MADONNA: Queen Of Pop (English Version)

Queen of pop, Madonna is now 60 as of August 16th. Every period of her older than 30-years career has their own specialized moments and styles. In this writing, we're going to discuss what makes Madonna special this much.

I want to start with the factor made me listen to her. My first Madonna experience was Like A Prayer. Some of you might know this but if you don't, Madonna has been excommunicated after song's music video. Even though an artist being excommunicated cause of her visuality is already a big thing, Madonna's ambition on going through her way impressed me a lot in my middle-school days.

I guess, there is no other pop star as brave as Madonna in the music history. Her career was at her peek after 3 consecutive hit albums: Like A Virgin, True Blue and Like A Prayer. But in 1992; she released the most provocative and controversial album in her career, Erotica. Even though the album's theme is not that controversial today compared to 90's it's still so obscene and considering those years' conditions, it shocked the whole music industry and created a huge 'Madonna hate train' after its release. But now I want to focus on the era happened between 1990-1994.

Her aim while releasing provocative and sexual Erotica was to destroy social taboos upon eroticism and all kinds of sexuality. But as I stated, it was a huge taboo going around so this album was so underrated. There were a lot of naked photos of her in the S.E.X. book released in this era. She couldn't help letting her tears fall down when she was making a speech about the pressure on her resulting from this provocative image. Next quote is from this speech she delivered in 2016 Billboard Women In Music Awards:

I remember wishing I had a female peer I could look to for support. Camille Paglia, the famous feminist writer, said I set women back by objectifying myself sexually. So I thought, ‘oh, if you’re a feminist, you don’t have sexuality, you deny it.’ So I said ‘f*ck it. I’m a different kind of feminist. I’m a bad feminist.’

As I stated before, her sexual image caused her to have the toughest times of her career. I'm sure Madonna was aware of the possible impact of this era before beginning it. The main thing that makes me adore her is her choice of using her art as a way of sending messages instead of selling millions of records. But of course, after she understood she can't make people listen to her, she put her clothes back on started to make plans in order to raise her career back.,

Even so, she proved us she still has that spirit with her 2003 album American Life.

After reborning from her ashes with the release of two hit after hit albums Ray Of Light and Music, she came back with the politically controversial album American Life. She released the title track lead single with its music video only one month before America's entrance to Iran. The uncensored version of the video happens inside a fashion show but instead of supermodels, there are soldiers and war victims have been shown. We see no reaction from the audience towards those people until Madonna appears in the fashion show in a tank with a license plate says 'Hell on wheels'.

After this scene, we're finally able to see shocked faces from the audience. She was trying to tell us that it's so easy to watch this kind of things from the TV or computer and you can't get how frightening they are until you confront with them. I'm not going to analyze the whole music video right now cause actually it has a lot deeper meanings but what I'm trying to emphasize in here is her courage.

Until now, I always talked about her controversial moments but finally, I'm able to focus on the main point. Art is beautiful when it touches people and what makes an artist important is his/her art's meaningfulness. And the factor made Madonna the queen she is today is her stubbornness and protection for her art and her message. She might be 60 now but as I look back, I see a warrior instead of an ordinary pop star. She will become 80 or 100 but her impact on the music industry will never be forgotten.

I want to make the closing with her performance of Human Nature on Sticky & Sweet Tour. Thank you so much for reading and the interest you showed to my writings. Subscribe to my blog in order to get notified for new writings.