Wonderful Monday on our hands. Sun is shining and a brand-spanking-new addition to the Pop family has graced us with its bouncing beautiful baby presence.
As I’m still coming to terms with my equally brand new bouncing baby quarterlife crisis (Aside: leave it to Madonna to wait four years to release an album, that upon completing the first full listen, one realizes IT’S BEEN FOUR YEARS. Leaving subsequent questions such as: “What have I done the past four years?” “What has Timbaland done in the past four years?” “We have Healthcare reform, we’re out of Iraq, bin Laden and Gaddafi are no more, and people are looking to Gingrich?!” “What is a Lady GaGa?” “Did I leave the front door open?” All coalescing to the inevitable answer: “I’m old.”) I’ve decided to put together a quick trip down Memory Lane this Monday (no, the other one, after the left at Drury Road – sorted) compliments of MDNA #biologicalpopbuildingblocks
Stroll to the left…
… stroll to the right
#underthecover
Then there’s some absolute brilliance in the middle…
which we will cover… at a later date #sogoodthough #ough
All leading to a deluxe close… which is #nice
That heartbroken 808 beat, the radar pulse from left to right. “Best Friend” pulls from a hidden Madonna, and it’s oddly comforting… because as Madonna confesses her imperfection, she questions those feelings of vulnerability – from a vulnerable place. It’s … it’s quite amazing, because it is so coolly human. At the bridge you ponder… Does Madonna have any friends – best or otherwise – and then there’s that whole discourse entering the Pop plane. #becauseyoucallthemreductiveandscoldtheirmiddledigits Throw on Danja, some sidechaining to kick the bass up a notch, that Solveig/Orbit richness to boot and you’ve got a track with such potential… in that “How so” way: How something so hollow could be so not, how something so expansive be so contained, how someone so detached could divulge such primal human vulnerability, how the message could be so clear within the confusion. The constant pulsing, the echoed reverb from left to right, the systematic instrumental tension beneath the deliberate spoken vocals… That increasing urgency with the intensified beats, beneath the increasingly resigning Madonna as she accepts, It wasn’t always perfect, but it wasn’t always bad… the ball is over, but baby still loves to dance in the dark until the world ends. A track that is somehow so good for what it’s not… the best that lingers in omission, is the very same best beating at the heart of its possession… The bittersweet close, the revelation, the ray of light before that silent night… kind of like… that other fame-fueled Lucky star, who fell into love so very hard, only to end up stranded out so very far…
Right, so that’s that – and that’s swell. Sorted.
THEN
Something from the fellas:
Namely:
and
… so there’s that
Watch This Space: today’s been one of those… #swagouttheovaries kind of days … Popically speaking #selfappointedzeitgeistdothprotesttoomuch #approve – and speaking of Ying Yang
(The) Epochauserie 