Here's the thing I've always raised an eyebrow over: Madonna's past producers / cowriters claiming that she has innate musical talent. Many of them--most notably Patrick Leonard--have claimed she's musically intuitive and can almost effortlessly come up with melody lines and lyrics (the latter I'm somewhat sold on, as some of her lyrics are totally simplistic, and many of them are just plain awful). I'm just not buying this, especially since she rose to prominence in an era when women did not have a great deal of power and pull in such a corrupt industry. I fully believe she was pushy and ambitious and wanted nothing more than to be famous, no matter in what capacity (acting, I believe, was her initial goal), but I do not believe she is actually a natural musician.
Madonna loves and appreciates all forms of art and artistry, and I'm not denigrating her. I just feel her own artistic strengths lie elsewhere.
Her early records with Patrick consisted of very good, catchy, beautifully-crafted pop songs you could always sing along to and had hooks all over the place. They suited her limited-but-pleasant voice, and didn't sound like anything else. Post-Patrick, we haven't really had much resembling her early stuff at all. She started collaborating with electronic producers like Mirwais and Stuart Price, and that's fine, but nobody really remembers much of those tunes apart from "Hung Up," which relies 100% on a fierce ABBA sample. In my opinion, her albums after Bedtime Stories (and even that isn't too exciting) fall flat; even Ray of Light isn't terribly interesting apart from the title track. There isn't a single indication that Madonna's supposed musical gifts have made their presence known since the mid-90s, leading me to believe that her former producers were told to say how talented she really is.
I understand that artists evolve, but usually if you've been in the biz for forty-plus years, you develop and hone your musical craft and become far more experimental, curious, and independent, and mention it during interviews. I haven't seen this whatsoever with Madonna; has she ever actually eagerly talked about making music? She was a terrific pop star, but I just don't believe she was ever responsible for her endless stream of early hits. In his book "Life With My Sister Madonna," Christopher Ciccone describes an encounter where he was hired on by M to design yet another house, and one room in particular was constructed in a way that made him think it would be perfect for making music. Granted, I'm sure he was entirely coked-out at the time, but she had absolutely no idea why he would even suggest such a thing:
The best element in the house is a two-story sunroom constructed entirely of floor-to-ceiling glass windows. I conceive of turning it into a botanical music room, furnishing it with white-painted metal furniture and hanging plants from the rafters, so that being in the middle would feel like being in the middle of a garden, with sunlight flooding in--the perfect setting in which to make music. I try explaining the concept to Madonna.
"I don't get it," she says.
"Try picturing it."
"I still don't get it. Can't you draw it for me?"
"But I've described it to you in detail."
"I wanna see it before you do it."
I give a big sigh.
She glares at me. "You want to keep this job?"
I nod miserably.
"Then don't give me attitude," she says.
Now, I understand that it was a very gay, out-there suggestion, but what about a home studio? What about insisting on some room or an area in any of her houses where she could concentrate on songwriting, music-making, learning the technology, producing her own stuff? Never heard of this with Madonna, never heard of her caring much about that part of it.
I don't know why it's bugged me so much; Madonna was a successful product who generated loads of money. She was extremely fun, controversial for a long while, had excellent pop records for a few good years, paved the way for the huge-spectacle pop-star concerts everybody expects now, and did her job extremely well. Why talk about what a musical genius she is? I mean, I guess the industry is still doing it with Taylor Swift, whose wealthy father bought her career, and that hank of hair is perhaps the biggest fraud ever perpetuated onto the public.
