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Wishing everyone a Divine extra-filthy Valentine's Day! Pic by Laura Levine via.
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āMadonnaās first video, for her superb, drivingly lascivious disco hit āBurning Upā, did not make much of an impression. The platinum blonde girl kneeling and emoting in the middle of a midnight highway just seemed to be a band memberās floozie. In retrospect, the video, with its rapid, cryptic surrealism, prefigures Madonnaās signature themes and contains moments of eerie erotic poetry.ā
/ From āMadonna II: Venus of the Radio Wavesā by Camille Paglia, The Independent Sunday Review, 1991 /
āDon't put me off 'cause I'm on fire / And I can't quench my desire ā¦ā
/ From the lyrics to āBurning Upā by Madonna /
Released on this day (9 March 1983): double-sided single āPhysical Attractionā / āBurning Upā by a hungry young up-and-coming pop starlet called Madonna. Of the two songs, I infinitely prefer the urgent, punky siren call of āBurning Up.ā Like all her best tunes, the lyrics cast Madonna as the romantic aggressor / pursuer, wailing sentiments like āYou're always closing your door / Well, that only makes me want you moreā and ā even better! - āUnlike the others, I'd do anything / I'm not the same, I have no shame / I'm on fire!ā The haunting video directed by Steve Barron ā with cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof Madonna writhing, flailing and thrashing around in a sexual frenzy on an abandoned stretch of road ā cemented her provocative bad girl persona. (Fun fact: the guy in the video (Ken Compton) was Madonnaās then-boyfriend). Note that there are multiple mixes of āBurning Upā circulating. The only version you need is the one with gnarly biting New Wave guitar. Portrait of Madonna by Gary Heery, 1983.
"We were stupefied that he died. I've never gotten over the shock of it. Iām still shocked heās dead. I wake up sometimes and Iām amazed by that." John Waters.
A moment of silence for a hog princess, please! Baltimoreās finest export, the fabulous Divine (nĆ© Harris Glenn Milstead, 19 October 1945 ā 7 March 1988) died on this day precisely 37 years ago aged just 42. John Watersā toilet-mouthed muse and leading lady of choice, cult cinema actor / actress, drag monster, raspy-voiced hi-NRG disco chanteuse, hybrid of Jayne Mansfield and Godzilla designed to scare hippies, all-round freak diva extraordinaire and eternal role model for punks, queers and misfits everywhere - Divine is the mutha of us all! Do something extra filthy in his memory today! Pictured: austere portrait of Divine by the great Peter Hujar at the Metropolitan Museum, 1976.
āUndaunted by the tide of public opinion, Madonna returned to the boudoir with 1994āsĀ Bedtime Stories,Ā a mature and confident album which, had it been made by a newer or more ācredibleā artist, would doubtless have been lavished with praise. But Madonna? Wasnāt she finallyĀ over?Ā Well, no. Not as long as she had the sure-handed songcraft to composeāwith hot R&B producer Dallas Austināthe spare and slinky āSecret,ā or to collaborate with platinum R&B don Babyface on the sweetly dolorous ballad āTake a Bow.ā Plus, Madonnaās ever attuned cultural antennae picked up the normally irritating techno-sprite Bjork, from whom Madonna commissioned the song āBedtime Story,ā which she spun into a lush and seductive dreamscape. Although its cultural significance was not deemed to be profound,Ā Bedtime StoriesĀ contained enough sublime moments to receive decent notices. Madonna may have fallen short of her own iconic standards, but it was becoming apparent even to skeptics that her music could not be ignored.ā
/ From "Like an Artist" by Steven Daly in November 2000 issue of Vanity Fair /
Released on this day (25 October 1994): Bedtime Stories, Madonnaās sixth and most alluring studio album. Heralded by the downbeat lead single āSecretā, Bedtime Storiesā cover image (by Patrick Demarchelier) depicts Madonna as a platinum blonde tough cookie ā Jean Harlow with a pierced nose. The sounds within are predominantly lush urban R&B make out music. Still stung from the backlash over Sex (the book) and Erotica (the album) in ā92, lyrically Madonna alternates between defiant bravado and vulnerability. The best songs are about unrequited love. Things reach a crescendo of melancholy on my personal favourite āSanctuaryā on which Madonna despairs āWho needs the sun, when the rain's so full of life? / Who needs the sky, when the ground's open wide?ā Now sing along with me: āAnd inside weāre all still wet / Longing and yearning / How can I explain how I feel?ā
āDivine is a real man. And heās just as charming out of character, walking down a New York street with his balding head and his favourite mechanicās overalls or a Zandra Rhodes chiffon caftan. Like a platinum and exaggerated overweight Jayne Mansfield, he can wobble into the best parties in New York and Paris, break through glass barriers and charm everyone.ā
/ AndrƩ Leon Talley reflecting on Divine in the 1984 book Mega Star /
All hail! Beloved freak diva / drag monster / hog princess extraordinaire / John Watersā 300-pound leading lady / hi-NRG disco chanteuse, the raunchy Queen Mutha of us all, the artist formerly known as Harris Glenn Milstead ā Divine (19 October 1945 ā 7 March 1988) was born 78 years ago today! Now sing along with me: āMy car is by Ferrari and my body's Jack LaLanne / My clothes are by Armani and my hair is by Elaine / Tiffany and Cartier are telling me the time / This native love is restless and I'm just not satisfied ā¦ā
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āThere's a saying among those who work around Cher. If there's a nuclear war, only two species will survive: the cockroaches and Cher.ā
/ From The New York Times, March 1999 /
āCher: sheās so Early Rich! But to paraphrase Cher, āItās better to be nouveau than no.ā Cher as a superstar has an evolution that rests somewhere between the birth of the Barbie doll and the onslaught of Valley Girls. She is a money-to-burn celebrity.ā
/ Andre Leon Talley in the 1984 book Mega-Star /
Happy 79th birthday to astonishingly durable veteran showbiz diva, glamazon, perennial gay icon, Academy Award-winning actress, Las Vegas headliner, plastic surgery enthusiast and the fierce Queen Mutha of Pop who will outlive us ALL - Cher (nĆ©e Cherilyn Sarkisian, 20 May 1946)! If you havenāt read it yet, volume one of her memoirs is a characteristically blunt, straight-talkinā blast. Pictured: Cher in doll form.
āIn the beginning there was the Boy Toy, the Material Girl, the born-again virgin with the wedding dress hitched up around her waist; then came the Sean Penn tabloid inferno, the ambiguities with Sandra Bernhard, the Warren Beatty imbroglio, Dennis Rodman; and, of course, the conical Gaultier bras, the Sex book, the $5 million Pepsi-ad debacle, the Letterman implosion; lately weāve had the painted Kabbalistic novitiate, the Harrods-bought accent, and the spectacle of āMaterial Momā Madonna as Style Queen of All London. Each and every one of Madonnaās dramatic shape-shifts could almost have been designed to distract us from the essential truth about the woman: not some tawdry secret from her seedy East Village past, not gruesome sexual proclivities or repellent personality traits, but rather the curious fact that Madonna Louise Ciccone stands as one of the great songwriter-producer-performers of recent times. And yet, where this particular disco strumpet is concerned, āmusicā is the love that dare not speak its name. In keeping the tabloids and the fanzines frothing, Madonna has managed to veil what is, in the final reckoning, her prime asset. Because even at those Madonna Moments when her name is on everyoneās lips, people rarely speak of the starās musical alacrity - her masterly way with a hook, her uncanny ability to pick the perfect collaborators, her unerring instinct for the next pop-cultural mood swing. More likely theyāre calculating how many months she has before she is āover.āā
/ From āLike an Artistā by Steven Daly in the November 2000 issue of Vanity Fair magazine /
Born on this day 67 years ago (16 August 1958): queen mutha of pop Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. Pictured: portrait of Madonna by Andrea Ventura.
Released thirty years ago today (25 October 1994): Bedtime Stories, Madonnaās sixth - and most alluring - studio album. Heralded by the slinky, downbeat lead single āSecretā (issued 20 September 1994), Bedtime Storiesā cover image depicts Madonna as a platinum blonde tough cookie ā Jean Harlow with a pierced nose. The sounds within are predominantly lush urban R&B make out music. Still stung from the backlash over the book Sex and the album Erotica in ā92, lyrically Madonna alternates between defiant bravado and vulnerability. āIāll never be an angel / Iāll never be a saint, itās true ā¦ā she shrugs on the opening tune, then lashes out at her detractors on āHuman Natureā (āOops, I didnāt know I couldnāt talk about sex / I musta been crazy ā¦ Iām not your bitch, donāt hang your shit on meā). As Bedtime Stories progresses, intriguing glimpses of doubt and sensitive hurt feelings emerge. The best songs are about unrequited love.Ā āThis heartache isnāt going anywhere / In the public eye I act like I donāt care / When thereās no one watching me, Iām cryingā, Madonna yearns in a pained falsetto on āInside of Meā (reportedly about her late mother). Things reach a crescendo of melancholy on āLove Tried to Welcome Meā with Madonna huskily exhaling āThese are my lips / But they whisper sorrow / This is my voice / But it's telling lies / I know how to laugh / But I don't know happiness / And I must confess / Instead of spring, it's always winter ā¦ā and āSanctuaryā (āWho needs the sun, when the rain's so full of life? / Who needs the sky, when the ground's open wide?ā), which is as ethereal as anything by Julee Cruise. Now sing along with me: āLetās get unconscious, honey / Letās get unconscious ā¦ā Pictured: portrait of Madonna by Patrick Demarchelier taken at the Eden Roc Miami Beach Hotel.
