Madonna Keeps Disco Alive Like No Other

[needlefingers]

If you didn't catch the last Madonna tour, might I suggest The Confessions Tour DVD/CD.

I saw her at Madison Square Garden last year, but this DVD and CD of the tour, which came out last week, is great.

Full of disco balls, disco outfits, disco rollerskating,........ . And besides her use of ABBA, she sings I Feel Love, mashes up Music with Disco Inferno, uses lots of lasers and has Dancing Queen printed right on the cape.

She also mixes up some of her 80's hits.

I used the live CD in a mix this weekend and it went over great!!!

She is not one to run from disco: she embraces it.

Check it out.

[Paulo]

I watched the DVD. It is a great performance. My favorite song is GET TOGETHER.

The songs are pure electronic disco.

[JussiK]

She's doing her part all right - but there'a a downside to the whole Maddy phenomenon. I don't want to sound too negative but I hear complaints all the time from djs how she has all but destroyed gay club culture as we used to know it. The music in those venues used to be cutting edge. No more. The majority of boys who go out go not as much to dance but to pose and act out scenarios off Madonna videos and like, striking drama queen poses and singing along to the latest upteenth remix of "Hung Up". Only overfamiliar stuff will get them going. In Europe it's apparently worse than in the States. The northern countries have suffered the most though, here the clubs offer endless eurovision song contest garbage along with the Madonnas and the Nelly Furtados, Britneys, Abbas and the occasional pop trance track used as filler. What's your all time favourite song, Andreas? "Oh, what a silly question, it's "Hung Up" of course, we simply MUST get that at least once very night or you'll never see our new spring collection Dikkenbergs trainers on this floor again!"

Seemingly, gay clubs of today are all about fashion and the MTV sound imagery corresponding to it, not about the music. I could be wrong of course, and it's perfectly okay isn't it that Madonna is so visibly promoting disco instead of..country and western?

[neonlights]

Originally Posted by JussiK

She's doing her part all right - but there'a a downside to the whole Maddy phenomenon. I don't want to sound too negative but I hear complaints all the time from djs how she has all but destroyed gay club culture as we used to know it. The music in those venues used to be cutting edge. No more. .....

Tell me about it.. I tend to prefer mixed places, but last time I was in a gay club here, the music was top 40, bad remixes of said top 40 and Madonna (going all the way back to the '80s).. Some of the most uninspiring playlists I've heard.. I remember the DJ dropped Madonna's "Into The Groove," followed sometime after by that badly dated Ben Liebrand remix of "Call Me." Need I say more..

[SandraDee]

Yes, gay clubs are no longer at the cutting edge. I s'pose it could be the downside of the equality & integration thing that people seem to want these days. Swings & roundabouts. (or should that be slings & roundabouts? )

[ol'skinflint]

I saw the "Confessions" concert on TV, and I also like the album. But I do hope Madonna gets past her fascination with electronic music sometime soon. Even though I enjoy it, I really don't think it suits her voice as well as much of her earlier material....to me, electronic music tends to overwhelm her voice. But give her credit for recognizing how powerful early disco is/was in her choice of sampling. I'd think the next natural step would be for her to seek out and work with some of the producers who are still around.....

[FranceJoliFan]

I like hearing Madonna's concert arrangements. Of her more recent material, I really like Hollywood. And what she did with it in concert. You can tell she still likes to shake her butt and dance.

I think she's sliding on her videos though. Jump is an excellent song. But the video. What was she thinking? She seems to throw them together now. Even Lucky Star seems epic compared to her recent videos. Will she ever again do a video on the scale of Express Yourself or Vogue? She really set the standard back then.

I think George Michael helps carry on the disco spirit too. I love the Outside video (disco balls in the restroom) and the song arrangement. The funky groove in Star People '97. And the sophisticated sound of Amazing. He creates danceable arrangements that don't get bogged down in electronica. I hope his recent tour comes out on DVD soon.

[Paulo]

Originally Posted by JussiK

...but there'a a downside to the whole Maddy phenomenon. I don't want to sound too negative but I hear complaints all the time from djs how she has all but destroyed gay club culture as we used to know it. The music in those venues used to be cutting edge. No more. The majority of boys who go out go not as much to dance but to pose and act out scenarios off Madonna videos and like, striking drama queen poses and singing along to the latest upteenth remix of "Hung Up". Only overfamiliar stuff will get them going. In Europe it's apparently worse than in the States. The northern countries have suffered the most though, here the clubs offer endless eurovision song contest garbage along with the Madonnas and the Nelly Furtados, Britneys, Abbas and the occasional pop trance track used as filler....

What you wrote is very interesting Jussi, but to blame Maddona for destroying the cutting edge profile of the gay clubs is a bit too much IMHO.

The dance music scene is dying.
It has lost its listening public, because it doesn't sound right anymore.

It is disintegrating because the current cutting edge ''music'' is this kind of ''electronic-cut-and-past-computer-based-hard-agressive-souless-shit made by inept non-musicians and DJs who have replaced real musicians, programmers and producers.

Since the electronic-computer-based-crap became cutting-edge, the dance-music scene couldn't go too far.

I went to a trendy club here around 1999/2000 when this music was at its peak. All the young boys kept listening to that metallic-electronic-looped sounds... the kids weren't dancing... that music didn't propel anyone to dance. I guess it must be awful to stay up all night listening to that rubbish. It is unbeareable. No wonder no one is attending anymore.

This kind of electronic-unmusical-agressive rubbish have already lasted too long... but I think the human ear has a leaning towards melody. It is comprehensible that after a while, anyone in a club want to hear something familiar and smooth.

It must be a relief to hear songs like Sorry or Get Together instead of rubbish.

Here in Rio people go to night clubs. I think people will always go to nightclubs (if not for the music, then for the sex). But dance-music was replaced by rock, pop, samba, pagode, brazilian hip-hop, rap, axé (a type of lambada). Only one or 2 clubs insist is playing techno or whatever name this electronic crap has.

Brazilians are a friendly people and love to dance (because of the samba). We have a natural ear for music and melody. It is hard to swallow that ''cutting-edge'' electronic rubbish. If clubs had insisted on that, they would probably have closed down its doors. They had to change their music in order to survive.

Only a few gothic-teenagers-rock-fans accept the hard electronic crap and that's way it is just played in 1 or 2 venues. Is this trendy ? Is this cutting-edge ? I prefer retro-pop-music instead of cutting-edge-noise.

[remicks]

*****

Madonna was born in 1958.
She is one of us .
Before fame, she was in the mix participating amongst us, as us . She knows first hand what it was all about and this music has always been hers to share .
All succeeding youths (gays especially) are right to be grateful ... she almost single-handedly has loyally delivered a continuing taste of the great era ever since.

******

[FranceJoliFan]

I don't blame Madonna for the decline. I blame the drug culture. We're witnessing the RAVE fall-out.

These stripped down mixes sound good to tweakers. It enhances their trip.

People partied to disco under the influence of coke. And alcohol has always been present. But current clubs seem especially druggy. And the music reflects this.

Clubs need to start catering to the dancers. And that means playing music that the DANCERS want to hear. (Do DJ's even take requests anymore?) Because even if you don't dance, it's fun to watch. Not just zombie club kids. But the adults too. Black, white, male, female, straight, gay, clothed, shirtless (sounds like a Madonna song.) There's nothing like the camaraderie out on the dancefloor listening to vintage disco.

So less drugs, more Madonna.

[discokicks]

You can blame our 'wannabe-bad-ass' society and the too-cool, bad-ass djs for hurting clubland. Music is only a reflection of the environment. The personalities of club djs are going to be expressed through the music that they throw out to their audience and, given the tough, dog-eat-dog, hateful climate that we have, especially in big cities, many djs have developed angry, vengeful egos. Hard-edged, dark dubby music maintains their tough exterior as well as accommodates (and develops) the same attitudes in the crowd.

Madonna has played a major part in this scene. While I was putting some older dance music together for a club retro night that I played music for last weekend, I knew there would be many requests for older Madonna tunes (her music has been around for 25 years now). I couldn't help but notice how each of her 12" singles covers seemed to fit into place....from the innocence of Holiday, the sepia photo of her on Like A Virgin, the darker covers of Open Your Heart and Papa Don't Preach and then into the '90s where her music really guided her fans and followers into the darker side of our personalities. The cover of Bad Girl/ Fever really sticks out in my mind....a black and white head shot of her lying on a pillow with a cigarette in her mouth...bad girl indeed and needy, insecure young gay guys lapped it up. She has been their pied piper. There is not a weekend that goes by that I don't hear 'anything by Madonna' at my dj booth door.

Madonna was at the forefront of the new gay movement. No more of that 70's boystown-clone look, no more pink triangles, no more campiness, no more disco....the new gay crowd was tough, serious and sexually ambiguous. I noticed a real change in musical tastes around the mid 90s. Fun was no longer cool. By the late 90s, tribal and circuit house became the music of the new gay man. No longer did we have the pop-dance sound of Shep Pettibone mixes. Now the cool remixers were involved adding the dark tribal edge to Madonna's releases.

I found the release of the Confessions On The Dancefloor album interesting...not because of the music on it (the song Sorry is about the only cut that I can really tolerate) but how welcomed it was by the gay crowd overall. They embraced it...loving the idea that Madonna was going back to her roots and giving them an album of danceable tunes...as if she was giving them permission to dance again. During those first two months of playing Hung Up, I felt almost sickened by how seemingly hypnotized my young crowd was on the dancefloor...as if they were dancing to the voice of their leader.

Amongst the wide array of good danceable tunes out there over these last 15 years, it seems that a Madonna tune overshadows them all. The phenomenom of Madonna really needs to be studied.

[nrgbeat]

Originally Posted by discokicks

You can blame our 'wannabe-bad-ass' society and the too-cool, bad-ass djs for hurting clubland. Music is only a reflection of the environment. The personalities of club djs are going to be expressed through the music that they throw out to their audience and, given the tough, dog-eat-dog, hateful climate that we have, especially in big cities, many djs have developed angry, vengeful egos. Hard-edged, dark dubby music maintains their tough exterior as well as accommodates (and develops) the same attitudes in the crowd.

Madonna has played a major part in this scene. While I was putting some older dance music together for a club retro night that I played music for last weekend, I knew there would be many requests for older Madonna tunes (her music has been around for 25 years now). I couldn't help but notice how each of her 12" singles covers seemed to fit into place....from the innocence of Holiday, the sepia photo of her on Like A Virgin, the darker covers of Open Your Heart and Papa Don't Preach and then into the '90s where her music really guided her fans and followers into the darker side of our personalities. The cover of Bad Girl/ Fever really sticks out in my mind....a black and white head shot of her lying on a pillow with a cigarette in her mouth...bad girl indeed and needy, insecure young gay guys lapped it up. She has been their pied piper. There is not a weekend that goes by that I don't hear 'anything by Madonna' at my dj booth door.

Madonna was at the forefront of the new gay movement. No more of that 70's boystown-clone look, no more pink triangles, no more campiness, no more disco....the new gay crowd was tough, serious and sexually ambiguous. I noticed a real change in musical tastes around the mid 90s. Fun was no longer cool. By the late 90s, tribal and circuit house became the music of the new gay man. No longer did we have the pop-dance sound of Shep Pettibone mixes. Now the cool remixers were involved adding the dark tribal edge to Madonna's releases.

I found the release of the Confessions On The Dancefloor album interesting...not because of the music on it (the song Sorry is about the only cut that I can really tolerate) but how welcomed it was by the gay crowd overall. They embraced it...loving the idea that Madonna was going back to her roots and giving them an album of danceable tunes...as if she was giving them permission to dance again. During those first two months of playing Hung Up, I felt almost sickened by how seemingly hypnotized my young crowd was on the dancefloor...as if they were dancing to the voice of their leader.

Amongst the wide array of good danceable tunes out there over these last 15 years, it seems that a Madonna tune overshadows them all. The phenomenom of Madonna really needs to be studied.

You write so beautifully, I enjoy reading your posts.

[FranceJoliFan]

Originally Posted by discokicks

During those first two months of playing Hung Up, I felt almost sickened by how seemingly hypnotized my young crowd was on the dancefloor...as if they were dancing to the voice of their leader.

Maybe your crowd was fed up with current music too. And Madonna was a breath of fresh air.

I don't think her fans obediently accept anything she puts out. Look at the failure of Madonna's American Life album. I think they just like the sounds on Confessions. And if they're happy and dancing, why begrudge them?

But I see what you mean when you say "many djs have developed angry, vengeful egos." Are they frustrated artists/producers themselves? Do they get off on shoving obscure tracks down our throats? Are they up in that booth freebasing? Who knows. But I will say I know some great DJ's. And they enjoy pleasing their crowds. This is especially true on retro nights.

As for Madonna...

She still creates melodic tracks. I place the blame on the out-of-control remixers. Who are pawns of the drug merchants.

[Lajazz947]

Yes, she is amazing. I was getting my hair cut last Friday and my barber who is 60 had the Bravo channel on and Madonna was singing something with the " Disco inferno" intro.

God bless her.

[discokicks]

Originally Posted by FranceJoliFan

Maybe your crowd was fed up with current music too. And Madonna was a breath of fresh air.

I can see your point if all a crowd is hearing are endless dubs and dreary looped beats but there are many dedicated club djs out there who still like to fill the nightclub air with exciting new artists and tunes...all with vocals and standard club beats. This really was disco's claim to fame and what gave going out to clubs its exciting attraction in the first place....being introduced to new sounds from all over the world and escaping into a climate of newness and creativity. Club djs didn't have to stay within the constrictive, industry-powered music system. They were free agents to choose the music that would best move their crowds.

I think if we really wanted to look more at the Madonna phenomenon and, tying another thread into this one, we might discover that the Madon-and-on-and-ona craze for the last 20+ years may have had a large hand in distorting what clubs and disco were all about. Her music, more than anything, brought in the pop mainstream element to the clubs. The sad result we have now is this crazy over-abundance of pop remixes of Christina, Britney, Nelly Furtado, Justin Timberlake, Shakira....a scenario that's not too pretty for this old-skool(ish) club dj who longs for the days when there was a definite line between pop and cutting edge club music.

Originally Posted by FranceJoliFan

I don't think her fans obediently accept anything she puts out. Look at the failure of Madonna's American Life album. I think they just like the sounds on Confessions. And if they're happy and dancing, why begrudge them?

There were remixes galore off the American Life album...believe me, I was there and endured the many requests. As far as begrudging my crowd a Madonna tune, I certainly wouldn't think of it....certainly couldn't avoid it.... but I can't help look at her recent music, like retail clothing, restaurant and big box chains, as being safe and formula-driven...creating this atmosphere of blandness and choosing familiarity over something unique.