Her best albums were Like A Prayer and Ray of Light- both of these albums tower over other output in my opinion.

To me, the Sugarcubes are not conventional indie rock. When I hear the words "indie rock", I think of stuff like Nirvana, REM, Smashing Pumpkins etc. The Sugarcubes to me weren't really rock in that sense. They were kind of their own genre.
Bjork in her solo music used electronics but wasn't really a dance artist as far as doing conventional club/house music geared towards the dance floor. She never did conventional four to the floor type of club tracks.

Bjork has changed, but in her genre of experimental art pop with some elements of rock and electronics. Just like Madonna is diverse within a more conventional pop genre including not just dance, but also acoustic and piano ballads, R&B leaning tracks and some guitar stuff like Ray of Light.

Both Madonna and Bjork have changed but they still have kind of signature sound that they stick to.

Pop music means popular accessible melodic music. Pop music has many different genres included in it from dance, R&B, rock, acoustic and ballads. Pop music technically isn't a genre anymore than experimental/avant garde music is. Experimental music ban be classical, rock, electronic and on and on.

I agree with you! But all of her other albums have strong songs on them too so if you haven't heard them you are missing out on some great music.

I think what makes LAP and ROL the best is they really are albums in the true meaning of the word.
They both have consistent themes and are kind of concept albums. They flow from start to finish. LAP is about her looking back at her childhood, marriage, religious upbringing. And ROL is about her spiritual discovery and having a child. They both really tell a story from start to finish. Whereas her other albums have great songs but they are not a concept from start to finish.
I would also maybe put Erotica in there as a concept album although musically it's not up there with LAP and ROL for me.

i think you will find it is, in the same way most artists with deals on major labels work. you can't strike a deal with a major company and expect them to release any old crap you offer them, or there would be a lot more metal machine music out there


i didn't say that. it seems you've just misunderstood completely

what i'm saying is that she's is responsible for the music that is released under her name/brand. she presents what she wants to be released to the record company and if they approve it will be released. how that music is made is another thing entirely, and not what was being referred to

in other words, if you make a shit album, the record company can refuse to accept it or release is, and if it's not released you have paid for it to be made, but won't get any money from it's sale from that company, and under contract you typically can't release it elsewhere. if it's the last album as part of a deal, you might get out your deal but the record isn't released. this is unlikely to happen to madonna, but if she presents them with 30 songs and the record company don't want to release 6 of them as part of the deal then they may never get released. in the old days they could end up as singles. anways if the music is bad, it doesn't matter who wrote or recorded it, if the record company agrees to release it then it's ultimately her responsibility for presenting that material for release

i wouldn't call the sugarcubes indie rock, i'd call them indie for the same reason as every other band called indie back then because they were on an independant record label. and don't misunderstand what i have said as other bands may have been refered to as indie whilst not on indie labels

nirvana however were grunge

pop is just short for contemporary popular music, to which most chart music would be

madonnas music is far from diverse, apart from the evita album it's just all fairly standard pop music with some kind of dance influence on some of it. there's no jazz album, no rock album, no reggae album, no dance album, it's just all commercial pop music. if you think ROL or one of her other albums are dance albums then you can't be very familiar with what goes on in proper dance music clubs. whilst she has more remixes than anyone can count, few serious clubs would play it. her danceable tracks are commonly played by the shit dj's in shit pubs and clubs full of folk drinking barcardi breezers and lager, looking for a pull for the night

i'd say bjork was more experimental as i can't stand to listen to most of it. her live bluray was interesting but lacking in tunes i'd want to hear again. she's made some really weird stuff too, but not in what i would call a good way, but her fans may like it. she's got a handful at best of tunes i'd listen too

Clearly, we can never agree on anything as Madonna and Bjork are two of my favorite artists.

The words indie and pop actually both have two very different meanings depending on the context. Indie can mean on an independent label, but it also can mean a certain type of guitar based rock that is not hard core metal or punk but has melodies. Grunge is very much an indie/alternative type of rock, created in reaction to the hair metal and more mainstream rock artists like Bon Jovi.

Pop can mean popular or it can mean a type of music that is melodic and accessible and based more around live instrumentation. Madonna's most pop albums were True Blue and Like A Prayer since those did not have as much electronics. You can make what is considered pop music without actually being successful or any type of chart.

Madonna's music is influenced by different genres although it's still pop in the popular sense of the word. She has R&B songs, electronica songs, club songs, piano and acoustic guitar ballads, guitar pop like Ray of Light or Don't Tell Me.. What's a proper dance club? To me dance music is a wide term that means music that involves more electronics and is danceable. It can be more melodic or more hard techno. I really don't understand what you just wrote about denigrating various people based on what they are drinking as everyone has different taste in music. The point of dance clubs is to have fun and maybe meet someone so I really don't understand your insulting denigrating comments about people that go there. What that has to do with what we were discussing I have no clue.

- Madonna was not a critical success at her peak, so the term 'artistic downfall' when talking about her new album is questionable, considering 'Rebel Heart' received more positive reviews than her biggest sellers

- Out of all the songs made available from the 'Rebel Heart' period, fans can mix and match their personal preference of the 30 odd songs to find their ideal playlist, which for most, should at least match the quality of any output of albums in the last 15 years. I think this is a luxury, as I don't personally agree with the final album tracklist

- Taste is subjective here of course, but what isn't subjective is Madonna's involvement in her music. Any Madonna-informed person knows that she is absolutely hands on in every creative aspect, and the number of co-producers, co-writers and ex-colleagues who echo this is testament to the fact. Even those that didn't work out. Madonna is no fluke.

well you can call what you want what you want

when i refer to indie i typically mean indiependant, and not any specific type of music, however it's pretty clear that the style of music nirvana made was grunge

if you are ever unsure what to call a type of music you can always look up the band in wikipedia or allmusic


it sounds like you don't know much about instruments if you think those albums don't have as much electronics. i've used the multitracks to make remixes of some of her tracks, in particular early stuff, so i'm quite familiar as to how electronic they are. maybe you don't consider an electric guitar to be electronic?


it's really simple. madonnas music isn't very diverse. it's simply middle of the road pop music with clear dance music influences. it's not dance music and not played in serious music clubs, it's played in pick up joint discos where people go to get drunk and pull, whereas serious clubbers in serious clubs listen to typically underground music that doesn't go near the charts. the point being is that madonnas music isn't "dance music" in terms of serious dance music, it's just middle of the road pop music

Electric guitars are electromechanical rather than electronic.


Be fair, 'Like a Prayer' has a bit of Gospel in it......

People seem to think Rebel Heart got good reviews, it's sitting on Metacritic on 68 - which puts it firmly in the bottom third of all the albums released this year.

Well it's above average which makes it good, but that is all it is...nobody is saying it is outstanding or anything...just good at best.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_guitar

http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dic...kiePolicy=true

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de...ish/electronic


justify my love has a bit of public enemy in it, but it doesn't make her music particularly diverse

not that it matters. the who and the stones have been going about 50 years and doing pretty much the same thing throughout. a touch of disco or reggae here and there perhaps, but people like them for what they do best

most artists aren't really that diverse. they find a style that makes them popular and they stick with it, either through choice or because management or record companies ask them to do that in exchange for piles of money so they can live a life like a member of the house of lords

No, I don't consider electric guitars part of electronic music. Again, I'm using it in the layman's sense. A lot of rock oriented music has electric guitars and I don't think people generally classify that as electronic music, by which they mean computerized beats.

When most musicians talk about writing on "real" instruments and not machines, they are including electric guitars in that. There aren't that many pop or rock albums that don't include electric guitars in some form, so by your definition almost anything would fall under the name of electronic music which would render the term meaningless.


As far as her critic reviews, Madonna has always gotten generally positive reviews, but not glowing critic darling type of reviews. So I think the score for Rebel Heart is pretty standard for most of her albums. She doesn't get bad reviews, but she doesn't get universally glowing reviews.
As can be seen by this thread, she is a very polarizing artist to whom there are some people that object to her no matter what she does, and so her metacritic score is generally brought down by some negative reviews balanced out by the very positive ones. Even an album like Ray of LIght, received some negative reviews. I can't see any album by Madonna ever receiving universally positive reviews.

Metacritic says 'generally favourable reviews' for Rebel Heart, which was more than was given to Madonna's albums at the time of her commercial peak*.

The point being that according to her critics, she's still artistically more favoured than her blockbuster times, so the term 'artistic downfall' is questionable when talking about recent times.

*We should remember that Madonna is still making astonishing amounts from touring, and breaking records doing so - so the last few years could quite validly be judged as a commercial peak in itself. It's just that the record selling isn't as lucrative for her as previous times.

It wasn't until Ray of Light that I saw generally positive reviews of a Madonna album by the music press / wider press.

now you are catching on!
however it's not my definition. i don't define anything. i leave that to others

Again strictly speaking electronic music would normally be crafted using electronic instruments whereas electric guitars are actually electromechanical (so are Hammond organs, Rhodes Pianos).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_music

Like A Prayer was highly acclaimed by critics, as an artistic growth and a grown up Madonna.

It's funny because her earlier albums weren't acclaimed at the time they were released but dismissed as bubble gum pop, but in retrospect in critical articles have been highly praised as effortless catchy pop songs. I've seen her debut for example on many lists of best albums of the 80's.

Music and Confessions are both on 80 on Metacritic - which is a good score, an average score on MC tends to be around the low to mid 70's which is why Rebel Heart on 68 is in the bottom third of albums released this year.


True Blue & Erotica were well received at the time, Like a Prayer got great praise. Bedtime Stories received generally weaker review (and most fans agree with this). Ray of Light, Music and Confessions (see above) were also highly regarded.

actually, strictly speaking, NO that would NOT be the case

if you want to follow someones rules or definition of what they think it should mean, then that's another kettle of fish entirely

regardless of this, Madonna has keyboards and drum machines on most of her music and has done since the start of her commercial releases

I don't remember that, but if so that's good, and Madonna's career has been peaks and troughs all the way through.

Rebel Heart is just another trough, meh, and Madonna's critics have been predicting her downfall since year one. Any low point has never been sustained.

Erotica was not well received. The album came out at probably one of the lowest points in her career.

The Sex book and Body Of Evidence had made her something of a laughing stock and Erotica -rightly or wrongly- was lumped in the same category.

Bedtime Stories and Something To Remember did a small amount to restore her credibility but Ray Of Light saved her.

Pre internet age the biggest music magazines in 92' gave it good reviews.

Rolling Stone gave it 4/5.
NME 7/10
Q 3/5
Even Robert Christgau gave it a 'A' rating.

Erotica was her first album since her debut not to debut at number 1.