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Singles Minded

Photo by Patrick DeMarchellier

More Than a Material Girl: Media frenzy notwithstanding, Madonna is sedate, dignified and sober.

Media provocateur Madonna is a hardworking role model

By Gina Arnold

A few years ago, on New Year's Eve 1989, as a matter of fact, I was asked to appear on a TV news show along with critics Joel Selvin and Davey D. to talk about rock music in the 1980s. I thought that meant we would discuss things like the invention of the CD, the implementation of MTV and the massive impact of hip-hop on mainstream culture, all of which seemed to me to be the most important aspects of the departing decade, but boy, I was wrong. All Channel 2 wanted to know about was the impact of Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Madonna. Period.

Five years later, those three acts still dominate the mainstream media's very limited perception of rock and pop; all three certainly appeared in full regalia in 1995. By now, however, Bruce is a scaled-down footnote, and Michael is a total scandal. Madonna, on the other hand, is as vital and creative as she ever was in the '80s.

Thirteen years after her first hit, she is still a massive force in the mainstream arena, and her longevity alone proves which one of those three artists truly altered the face of popular culture.

In addition, compared to other artists of her ilk, Madonna's vision is incredibly broad. In the past decade, she has spread her net wide, appearing in every thing from a Broadway play (David Mamet's Speed the Plough, in which she was reportedly very good) to movies, as well as publishing (her "scandalous" book of erotic art, Sex).

In 1995, however, Madonna limited her contributions to the pantheon of pop culture to three wonderful single/videos from the 1994 release Bedtime Stories: "Take a Bow," "Bedtime Stories" and "Human Nature"--as well as the release, late in the year, of a new best-of collection of ballads titled Something to Remember.

In short, Madonna has stepped back a bit from the edgy place on the cusp of the zeitgeist that she used to occupy (rather uneasily), and the result is a much better long view of the one thing that often gets lost in any precis about Madonna--that is, just how very effective her music has been across the years.

Because, for all the talk about the--well, for lack of a better word--Madonnaness of Madonna, her primary contribution to American culture has been musical: a string of genuine hits that stands head and shoulders above the contributions of any other artist in that period. From "Holiday" (1983) to "Papa Don't Preach" (1986) to "Express Yourself" (1989) to "Rain" (1992) to this year's "Bedtime Stories," Madonna's hit-singles streak now far exceeds in both length and breadth that of almost every other pop star of note, not excluding Michael Jackson.

Moreover, in the last decade, Madonna has provided not the faceless, tuneless work of divas like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Taylor Dayne but the kind of unshakably memorable songs that can color an entire summer, even an entire era. And these are not just trivial pop songs. As banal as the lyrics can sometimes be, songs like "Borderline," "You Can Dance" and "Secret" are boundlessly positive, extremely uplifiting, beautifully crafted pop.

Certainly Madonna hires well--producers like Babyface, Nile Rogers and Nellee Hooper (of Soul II Soul) have contributed to her albums--but there is something that she herself is injecting into this music, or her body of work would not have so much continuity, nor would it be so instantly recognizable. She has been far more consistent than any of other artist of the last decade.

In fact, in some ways Madonna's body of work resembles that of one of the '70s most successful bands: Abba. Abba's best work is Abba Gold, a collection of its singles. Similarly, Madonna's best album to date--with the possible exception of Bedtime Stories--is The Immaculate Collection (1992), a greatest-hits package that succeeds in providing a lengthy and relentlessly catchy soundtrack of hits.


Photo by Chris Schwenk

Do-gooder: A few years back Madonna posed for a publicity shot on behalf of CARE, the international relief and development organization.

The latest album, Something to Remember, is Madonna's second "greatest hits" collection, one devoted exclusively to her ballads, and the surprising thing is how strong it, too, is. Appearing only five years after The Immaculate Collection, it nonetheless contains no fewer than eight more hit singles.

Two of the songs on Something to Remember--"Live to Tell" and "Crazy for You"--do also appear on The Immaculate Collection. Otherwise, the new record includes three entirely new songs--including a Marvin Gaye cover, "I Want You," performed with Massive Attack--and two movie theme songs that don't appear on any other Madonna albums. (These are "I'll Remember" from the movie With Honors and "This Used to Be My Playground," the theme to A League of Their Own.)

Simply put, Madonna is not the artist who will simply slap a bunch of hits together, and this sense of integrity in itself makes her almost unique. Something to Remember is the rare collection that has both a theme--ballads--and a measure of inspiration, including as it does collaborations with Massive Attack (a popular British trip-hop act), several well-conceived remixes and some vibrant new work like "I Want You," "One More Chance" and "You'll See" (a song she has also recorded in Spanish). The resulting album is both fresh and familiar; it is a triumph.

It's also a refutation to her popular image, which has been fairly negative since the beginning. Personally, Madonna has done little to deserve the opprobrium heaped on her--less than, say, Demi Moore, who appears nude on every magazine cover she can muster, or Drew Barrymore, who flashed David Letterman, or Courtney Love.

Madonna is not a drug addict, or a maniac, or a flasher; the most shocking thing she's done in the last decade has been to date Charles Barkley, make mild fun of Kevin Costner and say "fuck" on network television. (She did, however, sign Candlebox to her label Maverick; in my opinion, the worst thing that can be said about her to date.) She seems to have almost no private life, since she's a workaholic, but a few gleanings of her private persona prove that she is an art lover (she collects rare paintings by Frida Kahlo) and likes to go dancing.

In short, compared to many of today's stars, Madonna is sedate, smart, dignified and modest. And yet, the media has chosen to portray her as something else entirely, something neither her actions nor her music has really born out. I often wonder about the censure that Madonna incurs, particularly in light of albums like Something to Remember, which merely show her to be a thoughtful artist working in a rather conventional field.

It couldn't really have to do with her sexuality, since countless other video artists, both female and male, use much more suggestive images than she does (Aerosmith, for example, or TLC). Madonna's biggest crime seems to be the occasional bout of frankness--and the (apparently unattractive) trait of enjoying her success. Madonna herself once attributed her lack of personal popularity to the fact that, "I am not an orphan. I wasn't sexually abused as a child. I don't let people take advantage of me. I don't drink myself into a stupor, and I'm not beholden to any man."

You'd think that Madonna's avoidance of these pitfalls would buy her a mesaure of respect. But for many artists in America, both male and female, success often seems to depend directly on the degree of self-destructive behavior they are willing to indulge in. And attractive blonde women who are strong and sensible and intelligent have it even rougher. (Hillary Clinton, for example, is shunned by America for appearing to be the owner of an actual working brain.)

That Madonna has consistently turned out some of the most enjoyable music of the last 13 years is a victory, not so much for women, but for the judicious use of intelligence, sagacity and self-esteem in a world where those things are not exactly at a premium. Now that's something to remember.

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