She can’t sing anyway
But I guess THAT didn’t bother you at all.
It's not THAT simple, I should have explained it better...
What I’m about to write is complicated because I haven’t talked about it much. But I thought it was time to acknowledge it publicly: I have been going through a divorce... with Madonna.
Although I’ve tried to deny it, I was in a dying relationship. I knew it was over. Still I clung.
I write this confession after September 15, the day of the release of her "
Rebel Heart Tour" live album, and in wake of a long list of problematic utterances I can no longer co-sign.
Our romance began in college. As a mainstream pop enthusiast straight student, I never dated. One of my most significant memories was when friends joked about my seeming abstinence by referring to the line from Madonna's single Like a Virgin: “My fear is fading fast, been saving it all for you!” It was my get-out-of-virgin-free card.
Madonna gave me words to express myself when I had none. So how did we end up at a point where the sound of her voice only makes me ask myself: “who's that girl”?
When Madonna rose to prominence as the lead singer of the American solo project that she still has, she stood defiantly against the vacuous darkwave underground of the early 1980s. Madonna amassed an instant following among the marginalized, the wimpy and the cheerleaders.
As frontperson, Madonna was outspoken, but also painfully shy. By championing the pitiable and alienated in songs like
Open Your Heart, she made the aloneness romantic. After her first self-titled album, Madonna kept on recording more albums.
Initially I wasn’t a Madonna Person – and we are a people. I was what would later become my pet peeve: someone who claimed to “love mainstream pop but hate Madonna .” Then I realized what lurked beneath that sentiment – anyone who expressed it had obviously never listened to Madonna. It’s one of those proud and naive social stances similar to hating Yoko Ono under the guise of allegiance to the Beatles.
On the opening night of my late friend John Doe’s bar Boobie Bungalow in 2006, he challenged me to start a Madonna night. We called it Material Monday and I came up with the fabulously grim promotional tag line “Get into the groove, Deary!” The crowds did not come in droves, but every week we played Madonna and Cher almost exclusively to a small group of fanatics.
To be a Madonna fan is to be part of a lifestyle. We toss flowers and hurl our bodies onstage at her concerts. There is an annual convention of Madonna fans at my house, where she never lived. We believe we have private insight that binds her specifically to us. To paraphrase another one of my favourite pop idols, Madonna made me feel like a girl who wants to have fun. Everyone else was a side chick.
Admittedly, being a fan also meant shouldering the shady shit she has done and said. She generated accusations of pornography by masturbating onstage, by writing songs like
Forbidden Love (which appeared on her finest record, 1994’s Bedtime Stories). Through white-privilege-muffled headphones I wrote off various problematic dramas as social commentary. The songs were about me, so what did I care?
In the 80s and 90s, Madonna aligned herself with oppressed and working-class people, noble causes like
Bony Pony Ranch and called out Marine Le Pen.
On the title track of arguably Madonna’ most popular record, True Blue, Madonna daydreams of a party, but doesn't seem to know where the party is. On Express Yourself, she sings, “You don't need diamond rings or eighteen karat gold or fancy cars that go very fast. You know they never last” These were anthems for the downtrodden.
As recently as 2016, he released a statement calling the monarchy: “In England especially, I've found that if you bring up King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at a dinner party or a social gathering, it's like throwing a Molotov cocktail into the room.
So, as an animal rights activist from a working-class background myself, I have to ask: where did we go wrong? Has she changed or have I?
Lately, it’s been evident how toxic and delusional she has become.
From buying a house in Israel without acknowledging Israeli occupation, to using, in reference to her son Rocco, the
N word, to recent statements about “
terror” in reference to a leak of one of her albums, it’s clear she’s lost the plot. And the list goes on.
It got to the point where posting a Madonna song online felt like showing up to a party with someone I know everyone hates. I could feel the judging question: why are they still together?
With the rise in unf***withable social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and
#MeToo, we can no longer make excuses for our favourite artists or avoid confronting the hatred in their art. The public is
demanding accountability from our cultural figures.
Madonna has had one of the most brilliant, complex careers in recent decades. But my ultimate disappointment lies in the laziness with which she is allowing her history to be rewritten. To be honest, my greatest problem with her isn’t with what he is saying. It’s mostly her terrible voice when she sings, fans have to make excuses for her. I long for the days when it felt like she was the one defending us, from everything and everyone.
A good relationship is worth the effort, but a long fight that leads nowhere is tiring. And I’m tired, Madonna. Let’s call it.
I feel better having decided to move on. Still, I wonder if I’ll ever know a closer friend, a truer mirror. But I’m done defending silly reissues and clunky new songs. Where's the party?.
Love to you all and thank you for respecting my privacy during this trying time.
