{"id":45354,"date":"2014-06-27T12:15:25","date_gmt":"2014-06-27T17:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=45354"},"modified":"2014-06-27T11:30:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-27T16:30:45","slug":"things-im-supposed-to-hate-but-kinda-like-anyway-madonna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=45354","title":{"rendered":"Things I’m Supposed To Hate, But Kinda Like Anyway: Madonna"},"content":{"rendered":"

I can’t stand Madonna.<\/p>\n

Madonna the expert player of the media? Forget Madonna, I’m over Lady Gaga, and I’m bored with whatever comes next. Whoever it is. Already.<\/p>\n

Her “signficant artist” phase? Her coffee-table photo book “Sex” got all those pretensions sent back to the clubs pronto.<\/p>\n

The original Madonna, of “Holiday” and “Like a Virgin” fame?\u00a0 She came out during my too-good-for-dance-club music phase, and oozed “manufactured pop treacle” to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nope. Don’t much care about Madonna.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Now about that “manufactured pop treacle” thing; that doesn’t necessarily disqualify music for me.\u00a0 I’ve said it before; I appreciate music on two levels:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Does the technique involved in playing or producing the music make me go “yeah, someone’s got some chops?”\u00a0 Even if I don’t care for the song itself, I can nod my head and go “Yeah” for technical merit; Yngwie Malmsteen and Mariah Carey leave me equally cold, but yet their technique on guitar and voice respectively have gotta make a musician go “boom”.\u00a0<\/li>\n
  2. Does the song grab me in the liver and say “there is something important here”?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Madonna has done either of the two – according to me, and when it comes to music it’s the only standard I really care about – so rarely it barely deserves mention.<\/p>\n

    Well, OK – with two exceptions:<\/p>\n

    All About The Technique:\u00a0 You can listen to “Ray of Light” – Madonna’s nod to the techno boom about ten years back<\/del> from, yow, 1998 (!)\u00a0– and think “It’s just a bunch of semiconductors that’ve been programmed to fire off in the right order”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    And you’d be right.\u00a0 But all of that programming led to one of the most perfect bits of dance-pop ever.<\/p>\n