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Was the "American Life" Album the reason for....


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3 hours ago, anel_ said:

She said she felt like dancing that’s why she created COADF. She should be very proud of AL and she is 100% with all her albums 

Of course she would say that. But I think her greatest ability is to get the best out of any situation. 

Everything she's done since 2003 seems like damage control after AL. Shame because it is a beautiful album.

One little mistake of releasing that infamous AL video and a not so good song as the first single, cost her everything in the US, and she is still paying. If Hollywood was the 1st single I think the album would have achieved greater success.

 

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No, I think she just went into the studio with Stuart Price who she already worked with  and wanted to create something she can dance to.  I don't believe she was trying to do damage control.  After all, "I'm Going To Tell You A Secret" featuring songs from the AL era, came out nearly at the same time as Confessions on a Dancefloor. 

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5 hours ago, GhostOrchid said:

One little mistake of releasing that infamous AL video and a not so good song as the first single, cost her everything in the US, and she is still paying

 

But... she didn't release it. Do you mean the flag video? Because that's the opposite of infamous.

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Remember when Madonna deliberately ignored her classics during the DWT? She received criticism from both the media and fans, some even believed it was 'her last BIG tour because of her age' lmao

Then a flop movie came and later American Life was released and did nothing but hurt (radio boycott, leaks, her website was hacked, video self-banning, plagiarism lawsuits, etc.) especially after the tremendous success of the Music era (Grammy and MTVs noms). Many of us didn't love American Life at the beginning but it certainly proved to be a grower. It does contain lovely and mature stuff, should have done better in the charts.

Weren't the MTV kiss and the guest stars part of Madonna's agenda to remain relevant? Britney was rocking the world with Toxic and Christina still enjoyed some success from her Stripped era. It made sense to me at the time...

The 2004 Re-invention Tour was a lifeboat commercially speaking but it only visited the same old places (except for Ireland) and the Confessions era was a major sucess mainly because of the ABBA sample and her gorgeous 70's look that are still remembered. Despite being totally gorgeous the following singles Get Together and Jump flopped.

Madonna ignored her American Like stuff until she started to consider some songs as interludes in both the Sticky & Sweet and MDNA tours. Suspicious? Maybe she felt the world needed to forget her political flop for some time, I don't know. What I appreciate is that she dared to play album tracks during the Tears of a Clown gigs. That was awesome and led me to believe it was the music she wanted to make at the time. Actually, I think American Life was the last time she really put her heart into the writing compared to Confessions which sounded totally muffled and redundant. Rolling Stone would say the former was made for our heads and the latter for our feet.

I don't think there's anything else to explain. Everyone knows what happened after Hard Candy and her departure from Warner.

 

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I don't think it was, she was already working on new material for the musical hello suckers and the baz one, hung up was sporned by that and re worked with Stuart (who knows by how much). I just think it was coincidence. American Life was an amazing album, I think had she called it Hollywood and released that as the lead single, as it was rumoured at the time, it would have been a different story, success wise.  Did Warner maybe say to her tone it down, most definitely, but damage control, I do not think so. 

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3 hours ago, BringUrLUV said:

I thought Hollywood would have been a great title or maybe Nobody Knows Me.  

But in the end it was American Life, and its been nice to see some younger fans embrace that as their favorite Madonna album.   

Agreed! Apart from the title track (which I love, but can see how people would cringe) it's a stellar album!

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10 hours ago, The Same Parts said:

But... she didn't release it. Do you mean the flag video? Because that's the opposite of infamous.

Can't remember if she released it for like a day and then pulled it, or she never released it, but it was heavily teased and advertised. I clearly remember seeing parts of it on TV before it was supposed to be released.

But that was enough to cause the damage. Because everybody's seen those parts and everybody knew what it was about. And everybody knew there was a nasty scene with George Bush in it (the high commander in the ongoing war), I remember seeing that scene in a TV show, there was a whole talk about it. And it was just a nasty time to hit on American patriotism like that. You can provoke with sex and whatnot, and you will just gain controversy and people will talk about you, which is what she wants anyway. But if you talk about issues like war at a time like that, you will just be shut down, nobody will mention you anymore. And that's what happened to her for the first time in her career. And I think that's when she panicked and we got a whole new Madonna which is still around today lol

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10 hours ago, madgefan said:

Remember when Madonna deliberately ignored her classics during the DWT? She received criticism from both the media and fans, some even believed it was 'her last BIG tour because of her age' lmao

Then a flop movie came and later American Life was released and did nothing but hurt (radio boycott, leaks, her website was hacked, video self-banning, plagiarism lawsuits, etc.) especially after the tremendous success of the Music era (Grammy and MTVs noms). Many of us didn't love American Life at the beginning but it certainly proved to be a grower. It does contain lovely and mature stuff, should have done better in the charts.

Weren't the MTV kiss and the guest stars part of Madonna's agenda to remain relevant? Britney was rocking the world with Toxic and Christina still enjoyed some success from her Stripped era. It made sense to me at the time...

The 2004 Re-invention Tour was a lifeboat commercially speaking but it only visited the same old places (except for Ireland) and the Confessions era was a major sucess mainly because of the ABBA sample and her gorgeous 70's look that are still remembered. Despite being totally gorgeous the following singles Get Together and Jump flopped.

Madonna ignored her American Like stuff until she started to consider some songs as interludes in both the Sticky & Sweet and MDNA tours. Suspicious? Maybe she felt the world needed to forget her political flop for some time, I don't know. What I appreciate is that she dared to play album tracks during the Tears of a Clown gigs. That was awesome and led me to believe it was the music she wanted to make at the time. Actually, I think American Life was the last time she really put her heart into the writing compared to Confessions which sounded totally muffled and redundant. Rolling Stone would say the former was made for our heads and the latter for our feet.

I don't think there's anything else to explain. Everyone knows what happened after Hard Candy and her departure from Warner.

 

Spot on. 

"What I appreciate is that she dared to play album tracks during the Tears of a Clown gigs. That was awesome and led me to believe it was the music she wanted to make at the time"

She is obviously proud of all her songs, but she will publicly do whatever is necessary to maintain her career, that's why she lasts for so long. I thinks she loves the AL album. I hope one day she will release a compilation of her favourite songs from her career, like some artists do.

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10 hours ago, madgefan said:

Remember when Madonna deliberately ignored her classics during the DWT? She received criticism from both the media and fans, some even believed it was 'her last BIG tour because of her age' lmao

Then a flop movie came and later American Life was released and did nothing but hurt (radio boycott, leaks, her website was hacked, video self-banning, plagiarism lawsuits, etc.) especially after the tremendous success of the Music era (Grammy and MTVs noms). Many of us didn't love American Life at the beginning but it certainly proved to be a grower. It does contain lovely and mature stuff, should have done better in the charts.

Weren't the MTV kiss and the guest stars part of Madonna's agenda to remain relevant? Britney was rocking the world with Toxic and Christina still enjoyed some success from her Stripped era. It made sense to me at the time...

The 2004 Re-invention Tour was a lifeboat commercially speaking but it only visited the same old places (except for Ireland) and the Confessions era was a major sucess mainly because of the ABBA sample and her gorgeous 70's look that are still remembered. Despite being totally gorgeous the following singles Get Together and Jump flopped.

Madonna ignored her American Like stuff until she started to consider some songs as interludes in both the Sticky & Sweet and MDNA tours. Suspicious? Maybe she felt the world needed to forget her political flop for some time, I don't know. What I appreciate is that she dared to play album tracks during the Tears of a Clown gigs. That was awesome and led me to believe it was the music she wanted to make at the time. Actually, I think American Life was the last time she really put her heart into the writing compared to Confessions which sounded totally muffled and redundant. Rolling Stone would say the former was made for our heads and the latter for our feet.

I don't think there's anything else to explain. Everyone knows what happened after Hard Candy and her departure from Warner.

 

all this COADF slander. why do people think the album is just a dance album when most of the tracks have deep and meaningful lyrics? it partially was a dance colorful AL. Thats what I love about it, she made it look commercial without sacrificing depth.

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2 hours ago, Fighter said:

all this COADF slander. why do people think the album is just a dance album when most of the tracks have deep and meaningful lyrics? it partially was a dance colorful AL. Thats what I love about it, she made it look commercial without sacrificing depth.

Right!! Isaac is imo the most meaningful track on the album. All of her albums are deep and meaningful

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The thing that made Confessions so great was that it WAS a polished dance album but the lyrics ARE fantastic. Future Lovers may not have a lot of lyrics but those lyrics are profound.  FL, Isaac, Jump, Let It Will Be...those songs all got me thru some life changes-both good & bad. 

Like It Or Not, the album has some great lyrics :tongue:

And even the songs with simple lyrics like Hung Up & Sorry, they're still brilliant dance pop songs that are greater than the sum of their parts. Those 2 songs got me through the break up I was going through when confessions came out.

I Love New York?  Terrible lyrics, yes, but I still love that song. Maybe I'm biased.

"In the evidence of its brilliance" should have been the tag line for the whole album.

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2 hours ago, BringUrLUV said:

The thing that made Confessions so great was that it WAS a polished dance album but the lyrics ARE fantastic. Future Lovers may not have a lot of lyrics but those lyrics are profound.  FL, Isaac, Jump, Let It Will Be...those songs all got me thru some life changes-both good & bad. 

Like It Or Not, the album has some great lyrics :tongue:

And even the songs with simple lyrics like Hung Up & Sorry, they're still brilliant dance pop songs that are greater than the sum of their parts. Those 2 songs got me through the break up I was going through when confessions came out.

I Love New York?  Terrible lyrics, yes, but I still love that song. Maybe I'm biased.

"In the evidence of its brilliance" should have been the tag line for the whole album.

I love that song too.  I prefer the less polished rock demo version the best.  But this is an example of Madonna always throwing in these fun and silly songs into her albums.  Certainly, the lyrics come off a bit dorky, but you can tell she really loves NYC and always will. 

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On 26/05/2018 at 11:13 PM, BringUrLUV said:

The thing that made Confessions so great was that it WAS a polished dance album but the lyrics ARE fantastic. Future Lovers may not have a lot of lyrics but those lyrics are profound.  FL, Isaac, Jump, Let It Will Be...those songs all got me thru some life changes-both good & bad. 

Like It Or Not, the album has some great lyrics :tongue:

And even the songs with simple lyrics like Hung Up & Sorry, they're still brilliant dance pop songs that are greater than the sum of their parts. Those 2 songs got me through the break up I was going through when confessions came out.

I Love New York?  Terrible lyrics, yes, but I still love that song. Maybe I'm biased.

"In the evidence of its brilliance" should have been the tag line for the whole album.

I love new york obviously is supposed to be a silly song. I like the fact that every Madonna album has 1 or 2 songs that aren’t too serious. ILNY is one of them. The music at the end of the song is the reason why it’s one of my favourite songs by her and of all time

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19 hours ago, Fighter said:

all this COADF slander. why do people think the album is just a dance album when most of the tracks have deep and meaningful lyrics? it partially was a dance colorful AL. Thats what I love about it, she made it look commercial without sacrificing depth.

Yeah, right. I enjoy COADF as a whole and had a blast playing it when I was 15 but Madonna played it safe 100% and the project was not exceptionally original... until the Live to Tell performance from the world tour came out. I believe that was the only fearless thing she ever did between 2005 and 2007. 

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