MADONNA REALLY THOUGHT SHE COULD SLIP THIS BY ME?
She’s just like the Queen Mum these days – is Madonna. Everybody loves her for dropping sprogs, going out with rubbish British gangster film directors and finally given up the idea that being a prostitute come porn star is in anyway breaking down any boundaries. Admittedly only the first and last of those points were real similarities with the Queen Mother – though we could also cite lousy bridgework – until she took that gold tooth out. No, everyone loves Madge these days, everyone but me. You see she’s called a single Music.
I Hate Music.
The single follows her recent furrow she’s ploughed of doing what Mojo magazine would describe as dance. This means it actually resembles nothing which is playing in any club, and is produced by some old bloke who probably worked with Bjork recently. Indeed recent Madonna has been so producer-centric that its quite possible that she just phones her bits in and gets back to titilating the tabloid press and thinking of more stupid names for offspring. (Rocko – puh-lease. This isn’t Public Enemy Number One, and Guy Ritchie is certainly no Jimmy Cagney.)
Joking aside, Music does indeed sound like her performance was faxed in, to be phoned in by some work experience girl at Maverick Records through two pillows. There is apparently something suductive about not being able to hear a tune properly, coupled with jittery anti-beats. Instead it just means that people turn their radios up and bang the speakers to try and make them work properly. With any luck they will break their equipment. As for the video, I suppose it is good that much of the song is obscured by a woeful Ali G turn, and some up high in the mix kung fu kicking sound effects. Still, compared to the rest of the song, a pin dropping would be up high in the mix.
Obviously I was never going to like Music, but it has almost been precision tooled to relight my ire. “Hey Mr DJ put a record on“, the ex-Mrs Penn says, which is tantamount to inciting violence in my opinion. Of course people talking to DJ’s are rarely this open, the usual tack is “Hey Mr DJ, play something good” or “Have you got any bounce?”. Perhaps Madge is asking the DJ to put a different, better record on – because she acknowledges that this half arsed piece of tripe is not going to fool the masses who bought Beautiful Stranger thinking it was by a Beautiful Stranger (and not some familiar old hag who had not released anything for ten years which could be sold on its musical content over ready visibility of her tits).
It is the chorus – as it is – which makes me want to point out to the people making this her tenth number one – that this was the woman responsible for Hanky Panky and Dear Jessie. Like The Beatles and Primal Scream before her (imagine that, Primal Scream having the same idea as someone else – just after) Madonna trots out the trusty old reason to hail music as a god. You see Music, makes the people, come together. This is supposed to be a unique selling point. Music is good, because it brings people together. Much like hospitals, prisons and car crashes. Yet Madonna doesn’t sing about – say the Nazi concentration camps, making people, come together.
Look, get over it you saps. Just because she has had a couple of kids, has removed her gold tooth and recently learnt how to smile – Madonna is still the woman who released Justify My Love. You know in your heart that this is a rubbish single, at least you would if you could hear it through its cleverly obfuscating production. So join with me. Hate Music.