Ghost town

Let me say first and foremost that I love the song "Ghost Town" by Madonna. I recently heard it on the stereo system while waiting impatiently for a flat white to be served up at a Second Cup near Bloor and Spadina, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the World. I knew it was Madonna immediately, but, amazingly, had not heard it or anything else from her latest album, Rebel Heart. Then again, I have spent most of the year on the move: Looking for a job, interviewing for a job, waiting to get a job, starting a job, learning a job, etc., etc., etc. So no small wonder that I missed this musical gem.

I won't say this is what Madonna is known for doing best, the lush, heartbreaking ballad. Nonetheless, I personally think it is the sort of song she is excels at doing, this sort of moody, melodious ballad that touches and unsettles you. Like "Bad Girl" or "What It Feels Like for a Girl." It's the sort of thing she doesn't get enough credit for, the type of song in which she turns pop into art, for a brief, wondrous moment.

Oh, she gets more respect for her fierce "Bitch, I'm Madonna" attitude-filled videos and songs, but I've followed Madge for over 30 years now, enjoyed her music even before "Borderline" and "Lucky Star" opened all those doors and windows years ago, used to dream about being her friend, tolerated the undeserved hype around her appearance in Desperately Seeking Susan, still hear "Like a Virgin" in my head on a regular basis while strolling around in neoclassical settings on sun-dappled days (which happens more often than you might realize), and have even been known to compare her singing to that of Agnetha Fältskog (the plaintive-voiced goddess to whom I devote all my prayers) in, for example, "You'll See" or "Ghost Town," no small praise that . . . and I think she deserves major props for this aspect of her art.

And yet . . . this video do sucketh, in my humble opinion. Nuclear holocaust is so 1983, for pity's sake. And a cameo by Terence Howard? Puh-leez. He's the actor I like least in Empire, so much so that I was really hoping he (or rather his character) would die at the end of season 1.

I don't mean to unduly criticize Madonna. My opinion is that most music videos bite the proverbial big one nowadays. There may have been a very brief golden age (or at least a bronze or iron age) of music video in the early '80s and since then, with rare exception, it's been women gyrating exotically or rubbing themselves erotically, guys looking earnest and sensitive when they are neither, and overwrought versions of cannibalized pop cultural touchstones that I don't give a rat's patoot about anyway. Mad Max meets a bunch of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars references, not to forget Game of Thrones and whatever else TV show I don't pay any attention to. Just add video hoes and super fly gangstas.

I blame myself in part for not caring anymore. I mean, if it doesn't happen on an Australian or South African soap opera these days, or maybe Empire or Nashville, I can't be arsed to know.

But more than anything, I blame Madonna.

Sister Christian, you got us into this iconographical mess sometime around the time of "Like a Prayer" and "Express Yourself." It's about damned time that you got us out of it. Get Guy Ritchie on the phone stat. He needs some inspiration himself after The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Just don't mention Swept Away, and y'all will be fine.

One of my gayer moments

Ladies and germs, the new Madonna video for "Give Me All Your Luvin'," featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.

Hmmm, what to say? I actually like the song--I mean, I'd even buy it, not just try to steal an "advanced download" of it from some murky corner of the internet. It's 3 minutes and 22 seconds of happy fun, cheekiness, and effervescence. Good show, Madonna.

However, I do tend to loathe the appearance of teenspeak in any contemporary song. "Luvin'"? Really, Madonna? Is Lourdes writing your lyrics now?

And while this is about as much Nicki Minaj as I can handle (love the look, love the sound, but can't imagine listening to a whole album of her), the M.I.A. portion is kind of a total waste of her abilities, other than to say, "Hey, look! I got another hip young singer to appear on my record! It's M.I.A.! 2010's Justin Timberlake!"

I am disappointed, though, that M.I.A. doesn't get to pop a cap in the ass of one of the football players.

I also think musically Madonna's slightly sucking the blood out of the Robyn back catalog. This is like a glam, what-me-worry? version of "Indestructible." Not a bad thing, but let's give credit where credit is due.

And the video? Well, we have Dick Tracey, we have the Kylie show (the first time that perhaps Madonna has copied Kylie rather than the other way around, ha), and we have an episode of Glee--or maybe even One Life to Live. Seriously, it's Starr-X'ed Lovers: The Musical. Or maybe even Prom Night.

So . . .

Was it worth it? Well, yes, actually. A nice song "event" in an American era that, at least for me, doesn't have many moments that make you want to scan the radio dial so that you can sing into the rearview mirror while driving down life's highway.

Will I buy it legally? Perhaps. Probably yes, in fact.

But for $0.99, not $1.29. I mean, come on, it's no Muppets' version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." I have standards, you know. Which means I am cheap, and if I can get it for $0.99 on Amazon, I will.

I'm probably not giving ol' Madge enough credit, though. She's still workin' it, what, nearly 30 years after her debut. Impressive. In both staying power and musical ability. Who would have thought we would go from the Madonna of "Burning Up" and "Dress You Up" to the Madonna of today?

It is just difficult sometimes to separate Madonna the Talented Artist from Madonna the Attention-Seeking Fascist Fame-Monger circa 1985 to 1995 or so.

Sorry, Madonna, I'll try harder. You really do continue to put out some amazingly good pop art.

While the souped-up version of this song isn't my favorite take (I like the original, slower version best), the video to me represents some of her finer work. So in your face and so . . . life's a bitch and so am I. But with good reason and a purpose.

You ought (not) to be in pictures

What a world we live in to spend so much time and energy focused on some old scandal-prone slag with fascist tendencies.

I'm of course talking about Bessie Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson Windsor, the subject of Madonna's new movie, W.E. Honest.

The week's best headline (so far) comes to us in French from the online daily news site, Cyberpresse.ca, based in Montréal.

I translate the headline, "Madonna cinéaste? Hélas, pas encore . . ." in two ways:

"Madonna a filmmaker? Alas, not yet . . ."

Or my preferred version, "Madonna a filmmaker? Good grief, not again . . . ."

I suspect the former is more accurate, but the latter is more fun to read--and closer to world opinion, I would imagine.

I won't translate the entire article--we'd be here all day and then some--but in the second paragraph, the author remarks on the "obstinancy with which Madonna applies herself to cinema to be both touching and troubling."

Or possibly just really, really tiresome.

* * *

I've just finished a biography of the famed French composer of popular song (and all-around provocateur), Serge Gainsbourg (Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful of Gitanes by Sylvie Simmons), in which the author contemplates Serge's possible frustration with his creative, uh, oeuvre. Monsieur Gainsbourg successfully composed  musically and lyrically innovative, clever, and appealing popular songs for himself and many others and was always striving for new sounds, expanding the bounds of language, and challenging himself and others with his work.

And yet . . . he also attempted to write, paint, photograph, make commercials (!), and make films, with varying degrees of success, all perhaps as a way to be seen as more "serious." Simmons speculates that Gainsbourg did so because he didn't fully appreciate his songwriting, because composing came so easily to him and because he was writing pop songs, not heavy, more "consequential" works.

The author of the Cyberpresse article makes some of the same points about Madonna, that her filmmaking is a way to be taken seriously, when, in fact, she's already very good at what she does.

If history serves as a guide, I don't think any of the critics--or me--are bound to change Madonna's mind, that's for sure. If the critical or popular reaction to Swept Away, The Next Best Thing, Body of Evidence, or Shanghai Surprise didn't do it, clearly nothing will.