Madonna -underated?

[Puppylucky]

Just watching Madonna at the BBC and reminded of all the images and musical styles she has explored over the years buy it seems to me she doesn't get the artistic credit of someone like Bowie. OK she isn't the greatest singer but she's brave and creative and was always interesting to watch and I can't help thinking she hasn't quite got the respect she deserves -particularly these days .

She can do no wrong in my eyes. She's a complete individual and gives not one fuck.
She's treated so differently from men, lesser talented men with dodgy pasts and less interesting music.

Well…there was Cyndi Lauper…

I definitely don't think she's underrated. She's widely regarded as one of the most iconic recording artists of all time and is the biggest selling female artist of all time. She will go down in history.

She definitely wasn't underrated in the 80s and 90s. She was everywhere. I adored her and she got me through some shit times in my teens. I remember watching the 'Dress you up' video and was mesmerised by her confidence and wanted that for myself. I still listen to her music all the time and reminisce.

I know it's her face and body and we can all do what we like, but I'm really saddened by how she looks now. I think she'd be incredibly beautiful now without the work. She has great bone structure and beautiful eyes.

I'm saddened by most cosmetic surgery and the reasons behind it tbh. If it's noticeable, it rarely looks good and once begun it's seems difficult to stop.

I remember her controversial book called sex.
I worked in a public library at the time and we had never had so many requests for an individual book, our copy came so we looked through it.

There was an image of her being assaulted by two men, skinheads I think in a gym possibly dressed as a school girl but dressed in an innocent way for sure. The other images were very much leather, bondage and all very glamorous. She equated assault with sex, it was rape and an act of violence. I lost any
I suppose respect for her after that.

@Rockbird I think Debbie Harry looks incredible, sexy and powerful but without cheapening herself in the video of her singing Heart of Glass.

Of course there was a sexual renegade of a female performer who came before Madonna. Betty Davis, ex wife of Miles Davis and was way ahead of her time, Black and it was the 1970s.
Madonna is a middle class basic woman from the Midwest, who due to being in the right place at the right time and having enough front and less talent, managed to use the far more talented people to to parlay her attention seeking and unsteady identity into fame and fortune. I see with this thread, her fans are not pop culture conoisseurs; the easier for Madonna to fool that every thing she steals, his hers. It's only beause she really can't dance that she hasn't tried to parlay gritty dancehall sex culture to the (often) , similarly edgelord wannabe masses. I had her bang to rights as akid when I realised that no, it aint her playing the funky guitar on "Lucky Star" , because she sure couldn't sing a Good Gotdamn for me to continue giving her coin.

Also, Millie Jackson came way before Madonna , sexualised and actually genuinely sexy as she has warmth. Madonna was a new thing for the white mainstream.

And as for men with sordid pasts; Madonna was known to trawl the streets of Spanish Harlem and sometimes The Bronx, seeking the flesh of the Latino "young". So bad and male identified she is to the point oif wanting to be the worst of them ( and calling it feminism like the rest of her usually white, "choicy, choicy", "ooh , he touched my knee," but "sex work is work" dullard sistren) she openly stated that sex with the young .....just read what this freak says in her Sex book, excerpt available online.

Madonna is the best carpetbagger out there and knows what not to touch if her "talent" cannot compare. Now instead of sitting down in her legacy, she is competing with her young, revealing that it's attention that is her compass in life and music was the best way to gain it.
She epitomises wanna be fucked out, male identified choicy choicy feminism. And I suspect that she is a androphile, but not stupid enough to go the whole way.

After the shade she dropped about Tina Marie, I knew that she knew that she is a talentless hater. And her being friendly with Tory Larenz decades later?

i think she got more credit than she deserves. Vogue comes to mind. She didn’t originate it but it credited with doing so

I can’t decide if you’re being a bit harsh but i do agree for the most part.

I'd have to agree with this. And ugh that sex book

That's her name

I have several of her albums and loved her growing up, Take a Bow is one of my fave songs/vids - but now her desperation to stay relevant shows IMO. She seems to have become a parody of herself unfortunately, she's become her own Spitting Image caricature.

I'd have loved to have seen her become a sexy older woman rather than trying so desperately to look like her daughters sister and failing badly while doing god knows what to her face.

@SmokeyPaprika

I remember being shocked that someone could call themselves Madonna when she first came to fame. There wasn't the irreverence to things that there is nowadays.

Presumably her parents named her like most people across the world.

Madonna is her actual name, not what she calls herself

Madonna was named after her mother who tragically died when she was a child. It’s an Italian name.

🤣

Im afraid I agree. She’s still trying to be overtly edgy and sexy in her 60s and it just comes across as desperate. The woman that are genuinely still sexy as they age haven’t distorted their faces with cosmetic surgery. I’m thinking of Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Christie Brinkley.

And was happy not to correct that assertion. No credit to the black, and latino people who were the innovators of the dance movement.

The last decade has emphasised how she’s mainly a one trick pony when it comes to her image, it’s still all about being sexually provocative and trying to shock.

In 2021 she was on the The Tonight Show and there was all of this scripted, faux angst about how she is always so “unpredictable” and OMG what will she do next!!

And of course, predictably, she slid across the desk and humped it 🙄 because it looked “boring”.

She may have been risqué and controversial in the 80s but it doesn’t really work anymore. Not because she’s older, but with the Internet age simulated sex and nudity isn’t really that shocking.

She does seem to be trying to attract a younger demographic with her urban, edgy blingy Instagram posts. They’re all bling, filters, night clubs, limos and she’s filtered beyond all recognition.

It’s not working though, she has a fraction of the followers of say, Swift or Eilish and her whole approach is different. Swift’s social media has wholesome, clothed often ethereal shots and includes her kitten. She has 239 million followers, Madonna has 18.6 million. Eilish is also clothed and has artsy posts, she has 107 million followers.

Sure, Madonna in her day was phenomenally popular, but she’s not popular in with the demographic she seems to be trying to appeal to.

And yes, I think she does care, or she wouldn’t have done such extreme things to her face.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/madonna-is-back-into-the-groove-at-64-but-is-she-still-in-vogue-z79gxfm80?shareToken=c98315361018209f838d46378e69265e

Will you still need me when I'm 64?
Not according to this thread, Madge - nope
But nonetheless, there will be many going to see her tour later in the year, even if there is some tech-trickery involved.

When I was growing up, she was a legend.
14 albums
17 films
11 tours
9 businesses

The only time I think she has been underrated was her performance in Evita: she won the Golden Globe but I would have given her an Oscar nomination for her work in that.

I think many would have felt happier, had she retired at 50. The last three albums have been harder to like, but I'm not sure who her demographic now is. I wasn't keen on Hard Candy either but adored Confessions. Also loved Kylie's Disco from two years ago (her fifteenth).
Both Madonna and Kylie have been slated for the Botox usage but some of the misogyny/ageism involved under the guise of faux concern is grating.
I don't believe Madonna's live voice is underrated - given the Eurovision performance in 2019, unless she really couldn't hear herself, she clearly needs autotune/uses pre recorded backing tracks on occasion. Personally, I would have lip synced in Tel Aviv, had I been her.

Nonetheless, she remains iconic and few will overtake her as Queen of Pop.
I love you Taytay (and know you have overtaken Madge with number of billboard hits) but face it, she's Madonna. see what I did there?

She was awesome until 10yrs ago then she's gone off the boil! She's just looking like a desperate older woman rather than the trailblazer she was.

You sound nice 😳

@Speedweed -I have to disagree with you slightly as Bowie was a renowned copyist and magpie. However I love the point you make that his writing matured and reflected his life experience. Watching Madonna performing Frozen which was informed by her Kabalah (?) beliefs at the time I got the sense that she could have evolved but for some reason reverted back to disco /dance sugar rush

I feel like her impact was very much highly rated in the 80s/90s. She was everywhere. Of late though she's stuck trying to look as young as she ever did. I'd love to live in a world that saw Madonna embracing and writing songs about aging in her own inimitable way. She now seems stuck in the past.

Bowie is an excellent example, as in PPs, of continuing to grow as they aged.

Then take a band like Queen. They live in the past but were forced to by the loss of Freddie so that feels natural.

TBH I barely recognise her now she's messed on with her face so much. I prefer to remember her as she was and still clean to the Immaculate Collection 🤣

Sorry, read this and hopped on. Others have almost certainly pipped me to this post: Madonna is an everyday Catholic girls name. As is Jesus as a boys name in South America.

OK she isn't the greatest singer

Her singing improved a lot over the years. On Ray of Light, it's impressive.

I don't think she's underrated, her star power is just a bit lower than it was in the 80s and 90s. As tends to happen to pop stars as they grow older. I personally think she had some absolutely fantastic pop songs but I do think her more ardent fans have a tendency to over exaggerate her originality and her talent. She spotted burgeoning trends and she hopped on them. That was her real talent.