#petercunningham

Flexipop 

UK May 1983

Madonna is interviewed by Kris Needs. Quotes only below

On being a dancer The thing about dancing, what it taught me all those years, is it gives you an amazing sense of discipline in forcing yourself to do things that you know are good for you, but you don’t really want to do. It’s self-preservation. a lot of people in the music industry wreck themselves. I know that my lifestyle is a lot different from a lot of other people because of the training I’ve had. It can be a real long life if you make it that way.” On her sexuality “I think it’s really important to exude sexuality on stage, but I don’t think I have to entice men. I don’t think people have to be aroused sexually by what you wear. I get over that way of being sexy just by the way I sing and move on stage. The way we dress is sort of playful innocent - bermuda shorts, ankle socks and shoes, crazy hats. I don’t wanna wear something that I’m going to fall out of. I don’t feel comfrtable like that. But I’m really physical onstage, you know. I move around a lot.” On sterotypes “I feel I’m trying to get rid of a lot of stereotypes. I come out there and I’m white and look like a boy on stage. I refuse to act the way someone expects me to.” On New York City vs. Detroit “I live in a supposedly dangerous area (Lower East Side) near ‘needle park’. They’re always selling stuff in the street outside my apartment building. I don’t like it, but I like living amongst all the squalor. It’s good inspiration. Detroit is a more desolate, desperate place. At night everyone locks themselves away. There’s always elements of danger in New York but people are always out on the street. I don’t feel scared there at all.”

The article finished by mentioning the soon to be released double a side single Burning Up/Physical Attraction (which never saw a release in England)

NME

March 26th 1983

The week Madonna arrived in London was the same week that the winter we thought had forgotten us called in, in circumstances like this, most Americans I meet have “just flown from L.A” and spend their time either shopping for or shivering in expensive furs, while they whinge about how “grey” London is.

This girl, born in Detroit and now living in New York, didn’t seem bothered.

Her crew sauntered in the office decked out in hard times chic; the leader herself flaunting a Webo Gal (what a Buffalo Gal would be, were she tough enough) jacket like street gang colours. Coats undone, no-gloves and hats pushed well back....and we bystanders felt like wimps for moaning about the cold. Just as Madonna’s hard edged single ‘Everybody’ is the sound of young New York grafitti sensibilities, this is the stance.

She’s a disciple of the scratch’n’rap’n’break dance sessions held up and down the city, gathering with the faithful every Friday night at the Roxy as part of Afrikana Bambaataa a much publicised ‘Zulu Nation’. However, more than being a mere camp follower, Madonna could be throwing this culture a much needed lifeline.

Her current release and forthcoming work, prove that since pestering the DJ at Danceteria to listen to her demo tape about a year ago, she refined the rudiments of the style without ever losing sight of her mentors’ visions. Teflon coated electronic backing, strong on the repetitive computerised drumbeats scratched and dubbed, yet through impasioned vocals it becomes accessible to even the most mild mannered disco fan.

Madonna has recognized the need for commercial viability a concession that has to be made before Bambaataa’s nation can move from its street corner origins into accepted pop culture. The ease with which she makes this step has much to do with her being a native of Detroit, a city that is artistically stimulating but also short sightedly insular. 

“I lived in Detroit for 17 years of my life, and grew up in an almost totally black neighbourhood. It was the middle of the Motown era, and the jazz scene was very strong - both my older brothers were jazz musicians. That most definitely had a strong influence on the sort of music I do now. “Music was that area’s only expression of self assurance or escape. The music of the time was everything to almost everybody - listening and dancing to music, or aspiring to be this or that, was all people were interested in. All My family were studying music, and my girlfriends and I had all these pretend girl groups we used to be in after school - stuff like The Supremes - really silly.”

The dance training Madonna has done before leaving Detroit led to jobs in New York, where she was noticed by the people in charge of international disco star Patrick Hernandez (he of brief ‘Born to be Alive’ fame) and taken to France as part of his troupe. “When I got there, nobody would let me do anything - every time I complained they’d give me some money and forget about me for a little longer!”

Back in America, New York was the place where everybody had a chance. The city’s thriving avant garde scene allowed Madonna to try the sort of music that might have been frowned on elsewhere.

“The artisitic freedom of New York intimidated me a little at first. It’s very intense, and very enclosed - like a world within the city - and I just had to spend a bit of time breaking into it.”

“once you’re in, it’s probably the most stimulating cultural environment possible - definitely the only city I could work in in America.”

Dance Music Report Magazine

Vol 5 Issue 23 

November 27th - December 10th 1982

Madonna appears on her first magazine cover. Dance Music Report was a bi-weekly trade publication. Here they report that Madonna’s 12″ single Everybody is a breakout for sales.