless (I think it was RM12.90) and that became my very first album.
We played the cassette in the car on the way back home and when Madonna's voice came on He's A Man (Gun In His Hand), I went all giddy inside. The songs were not contemporary pop by any standards but I loved them. Everybody else though, was sceptic. By the time I'm Going Bananas came on, Mam went, “Are you sure this is Madonna??”
The second we got home, I ran to my room, placed the cassette into my walkman and rewound it to the start again. And here's the kicker: strange but true, at that time I had fallen in love with music from the 30s-40s, the mob era. I think it was due to some gangster movie I saw on RTM, but I didn't know where I could find those kinda songs. Perhaps I tapped into the same zeitgeist as Madonna did for lo and behold, that was exactly the sound of I'm Breathless. I flipped! That week, seeing as the album sleeve came without lyrics, I started going through the cassette line by line and wrote what I deemed the lyrics were. Even when it didn't make sense, I tried to make sense of it (for the longest time, when Madonna sang “Life's a ball” in Vogue, I thought she said “flexible”). Naturally, I'm Breathless remains one of my all-time favourite albums. I can still listen to it from beginning to end without skipping any tracks.
Vogue too easily became an anthem for gay boys across the globe and I'm sure this is true regardless of geography: learning the choreography was not only imperative, it was a rites of passage, the true test of a Madonna fan back then. That song made me realise my love for dance. Madonna made me realise my love – and natural talent – for dance.
And the Madonna momentum didn’t slow down. During the release of I'm Breathless, Her Majesty embarked on the mother of all concerts, the Blond Ambition tour.
Costumes by Gaultier
Dubbed by Q magazine as “non-stop sexual cabaret”, the concert was an eye-opening, jaw-dropping visual extravaganza characterised by elaborate sets, pointy boobs (again), simulated masturbation, a now-iconic braided ponytail and the joy of dance, dance, dance. Rolling Stone proclaimed it “the best tour of 1990.” Though TV3 would go on to air “safe” segments of the concert, a friend somehow found a bootleg video of the concert so we passed it back and forth between each other to learn the steps.
Her image for The Immaculate Collection
A few months after, The Immaculate Collection was released and became, yes, the mother of all greatest hits albums. The album proved to me Madonna’s uncanny knack for a solid pop hook. Though her producers changed over the years, the sound and emotion was still unmistakably Madonna, song after song. The cherry on the cake was that the image that followed this release - a brazen, sexy, slick yet dramatic Madonna – was all captured in black and white by the fantastic Herb Ritts. Growing from strength to strength with each track, the album plays out a sonic celebration of the singer’s artistic growth, with not a weak spot in sight. It’s such a solid album that today, The Immaculate Collection remains the world’s biggest selling compilation by a female artist. Ever.
Along the way, TV2 would air a censored Dangerous Liaisons-esque version of Vogue at the MTV VMAs, still one of her best performances to date. I studied them all. Dance steps from Blond Ambition would go on to become my workout routine: during Matriculation 1 in Kulim, Kedah, when other boys were out in the fields, I would go to this vacant room above my dorm, put The Immaculate Collection into my discman and have my own little Blond Ambition Tour. Dancing to me grew to become sacred: it's one of those personal times when I feel truly alive, when I don't care about anything, when I really allow myself to get lost in the moment. It really does free me. And dancing to a Madonna song wasn't just about dancing – it was also about drama, about emoting through music. About finding emotional closure or celebration through song, if you will.
Naturally, I started working my way through Madonna's extensive catalogue: the Who's That Girl? soundtrack, True Blue, then the sublime Like A Prayer. It was the best time to be a Madonna fan, when Her Majesty was at the height of her career, when nothing she did could go wrong, a reality further supported by the explosive documentary Truth Or Dare in 1991. I also began collecting magazines with Madonna in them. Even when there was only a paragraph mention of her in Smash Hits or TopTen (or Teleskop), I'd buy it. I had a life-size poster of her performing La Isla Bonita on the Who's That Girl? Tour on my bedroom door, and years later one from the Vogue video decorated my wall during Matriculation 2.
I grew to know the woman behind the myth. Her work ethics marvelled me: regardless of how late she partied, she would wake up at 7am every morning to start her day. Her determination inspired me: She was a straight-A student. She came to New York with nothing but 30 dollars in her pocket and a heart filled with ambition, and she ate out of trash bins before becoming the world's biggest superstar. She was a hardworker, a creative force and an underrated talent. She made me think I could make something great out of my life regardless of the odds as long as I believe in myself.
And little did I realise, my love and respect for this artiste became somewhat legendary. At the end of 1991, my fellow Form 2 prefects asked me to perform Vogue at our retirement party – it was the only entertainment that night. When the St. Thomas Red Crescents had their annual Talentime in 1992, our school sent three entries: two group performances, and one reserved for me alone to reprise Vogue, which was also my impromptu performance for the close of our Astronomy course.
My dear friend Abu refers to my mother as 'mak Madonna.' When I turned 20, my good friend Mail and the guy whose room was next door to mine gave me a magazine dedicated to the singer as a surprise birthday present – they weren't even my regular 'lepak' gang. When Evita came out, Arin, Zaqrul, Alek, Bob, Shaz, kak Na, Sarah and even Andee offered to take me out to catch the midnight premiere of the musical, never mind that Bob couldn't stop laughing every time the Malay subtitles translated “Buenos Aires, big apple!” to “Buenos Aires, epal besar!”
When my flight to catch her Drowned World Tour 2001 in California was detoured due to September 11, the CEO of the company I worked for then came up to me during a company BBQ to ask how bummed I was over it.
It was through Madonna that I became great friends with Muzamer, my senior in MRSM Muar, who performed Vogue with me and three of our girlfriends during our Talentime (quite the scandal by MRSM standards. And we won, of course). Madonna also brought me closer to Emi and Doreen when we became classmates in MARA Language Academy because they loved her too. Neyna and I bonded through Madonna.
See, Madonna was not just some celebrity I greatly admired. She became an integral part of the pop culture that defined my formative years.
* * *
One of my favourite comments about Madonna is that “she is interesting because she is interested.” She introduced me to Tamara De Lempicka, Frida Kahlo, Keith Haring, Walt Whitman, Paulo Coelho, Jean Paul Gaultier, subjects of interest that would lead me to Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dali, Modigliani, Pablo Neruda, Rei Kawakubo. I dare say, if it were not for an interest in Madonna, I would not have fashioned a deep interest in art, being a Science student and all.
Along the way, TV2 would air a censored Dangerous Liaisons-esque version of Vogue at the MTV VMAs, still one of her best performances to date. I studied them all. Dance steps from Blond Ambition would go on to become my workout routine: during Matriculation 1 in Kulim, Kedah, when other boys were out in the fields, I would go to this vacant room above my dorm, put The Immaculate Collection into my discman and have my own little Blond Ambition Tour. Dancing to me grew to become sacred: it's one of those personal times when I feel truly alive, when I don't care about anything, when I really allow myself to get lost in the moment. It really does free me. And dancing to a Madonna song wasn't just about dancing – it was also about drama, about emoting through music. About finding emotional closure or celebration through song, if you will.
Naturally, I started working my way through Madonna's extensive catalogue: the Who's That Girl? soundtrack, True Blue, then the sublime Like A Prayer. It was the best time to be a Madonna fan, when Her Majesty was at the height of her career, when nothing she did could go wrong, a reality further supported by the explosive documentary Truth Or Dare in 1991. I also began collecting magazines with Madonna in them. Even when there was only a paragraph mention of her in Smash Hits or TopTen (or Teleskop), I'd buy it. I had a life-size poster of her performing La Isla Bonita on the Who's That Girl? Tour on my bedroom door, and years later one from the Vogue video decorated my wall during Matriculation 2.
I grew to know the woman behind the myth. Her work ethics marvelled me: regardless of how late she partied, she would wake up at 7am every morning to start her day. Her determination inspired me: She was a straight-A student. She came to New York with nothing but 30 dollars in her pocket and a heart filled with ambition, and she ate out of trash bins before becoming the world's biggest superstar. She was a hardworker, a creative force and an underrated talent. She made me think I could make something great out of my life regardless of the odds as long as I believe in myself.
And little did I realise, my love and respect for this artiste became somewhat legendary. At the end of 1991, my fellow Form 2 prefects asked me to perform Vogue at our retirement party – it was the only entertainment that night. When the St. Thomas Red Crescents had their annual Talentime in 1992, our school sent three entries: two group performances, and one reserved for me alone to reprise Vogue, which was also my impromptu performance for the close of our Astronomy course.
My dear friend Abu refers to my mother as 'mak Madonna.' When I turned 20, my good friend Mail and the guy whose room was next door to mine gave me a magazine dedicated to the singer as a surprise birthday present – they weren't even my regular 'lepak' gang. When Evita came out, Arin, Zaqrul, Alek, Bob, Shaz, kak Na, Sarah and even Andee offered to take me out to catch the midnight premiere of the musical, never mind that Bob couldn't stop laughing every time the Malay subtitles translated “Buenos Aires, big apple!” to “Buenos Aires, epal besar!”
When my flight to catch her Drowned World Tour 2001 in California was detoured due to September 11, the CEO of the company I worked for then came up to me during a company BBQ to ask how bummed I was over it.
It was through Madonna that I became great friends with Muzamer, my senior in MRSM Muar, who performed Vogue with me and three of our girlfriends during our Talentime (quite the scandal by MRSM standards. And we won, of course). Madonna also brought me closer to Emi and Doreen when we became classmates in MARA Language Academy because they loved her too. Neyna and I bonded through Madonna.
See, Madonna was not just some celebrity I greatly admired. She became an integral part of the pop culture that defined my formative years.
* * *
One of my favourite comments about Madonna is that “she is interesting because she is interested.” She introduced me to Tamara De Lempicka, Frida Kahlo, Keith Haring, Walt Whitman, Paulo Coelho, Jean Paul Gaultier, subjects of interest that would lead me to Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Salvador Dali, Modigliani, Pablo Neruda, Rei Kawakubo. I dare say, if it were not for an interest in Madonna, I would not have fashioned a deep interest in art, being a Science student and all.
Lempicka's art featured in the 'Open Your Heart' video
And then, there was the music. Apart from knowing her way around a pop song, the woman sang about Life. Whether she was extolling capitalism (Material Girl), singing about abuse (Live To Tell, 'Til Death Do Us Part), teen pregnancy (Papa Don't Preach), family values (Keep It Together), dance, pain, love, loss, joy, empowerment and despair...good God, did she understand despair (“I'm the Queen of Despair, read my lyrics!”). Never mind that the first half of her catalogue saw her voice sugarcoated with the magic of studio stardust. To me, she sang with gusto, squeezing out every raw emotion from out of her. She sang it from her heart with convincing grit to melodies that were melancholic, defiant or breezy, but always danceable. During the tumultuous period that was the teen years, I retreated to her songs when I was hurt, when the weight on my shoulders became too great a burden, or when I just wanted to die already.
* * *
Admittedly, I'm more of an ardent follower of her earlier stuff. It became harder to appreciate the music after Evita. I still get excited over new albums, but she just doesn't sound the same. Before, I would never skip any tracks from her albums, but now? As triumphant as Ray Of Light was, I could never grow to like Little Star. Music was cool but it had more overrated clunkers – Amazing (a lesser cousin of Beautiful Stanger) and Runaway Lover. American Life had some of the most grating lyrics of her career (“Stupider than stupid”? Seriously?). With age, motherhood and Kaballah, she found herself to be in a position to preach through her songs and took that position too seriously (even in a near-solid dance album such as Confessions On The Dancefloor) which was fine in the beginning but after a while, enough already!
Her lyrics now tend to try too hard to sound symbolic or poetic, coming off as tiresome as the yoga poses she kept pulling off in her videos. I mean, yes, we know you can put your feet behind your neck, but how is that relevant to the whole Sorry video (or 4 Minutes, or Die Another Day)?
After Evita, her singing became very technical, and let's not kid ourselves, she's not the greatest singer out there (though I preferred her version of the Evita songs more than I do Elaine Paige). I just miss the times when she belted out pop tunes with enough character in her voice. I now feel like she's turned into a robot, with or without the vocoder.
Video-wise, she has become lazy. And Madonna is a video artist, so I look forward to be impressed visually. The last time that happened was the original video for American Life and Hollywood. Videos from both Confessions and Hard Candy had the potential to be great but were ‘okay’ at best, and downright uninspiring at worst.
Clips from the 'Hollywood' video (left), inspired by photography by Guy Bourdin (right)
Maybe it's mid-life crisis but ageing has really affected her. She's become obsessed with trying to look/act young and relevant as opposed to just not giving a damn about proving herself. I mean, she's bloody Madonna, she's proven herself enough already! For a woman who insists she doesn't like to repeat herself, she has fallen victim to exactly that: Give It To Me saw her dancing around in a studio before crashing down on the floor in an exhausted heap. Celebration showed the same thing. In Hung Up, the camera was obsessed with her ass; in Celebration, her crotch. In Truth Or Dare, she read a poem dedicated to her assistant, a gesture she repeated in I'm Going To Tell You A Secret. My point being: she's become predictable.. formulaic.. and, as much as I hate to say this, ‘safe’.
Hard Candy was perhaps her most disposable album to date – it sounded less like Madonna, and more like the producers she worked with. The fighter imagery wasn’t well thought out either. That said though, she is still a phenomenal performer. It is through her concerts that she demonstrates why she's a solid artist, pulling of new dance moves inspired by butoh, tecktonic, flamenco or line dancing to produce concert setlists that even those half her age would find themselves struggling through.
But music-wise, there are still marks of her creative genius… until she goes and records something as throwaway as Revolver and I can't help but think: “Why is she trying to be Britney or Rihanna? Hasn't it always been the other way round??”
Still. In spite of whatever qualms I have for the woman, I love her. I believe she puts the ‘art’ in ‘pop artiste.’ She still pushes buttons and challenges perception. She still breaks records and she's still in control (unlike Mariah, Whitney, then Britney, Madonna has never gone to rehab). When her contemporaries – Michael Jackson, Prince, George Michael, Lionel Ritchie, Whitney – have yet to see their careers blaze again like they once did, hers is still burning bright. And in spite of the public’s constant assertion that Madonna’s the inferior singer or artist, albums the likes of Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light and The Immaculate Collection will find pride of place in any Top 50 or Top 100 Albums of All Time list by Rolling Stone, Blender or Q magazines while albums by Whitney and Mariah hardly (if ever) make the cut.
So when her latest Greatest Hits package, Celebration, came out, I’m moved to write down my thoughts on this woman. The task to compile all her greatest hits is an impossible one because 1), she has too many and we’re bound to overlook chunks of it, then 2) she has evolved time and time again that her sound has changed drastically from one album to the next that putting them all in one package will risk sounding incoherent. Which it does. This is a collection that will please – and astound - the general public, but not one that would please die-hard, analytical fans like yours truly. On the other hand, it’s not going to matter when I hit the ‘shuffle’ button on my iPod anyway.
* * *
Eugene once asked me what it was about Madonna that seems to fascinate gays. Without skipping a beat, I found myself answering, “Because she's got balls.” Hah! But honestly, being gay has nothing to do with me liking her. I just love a good pop song and I like to dance to them, and more often than not, she delivers the goods. It doesn't hurt that while she's doing that, she tells me to believe in myself, to express myself, to accept the fact that sometimes we get pain but we need to find the strength to stand tall nonetheless. And that it's never too late to try something new. And that image is everything - one has to look fabulous.
My greatest Madonna experience is easily having to watch her perform live on the Re-invention Tour '04 with Lynn in San Jose. Though I've yet to meet her (heh), I was fortunate enough to be able to work with one of her choreographers, Norman Shay, in 2007 - I was the stylist when he was performing in KL for an event.
When I was 14, a friend had asked, “What would you say or do if you were to ever meet her?” My nonchalant reply was this: “I would kiss her royal tootsies.” And mark my words, I still would.
A.
