Careless Notions

Out of all of Madge's albums,  Erotica  is probably most deserving of an extensive writeup, especially given that it's now passed its 25th anniversary (seems hard to believe).  It’s deserving of attention not just because musically it was quite a departure for Madonna, but also because culturally this is probably when she was the most relevant, and when she became the most controversial.  In fact I can’t think of any celebrity operating at this level of prominence who deliberately chose to become this controversial.  Madonna was bold or crazy depending upon your point of view, but certainly not your typical paycheck cashing celeb. You do still hear hints of the old Madonna on this record, thanks to producer Stephen Bray's involvement most likely, but for the most part this record is Madonna using the success of The Immaculate Collection ’s "Justify My Love" as an escape hatch out of the '80s and into the '90s. Part of a multimedia assault on ...

I loved The Immaculate Collection . For years it was my go-to Madonna album - I didn't listen to the originals much if at all following the release of Immaculate until maybe a decade or so ago. I thought the mixes were great, and even if I didn't prefer a couple of them to the originals ("Like A Prayer" in particular), I was glad to have them and didn't feel any of them "ruined" the song. The mix of "Express Yourself" here is my favorite - it's quite similar to the version used for the second cut of the video. I was a little critical of the fidelity of this one awhile back, but I listened to it again since, both on the home stereo as well as with Subsonic on my iPhone over my $250 RHA earbuds, which sound . . . well, as good as I can imagine earbuds ever sounding (and better than most full-sized cans - certainly better than Beats junk). Anyhow, it sounded really good on both. The QSound does drive the Logic 7 processing on my Harma...

I'm probably one of the few people who liked this album, some of it quite a lot. I was spinning it off and on recently, and the years (and my subsequent experience with standards) have afforded me a better appreciation of the record. I liked it in 1990, but in 2017 I better understand why I liked it, and how it compares to other singers' (and composers') work. For starters, I think the tracks are all pretty much perfect for the Dick Tracy character of Breathless Mahoney, one of Madonna's few good cinematic performances. Maybe she could have been a star in a different era. The album also sounds phenomenal - it's an analog recording but sounds digital, very cool, crisp and transparent. It does not however suffer from '80s-itis. There's considerable bass, it's rich and not boomy, and it's deep. The low end is satisfying and natural on both the acoustic and electronic-driven numbers. Great EQ, excellent mastering by Stephen Marcussen. This might...

This was the first Madonna record I bought new right on release. I'd read her interview in Vanity Fair shortly before it came out, and that's where I realized she was definitely going to be transcending her earlier work with this album. A buddy of mine said she was going to be grabbing her crotch in one of her videos - Michael Jackson style - based on a shot he'd seen somewhere, but I thought he was nuts. Well... Statues coming to life, stigmata, burning crosses, making out with a black guy...yeah, the haters went totally apeshit. "Like A Prayer" of course was a controversy-driven monster the likes of which nobody had seen before on the pop charts. Introduced via a little morality play of a video , it functioned as a pretty good test of who was bright enough to understand what a metaphor is and who wasn't. More importantly for Madge though, the song itself was unlike anything she'd done before. Improbably gospel inspired, and with that bliste...