Speaker 1: Madonna showed you what gay was before you know what
Speaker 1: gay is completely.
Speaker 2: Donna, I think probably is like the gay to way
Speaker 2: drag for a lot of gay people.
Speaker 1: She's sheen a.
Speaker 3: Me, no me, not my name?
Speaker 4: Yo?
Speaker 1: What is your childhood? Us?
Speaker 5: I am chok a.
Speaker 1: Your life's going down the floor like.
Speaker 5: Round.
Speaker 2: This conversation feels a long time coming because our podcast
Speaker 2: is literally named after a Madonna song, and when we
Speaker 2: launched it, we asked her please not to sue us,
Speaker 2: and she hasn't, so oh thank god.
Speaker 1: Madonna is not a super litigious person, although I think
Speaker 1: she could be proven wrong. We could be proven wrong
Speaker 1: at any moment. There could be drones waiting outside all
Speaker 1: of our homes right now, And lucky for us, we
Speaker 1: also have noted scholar of Madonna ology, Lewis Frattel, I
Speaker 1: actually am so scared to talk about Madonna with you
Speaker 1: because you know so much about her. Is that an understatement?
Speaker 5: Well, once upon a time I would have said I'm
Speaker 5: in the top point one percentile of Madonna super fans,
Speaker 5: but in the past few years have become less encyclopedic
Speaker 5: about like every track she's released, every album she's released,
Speaker 5: because you know, they're like not as good. Yeah, but no, no, No,
Speaker 5: I'm like, it's like it, would you say that started
Speaker 5: with MDNA?
Speaker 3: I honestly will. I'll say this.
Speaker 5: I feel like most Madonna albums gain like credibility in time.
Speaker 5: Like I remember when music came out and thinking, oh,
Speaker 5: this is like a little annoying that she's doing a
Speaker 5: cow boy thing. Is she's just doing it because she hasn't.
Speaker 3: Done it before.
Speaker 5: It didn't feel organic to her brand at the time,
Speaker 5: And now I think it's like an amazing album. That said,
Speaker 5: and the album since, like like hard Candy even that's
Speaker 5: gained something for me in the time since.
Speaker 3: But m DNA m DNA has not really, even though
Speaker 3: I like about five or six of the songs on it.
Speaker 1: Do Madonna Stands have a name?
Speaker 5: No, because obviously it predates the idea of standing right,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? You really just start a
Speaker 5: gay guy who's thirty eight?
Speaker 1: Yeah, white guy.
Speaker 2: I guess Madonna Stands are just faggots. But could we
Speaker 2: retroactively give Madonna stans a name like Little Madonasters or something.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it has to be less cute in
Speaker 5: the Lady Gaga realm and just more you know, like
Speaker 5: it also has to pertain to an era of Madonna
Speaker 5: that all gay fans are obsessed with. Something I'm always
Speaker 5: fascinated with is that you will never meet, specifically a
Speaker 5: gay Madonna fan whose favorite song is like a Virgin, you.
Speaker 3: Will never you know, and that's still like her not.
Speaker 5: I think Take a Bow is technically her biggest song,
Speaker 5: but like like a Virgin is maybe her most definitive.
Speaker 3: So it would have to do something with voguing or
Speaker 3: posing or something like that. I don't know, posers.
Speaker 2: As someone who okay, well put that in Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: As someone who didn't really experience like Madonna's like single
Speaker 1: singles in real time, or like just to understand a
Speaker 1: lot of like the arc of her music trajectory. Why
Speaker 1: is La Isla Bonita one of her most famous songs?
Speaker 1: I don't it's so good?
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 1: No, it's not, it's one of her best. Guys are
Speaker 1: making me feel crazy, It's it's not a good song.
Speaker 1: I'm yes, no, no, no, I knew. I'm scared. I was
Speaker 1: scared of this moment. I'm going up against two Madonna
Speaker 1: stands about how this is categorically just like a boring
Speaker 1: song in comparison to the rest of her discography, Like
Speaker 1: why is it so popular?
Speaker 5: So when you're wrong, are you often long like this
Speaker 5: because you should really like slow it down and listen,
Speaker 5: get to the right.
Speaker 2: Yes she is, that's what this whole pomecast. Okay, it's
Speaker 2: just Fran being wrong.
Speaker 1: Finally enough love Hi. I want to know why? Like
Speaker 1: what so when this when this song came out? Like
Speaker 1: what was the moment in her life? I kind of
Speaker 1: want to paint a little bit of a picture of
Speaker 1: like who she was, But like Lasla Blonita, what era
Speaker 1: was that?
Speaker 5: That's so that's true Blue And that was not the
Speaker 5: first single or the second single on True Blue, but
Speaker 5: it had been this blockbuster album and so it was
Speaker 5: the follow up to I Believe, even the title track
Speaker 5: and Open Your Heart and pop it on't Preach and
Speaker 5: uh it's on the Immaculate Collection, and so it got
Speaker 5: chosen over actually bigger hits like the number one Who's
Speaker 5: That Girl is not on the Immaculate Collection, but while
Speaker 5: Bonita is. This is also just the beginning of Madonna
Speaker 5: being obsessed with other cultures and sort of intending to
Speaker 5: be among them.
Speaker 1: Right right right, right, right, right right I was just
Speaker 1: curious because it's like she's a woman of the world,
Speaker 1: always like in her like top three songs and like
Speaker 1: like that people list, and I'm always confused. I was like,
Speaker 1: did it come with a movie soundtrack? Like what was
Speaker 1: the deal? Yeah, because I don't get it, but I
Speaker 1: respect it. I respect I'll spend some more time with
Speaker 1: la Isla Bonita. Do you guys have a favorite Madonna era?
Speaker 1: I guess or should we? For the Virgins maybe talk
Speaker 1: about like there's really no one place to start with Madonna,
Speaker 1: whether it's her music or like who she is as
Speaker 1: a star in creating this like archetype of stardom, her eras,
Speaker 1: her fashion, like whatever.
Speaker 2: Like I guess, like favorite Madonna album might be a
Speaker 2: good ya.
Speaker 1: To start favorite era? Can Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think her eras are so tied
Speaker 2: to her album because Madonna is kind of one of
Speaker 2: one of those artists who I and like, correct me
Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, but like, I think she's one of
Speaker 2: the artists who started this pop star tradition of having
Speaker 2: the era be very tied to the album and oh
Speaker 2: sure cycle reimagining her looks. Yeah, yeah, I'm very interested
Speaker 2: to know Lewis, what's your favorite Madonna album.
Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting because I actually would separate my favorite
Speaker 5: album from era, like Okay, for me, the era would
Speaker 5: be the Blonde Ambition Tour and and Vogue and the
Speaker 5: Subs because that's when she was both the biggest star
Speaker 5: in the world and also I would argue the coolest
Speaker 5: star in the world, like.
Speaker 3: She was pushing the most buttons.
Speaker 5: She was like her celebrity orbit was crazy. She's obviously
Speaker 5: with like Warren Beatty at the time. She had the
Speaker 5: Sex Book come out right afterwards, so it's just all
Speaker 5: this attention was paid to her, you know.
Speaker 3: You know, it's the early nineties.
Speaker 5: Like things like like Donald Trump is huge in the
Speaker 5: New York celebrity way, and she's sort of adjacent to
Speaker 5: that anyway. But my favorite album of hers is her
Speaker 5: first album because I feel like, even pre fame, you
Speaker 5: can hear the X factor that makes Madonna still unparalleled,
Speaker 5: which is the like unquenched ambition, the I'm gonna have
Speaker 5: the time of my life in front of everybody.
Speaker 3: Everybody's gonna want to watch me, you know.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I'm like the girl at dance Maeteryria, who
Speaker 5: like everybody's gathered around. There's just something about me and
Speaker 5: my stupid like you know, uh, flimsy men's wear and
Speaker 5: bangles and uh just nerve that people can't get enough
Speaker 5: of and so on that record. You know, she's not
Speaker 5: famous at all yet. In fact, you know, there's some
Speaker 5: rumors that a lot of listeners didn't even know she
Speaker 5: was white, which feels crazy to me.
Speaker 1: She sounds like a white why she's not like the
Speaker 1: whitest woman.
Speaker 5: Okay, but but you know, it's like it's it's hard disco,
Speaker 5: you know, everybody, You've got Holiday, You've got Lucky Star, Borderline.
Speaker 5: These are all such indelible songs, and I feel like
Speaker 5: they fit so well and unpretentiously together, Like the whole
Speaker 5: theme of the album is just Madonna, Like you know,
Speaker 5: you want to be with her at the club and
Speaker 5: she's cool and kind of laughing at your dance moves
Speaker 5: while everybody hits on her.
Speaker 1: You know, honestly that that like star quality is something
Speaker 1: that she just had from the very beginning. And honestly,
Speaker 1: this is like why she always gets the Gaga comparisons,
Speaker 1: because Gaga was also one of those people that, like
Speaker 1: she treated herself like an a lister when she was
Speaker 1: like performing at like you know, pubs or whatever to
Speaker 1: like rooms of fifteen people, and that was like very
Speaker 1: Madonna too, But like I'm trying not to jump around.
Speaker 1: I want to stay in your era. But like when
Speaker 1: I just watched Truth or Dare for the first time,
Speaker 1: and watching her in in that is like you understand
Speaker 1: why everyone is so immediately attracted to her. You can't
Speaker 1: stop watching her. She's not even like an amazing vocalist
Speaker 1: like her. I mean she is, but like her voice
Speaker 1: isn't the thing that brings her stardom. I think her
Speaker 1: voice has like a kind of a very specific quality
Speaker 1: that you know, lends itself to the music that she makes.
Speaker 3: It's unmistakable. It's like Rihanna. You hear Rihanna? You know
Speaker 3: it's reality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah exactly. And like also like I yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like a lot of the songs that she does, or
Speaker 1: rather a lot of the songs that she's famous for
Speaker 1: on page or could be like really boring, but like
Speaker 1: she adds something to them with her vocal quality that
Speaker 1: I think I guess completes the package.
Speaker 5: Yeah wait, okay, well that's kind of soulfulness and like undeniable,
Speaker 5: like I will get in your face, it will be me.
Speaker 3: You think about kind of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Rose, what was your what was your favorite era
Speaker 1: or rather favorite I guess that what were we different?
Speaker 1: Different favorite era and favorite album?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm kind of similar and not. The
Speaker 2: two are a little different from me. For me, I
Speaker 2: think Ray of Light Madonna is my favorite era, like Kabbala,
Speaker 2: like earth Mother Madonna I very much vibe with. But
Speaker 2: then my favorite album is Confessions on.
Speaker 5: A Dance for I really am proud of Faggots for
Speaker 5: just saying that's gonna be our album, like we're going
Speaker 5: to play that now forever. Like at the time, I
Speaker 5: liked it, and I still obviously do like it, but
Speaker 5: we've really anointed it like the definitive two thousands, like
Speaker 5: gay pop album.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it is. I have said this before.
Speaker 2: If I could go back in time, if I had
Speaker 2: a time machine, I would go back to see the
Speaker 2: Confessions tour because it just is to me like that solidified.
Speaker 2: You know, I grew up always being aware of Madonna's music.
Speaker 1: I think in the way that we all were.
Speaker 2: She wasn't really someone that you know, my parents were
Speaker 2: really like featuring when I was younger, but I like
Speaker 2: absorbed her through cultural osmosis and then like I think
Speaker 2: I became more aware of her around American life, and
Speaker 2: American Life is one of my favorite Madonna albums, and
Speaker 2: like Die Another Day was a big moment for me.
Speaker 3: I was still one of the most expensive music videos
Speaker 3: of all time.
Speaker 2: I kind of wish that we would go back to
Speaker 2: that genre of Bond themes, like I want a poppier song.
Speaker 1: They don't all need to be balanced.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it reminds you of being in a spy thriller. Yeah,
Speaker 5: like dynamic totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love how she kills herself in that video. It's
Speaker 2: so fun. But I really think that Confessions was the
Speaker 2: first time that I chose Madonna. I think Ray of
Speaker 2: Light is when it started like percolating for me, and
Speaker 2: then Confessions, I was like, oh, I am an active
Speaker 2: participant in this album and it is the one that
Speaker 2: I revisit the most often. Although I would say, you know,
Speaker 2: Ray of Light, Confessions and maybe like Erotica are very
Speaker 2: close behind in terms of the actual music.
Speaker 5: What's upon a time you would have really like Erotica
Speaker 5: defensive Gays being like that's her definitive era, her gayest era,
Speaker 5: and now I feel like those people have evolved into Confessions.
Speaker 5: People like that's our version of the Club Madonna. We
Speaker 5: defend the most, you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like Confessions came at a time where there
Speaker 1: had been a handful of like lack luster albums or
Speaker 1: the albums that people just like weren't as excited about following,
Speaker 1: just like the multiple peaks in madonn on his career.
Speaker 1: And so when she re emerged with the fucking Abba sample,
Speaker 1: everyone was like, oh, like, oh, this is like a
Speaker 1: song for pop music, literally defining pop music.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, actually it's comparable to Ray of Light in that
Speaker 5: way where, Yeah, part of the excitement about that was
Speaker 5: she did have Bedtime Stories had its hits and I
Speaker 5: love that album, and she had the Vida soundtrack, which
Speaker 5: of course is memorable in certain ways, but neither of
Speaker 5: those things felt definitively her. And so when she kind
Speaker 5: of came back into her own and Ray of Light,
Speaker 5: there was this new like I remember, that's when I
Speaker 5: became a Madonna fan. And for a moment there, we
Speaker 5: really treated her like a Kennedy Center honoree, like We're like, oh,
Speaker 5: she's back and important and Confessions is similar because it
Speaker 5: had been preceded by American Life, which, though I like
Speaker 5: the middle four through seven on that album, was an
Speaker 5: album that utterly baffled people and also really became.
Speaker 3: Like Ray of Light, you can tell when Madonna writes
Speaker 3: the lyrics.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and.
Speaker 5: She was going for a statement make on that album
Speaker 5: in a way where I found them a bit circuitous
Speaker 5: and a bit baffling. It's just just it wanted to
Speaker 5: be important and it came up with confusing.
Speaker 1: Wait did you?
Speaker 2: Madonna does often, I think that's very true, wants to
Speaker 2: be important, and it's usually when she's not trying to
Speaker 2: be that she most effectively.
Speaker 1: That is so te Oh my god. Yes, that's because.
Speaker 5: Because I think ultimately she kind of took the wrong
Speaker 5: lesson from the critical praise heaped on Ray of Light,
Speaker 5: which was, you know, obviously that album is kind of
Speaker 5: full of moody and occasionally pretentious statements like yeah, she's
Speaker 5: sort of like she's.
Speaker 3: Like, oh I've been so selfish.
Speaker 5: Oh I you know, she's like renouncing the naughty parts
Speaker 5: of herself.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well it's like no, no, no, no, no, no, we love that.
Speaker 3: No keep that, keep that, keep that.
Speaker 5: And instead she became this like MOODI or lyricist this
Speaker 5: you know again attempts at statement making, and they're just
Speaker 5: not as fruitful as her being again a bitch in
Speaker 5: front of everybody.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, I Madonna.
Speaker 2: Madonna loves to make a statement, like when in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty when she performed at the Boom Boom Room and
Speaker 2: wore a harness that said not my President on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, y yes, things like yeah, or like there are
Speaker 1: just times in her like the third quarter of her
Speaker 1: discography where she's just like war is bad, right, like
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like she just has a
Speaker 1: handful of songs like that. But wait, I'm going way back.
Speaker 1: You use the word circuitous, and I need to know
Speaker 1: what that means.
Speaker 5: Now, just like well literally on American Life, the last
Speaker 5: song easy Ride, the lyrics go in a circle, but
Speaker 5: just it's like she's attempting to go for something provocative
Speaker 5: and instead is coming up with like a loop of
Speaker 5: cliches you've heard before. That's the number one thing that
Speaker 5: bothers me about Madonna right now as a writer, is
Speaker 5: I still feel like she's gunning. You know, she'll have
Speaker 5: a song about gun control or whatever, which great by
Speaker 5: all means do it. Yeah, but at the same time,
Speaker 5: it can't just be filled with sentiments I've heard a
Speaker 5: million times before that are novel to you because your
Speaker 5: ear is not to the ground, like you don't know
Speaker 5: what other people are already saying.
Speaker 3: Like that's that's what bothers me about her child.
Speaker 2: She is kind of her politics are, I mean now,
Speaker 2: they're definitely like still kind of Trump era, if not
Speaker 2: Obama era, Like Madonna's power actually used to be that,
Speaker 2: like her and her team did have their finger on
Speaker 2: the pulse of culture like that, like when we think
Speaker 2: about something like Vogue, like that obviously feels like reductive
Speaker 2: or appropriate if now, but like at the time, it's
Speaker 2: just like nobody was doing that. Nobody was assembling like
Speaker 2: a cool like under like undercurrent like subcultural group of
Speaker 2: people that had never been amplified before, which is something
Speaker 2: that pop stars.
Speaker 1: Do now all the time, like and like put them
Speaker 1: at the forefront, bring them along with you with you
Speaker 1: on tour, create a whole song around an art form
Speaker 1: that has not been appreciated like whatever. And even outside that,
Speaker 1: like outside of the Vulgera. In so many different parts
Speaker 1: of her life, she knew what was cool. She knew
Speaker 1: the stars that were cool, she knew the people that
Speaker 1: were cool. She was in all these circles with you know,
Speaker 1: Keith Herring, Andy Warhol, right, all these different folks, and
Speaker 1: now it just feels like, yeah, she's in her castle
Speaker 1: and she doesn't know what's going on, Like it's sad.
Speaker 2: Well, what I want to say is that I do
Speaker 2: think that Madonna's politics were progressive when we actually needed
Speaker 2: them to be, Like I think during the AIDS crisis,
Speaker 2: like the way that she was a true ally to
Speaker 2: queer people and would not stop talking about AIDS and
Speaker 2: like using the platform that she had in a useful
Speaker 2: way like she did that. I don't know that we
Speaker 2: need Madonna to be like, you know, the kind of
Speaker 2: like transgressor now like I think we maybe have moved
Speaker 2: We as a society have moved past the need for
Speaker 2: Madonna as like a political activist.
Speaker 1: I guess right.
Speaker 3: No, I definitely agree with that.
Speaker 5: I mean, when you she's somebody like Elizabeth Taylor or
Speaker 5: Diane Warwick, are those people who at the time were
Speaker 5: like seemingly randomly speaking of you know, like there just
Speaker 5: wasn't a cultural dialogue about these things and these people
Speaker 5: who like you. From the beginning of time, you associate
Speaker 5: Madonna with gay men. They're around her in every video,
Speaker 5: you know, you watch the Open Your Heart video, and
Speaker 5: she's like kind of performing being a fabulous woman for
Speaker 5: a young gay boy. Like there's just something embedded in
Speaker 5: her that was always I'm orienting this towards gayness, you know,
Speaker 5: even if other people didn't detect it.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking a lot now about how you said that
Speaker 1: the average Madonna fan is like a white thirty eight
Speaker 1: year old gay man, and now I'm thinking about how
Speaker 1: Madonna's politic is that of like a white thirty eight
Speaker 1: year old gay man like her, well.
Speaker 3: Older than that, honestly, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it's like her, it's like her brain is like
Speaker 1: trapped in this, you know, in this era.
Speaker 5: I think the deal is she her instinct is to
Speaker 5: lead with sort of agro politics, right, she went, like
Speaker 5: in your face whatever, But she doesn't always back that
Speaker 5: up with like the credulity, like the knowledge of exactly
Speaker 5: what is happening at that given moment.
Speaker 3: So I do miss that a little bit.
Speaker 5: I had a friend once who said Madonna used to
Speaker 5: be the Groucho Marx and now Madonna tends to be
Speaker 5: the woman groucho Marx is duping you know no, which
Speaker 5: is like a little rough, but at the same time,
Speaker 5: like that was part of her power, that like witty, subversive,
Speaker 5: righteous babe thing.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to, like for the virgins, like
Speaker 1: maybe paint a picture of like who she was as
Speaker 1: a pop star when she emerged on the scene or
Speaker 1: in like the first eras of her life. I want
Speaker 1: to know. So I don't even know how to start
Speaker 1: doing that. I honestly, if anybody listens to DJ Lewis
Speaker 1: of the fourteenth podcast Pop Pantheon, he has this amazing
Speaker 1: breakdown of like all her different eras, but like when
Speaker 1: she emerged on the scene with like everybody from Michigan.
Speaker 1: Is there any way that you could describe Lewis like
Speaker 1: just Madonna who she was at the beginning?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, she was like the definitive New York club urchin.
Speaker 5: So she was this person who she had classically trained dancer,
Speaker 5: She went to University of Michigan, came to New York.
Speaker 5: I mean, as she will now repeat fifty thousand times
Speaker 5: at nauseum, had only thirty five dollars in her pocket,
Speaker 5: and I was like, what is this like like dime
Speaker 5: novel thing she has invented about herself. There's no way
Speaker 5: she only had thirty five dollars, but anyway, moving on.
Speaker 1: She should maybe have third thirty five hundred, yeah.
Speaker 5: Right, something right. But you know, she was in bands
Speaker 5: for a while. She's a band called The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 5: She was in a band called Emmy and So, and
Speaker 5: she did like nude photography on this so she just
Speaker 5: had this sort of she really resembled the character in
Speaker 5: Desperately Seeking Susan, and it remains crazy that that movie
Speaker 5: was not written for her. The list of actresses it
Speaker 5: almost was is so bizarre, and then you think of
Speaker 5: Madonna and it feels like a biopic of hers almost.
Speaker 5: So I mean she she kind of became like a
Speaker 5: pop star, I don't want to say accidentally, but had
Speaker 5: to move into it from this like band place she
Speaker 5: was in, from this dancer place she was in. But
Speaker 5: it was all oriented around like her passing like audio
Speaker 5: tapes to like DJs and stuff, and then finally signing
Speaker 5: with seymour Stein at Sire right, and then it was
Speaker 5: like she really just jumped from the cool girl that
Speaker 5: you maybe noticed once in a while in the club
Speaker 5: to the cool girl everybody noticed, right, you know.
Speaker 1: And Okay, so like through like like a Virgin I
Speaker 1: guess True Blue nineteen eighty VMA performance material Girl, Rose,
Speaker 1: do you have like a favorite kind of like vintage
Speaker 1: Madonna moment? Like is there like obviously she's like forever
Speaker 1: mood board, but is there something about like preliminary Madonna
Speaker 1: that you were attracted to, either retroactively or like at
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: I guess so much of my experience of what we
Speaker 2: would consider early Madonna is like so retroactive, like Sam,
Speaker 2: so late in my like discovery of her that it
Speaker 2: is more like it does come a little later, like
Speaker 2: Blonde Ambition. Tor is for me like quintessential early Madonna,
Speaker 2: even though I know it's not, you know, the earliest Madonna.
Speaker 2: And also I guess, like you know that VMA's Vogue
Speaker 2: performance of when they're all like in Marie Antoinette Drag
Speaker 2: and you know, I think like the same things that
Speaker 2: that everyone the same like cultural impressions that everyone has
Speaker 2: of her, like the kne boom, like that.
Speaker 3: That's not the only thing about her as a little kid,
Speaker 3: the co cone boom.
Speaker 2: And I think I I think I knew it because
Speaker 2: of how focus Oh right, right, because the mom is
Speaker 2: dressed up as Madonna and she has the cone boobs
Speaker 2: and the headset.
Speaker 5: Mic, wait, it's actually costume, still would work, it's.
Speaker 1: Actually all three of us. Only thing I retained about
Speaker 1: Madonna was cone boobs. But like, it's so funny that
Speaker 1: something that reductive actually does encapsulate Madonna perfectly, like it
Speaker 1: is who she was doing something totally out of the ordinary,
Speaker 1: totally bizarre, completely sexual and yet not you know what I.
Speaker 5: Mean, like bury both of those things like in your
Speaker 5: face sexy and also laughing at the idea of sexuality,
Speaker 5: which I think is like the core thing I love
Speaker 5: about her, like loves men yet laughs in their faces.
Speaker 1: Like Madonna is definitely like a sex icon. But that's
Speaker 1: also something about Gaga that I think is true, is
Speaker 1: that Gaga is like something of a sex icon. But
Speaker 1: like guys aren't like looking at Gaga and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: Gota is really fucking hot, right, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like it's I some of them have to be, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously there's gotta be guys out there who
Speaker 1: have jerked off to Madonna and Lady I don't know what,
Speaker 1: I don't know what men think both of them to
Speaker 1: I don't know what men think, but I do I
Speaker 1: think that it's like Madonna and Gaga. What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is just that they do have this thing
Speaker 1: that's like sexual but not sexual quality. I think Madonna
Speaker 1: was like more overtly sexual, like she was fucking you know,
Speaker 1: she was a sex mom like her whole life.
Speaker 3: I want to say about Lady Gaga.
Speaker 5: When I was an intern for The Advocate in like
Speaker 5: two thousand and eight, one of the weird amazing things.
Speaker 3: I got to do.
Speaker 5: I got to interview Lady Gaga right when poker Face
Speaker 5: was coming out and so like already by then, like
Speaker 5: she had a crude, like a real gay following. But
Speaker 5: I didn't know that much personal information about her other
Speaker 5: than she was allegedly a huge Madonna fan. So I
Speaker 5: said to her, I was like, do you have a
Speaker 5: favorite Madonna era? And she goes, definitely Erotica because they
Speaker 5: couldn't even.
Speaker 3: Play it at two am.
Speaker 5: And I was like, what a faggoty response Like that
Speaker 5: really like legitimized her as somebody who was paying attention,
Speaker 5: like knew the history really well. She talked about how
Speaker 5: she loved Shnad O'Connor and I think, you know Marilyn Manson.
Speaker 5: Of course they did the Love Game remix set time
Speaker 5: after that, but I was like, all right, this is
Speaker 5: somebody who really pays attention to the past. And by
Speaker 5: the way, that is also something from Madonna's early earliest
Speaker 5: eras that I always loved about her, which is her
Speaker 5: obsession with like old influences was very apparent, and that
Speaker 5: really appealed to me, like the the Marilyn Monroe in
Speaker 5: the Material Girl video, the like Marlena Dietrich and the
Speaker 5: Erotica era. Just the idea that like stardom meant something
Speaker 5: to her already even without her being a part of it.
Speaker 5: So that really attracted me to how huge she became.
Speaker 5: And then I mean, what do you think changed when
Speaker 5: she did become the star? You know, because there was
Speaker 5: a time when Madonna was the most famous woman in
Speaker 5: the world, And like, how do you think that?
Speaker 2: Because I think that's interesting to see when you have
Speaker 2: these celebrities, I think, especially pop stars who like start
Speaker 2: their careers, like you know, creating that fantasy of fame,
Speaker 2: like I mean Gaga is and like I have a
Speaker 2: much more depth of knowledge on Gaga than I do Madonna,
Speaker 2: but obviously there's so many parallels.
Speaker 1: But like Gaga in her early career, like her out
Speaker 1: first albums literally called the fame, like it's about like,
Speaker 1: you know, cause playing fame, and then I think it's
Speaker 1: very interesting to see what happens to these women when
Speaker 1: they actually become super famous, and like I do think
Speaker 1: one of Gaga is like the thing that happened to
Speaker 1: her is like she got a little high off her
Speaker 1: own supply. But so like, what do you think happened
Speaker 1: to Madonna when that switch happened and she.
Speaker 5: Was like the girl, Yeah, I want to concur on
Speaker 5: Lady Gaga, by the way, because when that when the
Speaker 5: fame dropped. I just love the daffiness of the appreciation
Speaker 5: of fame, of being like, isn't fame hilarious? Isn't fame amazing?
Speaker 5: Look what you can do with fame? And she would,
Speaker 5: you know, just show up to construction of fame. And
Speaker 5: then once she became famous, I do think she had
Speaker 5: to have a moment of what now, and I I
Speaker 5: feel like she's still kind of navigating that in a way,
Speaker 5: which is you know, you have to become humorless in
Speaker 5: a way because you're such a huge brand, you have
Speaker 5: a whole other thing you have to mind.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why she I mean in like Star is born,
Speaker 2: Like she's just cause playing a different kind of thing.
Speaker 2: She's caused playing you know the movie Star right, which
Speaker 2: Madonna also right, Yes, lady got got a little bit
Speaker 2: more successfully.
Speaker 5: But in terms of Donna being famous, I mean, like,
Speaker 5: I think once she got kind of to the top
Speaker 5: of the world is when she became extra interesting. Like
Speaker 5: you know, that's when she's suddenly on dateline doing things
Speaker 5: like saying kids aren't educated about sex or you know,
Speaker 5: if if her presentation of sex is so offensive, why
Speaker 5: are they doing you know, why is it's such an
Speaker 5: epidemic among like young people, Like she was like, like
Speaker 5: she said, I can't be any worse than how the
Speaker 5: way people are already taught about sex. For example, I
Speaker 5: felt she was very observant about people, like she she
Speaker 5: was superstartim as a perch. I think she took it
Speaker 5: as a way to be able to look at the
Speaker 5: bigger picture and sort of sharpshoot problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is that, And I think like post
Speaker 1: material girl, there is something like in the Truth or
Speaker 1: Dare era, the erotica sex book era we're in, she
Speaker 1: really is genuinely like she is genuinely like controversial. She's
Speaker 1: genuinely like like going against the grain of like what
Speaker 1: culture is telling her and like challenging ideas that people
Speaker 1: just were not challenging at the time, and suffering for
Speaker 1: them to some degree. I mean, obviously the controversy just
Speaker 1: like blew up her stardom, but like her, you know,
Speaker 1: concerts were being protested and her books, her book was
Speaker 1: banned everywhere and like all these different complents. She lost
Speaker 1: her I don't remember when she lost her pepsi dealer,
Speaker 1: her Coca Cola dealer, whatever the fuck. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was also because of sex stuff. Like she was, you know,
Speaker 1: constantly animized and and and I think that that is
Speaker 1: just like a big part of like the arc where because.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, it's like Enema's that was recently amazing.
Speaker 1: It was so circuitous, and I was I was gonna
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that, like I think that there's
Speaker 1: this thing that happens to a lot of stars. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about RuPaul honestly, wherein you hit the kind of
Speaker 1: like sophomore era of your life, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you realize how many people fucking hate you, and
Speaker 1: and you felt like that your whole entire life, and
Speaker 1: so you're gonna let that embolden you and make your
Speaker 1: presence bigger and bigger, and then you become an asshole,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? And I don't know if
Speaker 1: that I don't think that really. I think Madonna was
Speaker 1: kind of always an asshole if you ever watch footage
Speaker 1: of her, and I mean asshole. Yeah, I'm like using
Speaker 1: that term loosely because she's just a woman that that
Speaker 1: knew her own worth and people kind of had a
Speaker 1: problem with that or her whole life.
Speaker 2: I also do think she's from stories I've heard, like,
Speaker 2: I do think she is a little mean.
Speaker 1: Oh, I think to to.
Speaker 5: It would be disappointing, as like, oh, please don't be
Speaker 5: genteel with me, Madonna.
Speaker 1: Unzip your pants and take your fucking dick out right now.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 5: I actually feel like the thing that kept her kind
Speaker 5: of genuinely controversial during that those like halcyon days is
Speaker 5: also what really attracts gay men to her, which is
Speaker 5: that like controversy starting thing. I don't think is oriented
Speaker 5: in calculations so much as she is obsessed with not
Speaker 5: being bored. And I feel like that is like a
Speaker 5: crucial gay man thing, you know. It's like she's like,
Speaker 5: are we really just sitting here doing normal fucking pop music?
Speaker 3: What if we were actually amazing?
Speaker 5: What if actually like I didn't have to act like
Speaker 5: whoever the other raining pot like like I'm not fucking
Speaker 5: Paula Abdul, I'm you know, it's like it's gonna be
Speaker 5: harder than that, and it's gonna be in your fucking face.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: And I think that, I mean, that served her well
Speaker 1: for so long.
Speaker 2: I do think it now. I mean, and like we said,
Speaker 2: we don't want to harp too much on Madonna's current
Speaker 2: era because I'm sure it's none of our favorites. But
Speaker 2: I think that's part of why she's releasing so many
Speaker 2: of these fucking TikTok remixes of her classic songs, because
Speaker 2: it's like she's bored with her own catalog, which is
Speaker 2: why it's so absolutely interesting. Which, yeah, which is why
Speaker 2: it's so interesting that she's about to embark on the
Speaker 2: greatest hits or something she famously said she would never do.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I mean, I I don't currently have tickets.
Speaker 2: I would like to go. I'm sure we'll figure out
Speaker 2: a way somehow, but I don't really want to go
Speaker 2: and hear like two hours of TikTok remixes of you
Speaker 2: know Madonna songs.
Speaker 1: I want to hear. I want I want to see
Speaker 1: her perform them, even though, you know, like I trust
Speaker 1: her when it comes to you know, live performance because
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that she does
Speaker 1: the best. I talked about this.
Speaker 2: Recently on the show, But I've seen Madnna twice, once
Speaker 2: at World Pride and then I saw the amounam X
Speaker 2: tour and it is the best concert I've ever seen.
Speaker 2: And I do believe that whatever Madonna does, and I've
Speaker 2: watched like so many of her you know, tour films,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what she does better than maybe
Speaker 2: any other like living performer, is live performances. So I
Speaker 2: do kind of trust that. What have you how many
Speaker 2: times have you seen her live?
Speaker 5: I've only seen her twice, and I saw her on
Speaker 5: m DNA and Madam X, and I saw did you
Speaker 5: see her at the Wiltern in La No?
Speaker 1: I saw her at bam in Brooklyn.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 5: I wish I had seen her there. I think it's
Speaker 5: more appropriate for that venue. The Wiltern is this sort
Speaker 5: of stodgy place for this tour. It like it did,
Speaker 5: like it was literally stuffy in the room. You know,
Speaker 5: she's obsessed with how the air is whatever. You don't
Speaker 5: have your phone, so the it just was not a slagh.
Speaker 5: I was happy to have seen it. She made me
Speaker 5: laugh a couple of times. I love the version of
Speaker 5: Vogue on that tour, but otherwise, like my problem is
Speaker 5: madamex also contains some of her worst ever songs. So
Speaker 5: if I'm sitting there with and it's also it's so
Speaker 5: it's so annoying because Madonna is such a name that
Speaker 5: like even non fans are going to go see these
Speaker 5: like weirdo concerts in person, and so in my head empathically,
Speaker 5: I'm thinking, oh my god, you know, like literally I
Speaker 5: work for Jimmy Kimmelive. Jimmy was at the show one night,
Speaker 5: and I have I'm thinking Jimmy is literally sitting there
Speaker 5: as she thinks killers who are partying, Like I'm just like,
Speaker 5: you know, it's like skin crawling, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, how was the MDNA tour, though.
Speaker 5: Some parts of it were amazing, as you said, like
Speaker 5: who else is doing like a shootout in a small
Speaker 5: cabin where she's like choreographing this big again kind.
Speaker 3: Of spy oriented number.
Speaker 5: Had great moments, but of course it was m DNA,
Speaker 5: so I didn't love every single line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there are there are some tours, like obviously
Speaker 2: I said I would love to go back in time
Speaker 2: and see the Confession's tour. I also one night during
Speaker 2: like peak COVID in La, I did some ketamine and
Speaker 2: watched the Reinvention Tour, which I think is a really.
Speaker 3: Great and I love just the audio CD of it.
Speaker 3: It sounds great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know.
Speaker 2: First, I mean, I know, I like was a little
Speaker 2: county about her voice earlier, but I do think she
Speaker 2: does sound she does sound great live and obviously like
Speaker 2: she's not she's not she's singing live to tape.
Speaker 1: Yes, you know. I've only seen her once and it
Speaker 1: was at the Boom Boom Room during the Boom Boom
Speaker 1: Room's return for Pride. I think last last year, or
Speaker 1: there was that the year the summer twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: when she wore the not My President. A couple of year,
Speaker 1: a couple of years. To me, it was it was.
Speaker 3: Just packed in that room.
Speaker 5: Yes, I remember looking at the footage and just being like, oh,
Speaker 5: looks sweltering in that I've.
Speaker 1: Told part of the story on this podcast before, but yes,
Speaker 1: packed to the brim with thirty eight year old fagots
Speaker 1: and I you know, and and tons of like you
Speaker 1: know New York celebrities like Andy, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper,
Speaker 1: like like you know, packed into this like little room,
Speaker 1: like Adam Lambert with huge shoulder pads like spikes sticking
Speaker 1: out like like poking people like every sort of like
Speaker 1: you know New York socialite person there. And then like Madonna,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a real performance because it's the Boomer Room.
Speaker 1: So she did like you know, five six songs. But
Speaker 1: the best part of the kind of performance so to speak,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if this is the case for y'all,
Speaker 1: was like when she was talking like literally just performing,
Speaker 1: walking around, moving around, there was a moment where like
Speaker 1: at the end again she went on late, of course,
Speaker 1: and so like all these like coked out fagots were
Speaker 1: like it was two o'clock in the morning, We're waiting
Speaker 1: for Donna. Madonna's concert is over, and instead of all
Speaker 1: of us going home, she was like, my friend Zachary
Speaker 1: Quinta is gonna come on here and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: an auction for queer homeless youth. And we're like, no, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the one thing that a bunch of
Speaker 1: coked down faget's at two o'clock in the morning at
Speaker 1: the top of the boomom room do not want to do.
Speaker 1: And the room was not really that receptive to it.
Speaker 1: And Madonna was pissed, and it was amazing. It was
Speaker 1: so incredible.
Speaker 5: Nobody is more impatient with her own fans and audiences
Speaker 5: than the Yaha.
Speaker 3: There was like scolding people.
Speaker 1: There was a moment where some faggot was like where
Speaker 1: some faggot tried to touch her? And she goes, did
Speaker 1: somebody just tried to touch my leg? She's like, that's
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars if you want to touch my leg.
Speaker 1: And then and then some other faggot was like, I'll
Speaker 1: pay ten thousand dollars for a selfie, and she was like,
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars for a selfie, fine, get up here,
Speaker 1: and she.
Speaker 3: Was David Russell, my good friend, Oh my manager.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so funny. It was like such
Speaker 1: a wild experience and the old The thing that I
Speaker 1: remember the most from the evening was her her like
Speaker 1: kind of presence, her virtuosic, untouchable presence as a celebrity
Speaker 1: that feels like like it's been there since the beginning.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that really is similar to the oldest days of Madonna,
Speaker 5: just the like like scoffing, Like has anybody scoffed like Madonna?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a scoff It's a reductive it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like honestly, like just to we're
Speaker 1: like we're talking I did, Like we're talking about Madonna's
Speaker 1: flop era. And like the reason that Madonna's slap eras
Speaker 1: so disappointing is because she had all these like moments
Speaker 1: of subversion in her life, whether it was like her
Speaker 1: standing up for the AIDS crisis, whether it's like her
Speaker 1: concerts being like protested by like Canada being protested by
Speaker 1: like you know, Christian organizations, like like books being banned everywhere,
Speaker 1: and like I don't know, I just I I can't.
Speaker 1: I'm always gonna think of that Madonna, Like even in
Speaker 1: that even when I see Madonna now and like we
Speaker 1: make fun of her because he're like she's got grills
Speaker 1: on now, or like her face is like filled the
Speaker 1: room with liquid.
Speaker 3: Or it really is crazy, how been I really that
Speaker 3: would have been like a one album thing, and.
Speaker 2: Just listening to her talk around them is horrible. But
Speaker 2: I do think the thing is and I think maybe
Speaker 2: fran this is like kind of where you're going is
Speaker 2: like I don't think that Madonna can destroy her own legacy,
Speaker 2: and I am so grateful for it, yeah, because she
Speaker 2: really has. It's like a couple of years ago when
Speaker 2: when Katie Perry like did some interview about how like
Speaker 2: all of her music flops now, and she's like, well,
Speaker 2: I've had all the hits, honey, I've rung all the bells.
Speaker 2: And it's like Madonna like she built the bell and
Speaker 2: rung it and cracked it and then like hung it
Speaker 2: back up again, like she's she's literally done everything and
Speaker 2: and despite her very valiant attempts, she cannot destroy her
Speaker 2: own legacy.
Speaker 5: And also again watch it, like a few years from now,
Speaker 5: we will look back on certain parts of this of
Speaker 5: this era and realize, like why were we talking about
Speaker 5: her lips so fucking much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she still is like kind I'm making a point,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I like that.
Speaker 2: She she tweeted the other day like do you how
Speaker 2: does my face look now that the swelling.
Speaker 1: Is gone down? And I was like, that's okay, that's funny,
Speaker 1: Like finally, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Sometimes sometimes like I'm worried about, like, oh, has she
Speaker 5: lost the funny component, you know, which is so I
Speaker 5: think critical to who she you know, in the early days.
Speaker 5: There's this video of her on a panel for MTV
Speaker 5: and they're talking about the advent of music videos, and she,
Speaker 5: of course is advocating on behalf of music videos, how
Speaker 5: it's great for artists, you know, people who would normally
Speaker 5: never get to see you when concert get to see
Speaker 5: you on MTV, and one member of Hall and Oates,
Speaker 5: I believe John Oates says, I don't think rockstar should
Speaker 5: have to perform, you know, they don't have to be actors.
Speaker 5: And she goes, she goes, and she looks at him
Speaker 5: and she goes, you're performing right now, and like like
Speaker 5: and just like he is baffled. He's never like been
Speaker 5: like talked back to, namely by somebody of her maybe
Speaker 5: age and you know type and it's like I missed that,
Speaker 5: you know that in like no, no, no, I'm funny.
Speaker 1: Too, Madonna. Donna possesses the ability to say literally anything
Speaker 1: to literally anyone, like she. I'm thinking about the story
Speaker 1: where she met the which she met the writers of
Speaker 1: Like a Virgin. I can't is that right?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Because we were we were listening to oh yeah, the
Speaker 2: the Immaculate podcast, Oh yeah, where they they talk about
Speaker 2: every episode they go in depth on a different Madonna song.
Speaker 2: And I think it was like a Virgin she met
Speaker 2: She she was at some party and the people who
Speaker 2: had written Like a Virgin.
Speaker 1: Her biggest song at the time, like literally a life changing.
Speaker 2: Song, and they went up to her and and like
Speaker 2: we're like, hey, like we wrote Like a Virgin.
Speaker 1: She was like okay, great, like she said, she said
Speaker 1: to them, well now you've met me and walked.
Speaker 3: Away too good.
Speaker 5: It's it's Billy Steinberg, who's written a whole bit of songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you? What were we gonna say? So?
Speaker 2: Phoebe reminded us of Madonna. Madonna's Dyke era when she
Speaker 2: you know, her bestie Sandra Bert right their appearance on
Speaker 2: Appearance or appearances on Letterman.
Speaker 5: People forget about the dynamics she and David Letterman, how
Speaker 5: that used to be kind of a crucial part of
Speaker 5: her every few years, thing she see, whether she was
Speaker 5: swearing in front of him or appeasing him with her
Speaker 5: new like acoustic era, or you know, like getting his
Speaker 5: goat with Sandra sitting there and they're both in the
Speaker 5: craziest gene shorts you've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I think people don't also, I think the virgins rather
Speaker 1: don't also know that like this kind of like I'll
Speaker 1: say anything to anyone. This kind of gumption, the fortitude
Speaker 1: she has when she like is on these late night
Speaker 1: interviews is something that comes through in her own ambition,
Speaker 1: Like she does her own work, Like the fact that
Speaker 1: she you know, had to send this like handwritten letter
Speaker 1: to like or this like this note to like Abba
Speaker 1: because they like famously never sample their songs or whatever,
Speaker 1: Like when she like begged the president of Argentina to
Speaker 1: like approve of her making a vita. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. There's so many different eras where she's just
Speaker 1: like I people don't believe in me, but I believe
Speaker 1: in me, And like you're telling me that I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to do this, but I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 1: And it was the same like, you know, with when
Speaker 1: she chooses to put on a concert despite the fact
Speaker 1: that it's like if you put on this concert, we
Speaker 1: will arrest you, and she's like watch me, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it. Yeah.
Speaker 5: And that's also like it's so different than the way
Speaker 5: people are like famous now, I think I don't believe
Speaker 5: in things like cancel culture, et cetera. Like that's not
Speaker 5: me at all, but it is interesting. It feels like
Speaker 5: people now just because fame is so tight in with
Speaker 5: talking directly to your fans all the time, that there's
Speaker 5: like a general appeasing quality to like even the way
Speaker 5: people are funny, like you have to be kind of
Speaker 5: self deprecating, there's like a humility built into everything you do.
Speaker 5: And Madonna's whole thing was like, my fans are over there,
Speaker 5: I'm not even looking at them. Yeah, you know, like
Speaker 5: they're gonna like me no matter what, and so I
Speaker 5: get to go harder. You know, really know anybody who's
Speaker 5: like that now, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, zero humility except when she says god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is there is an element of fame now
Speaker 2: where it's like you have to be surprised that that
Speaker 2: your that your work is being you know, lauded or praised,
Speaker 2: or that people love it. And Madonna, you know, Madonna
Speaker 2: has always believed in herself more more than anyone else.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just imagine. I like, I'm a super fan,
Speaker 3: and I know I do not need to go up
Speaker 3: and meet Madonna.
Speaker 5: I don't need her to like roll her eyes in
Speaker 5: my face or be like you know, et cetera. So
Speaker 5: same that's part of appreciating her.
Speaker 1: Same thing for me with Share, Like, I don't want
Speaker 1: Share to like ruin share for me. Okay, Like I
Speaker 1: don't need to meet her. I don't want to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with her. I'm gonna be good.
Speaker 3: That said. I feel like that would go pretty well
Speaker 3: for you.
Speaker 4: Share.
Speaker 1: He impresses me, Yeah, okay, I mean she is another
Speaker 1: person who's just like you can just listen to her
Speaker 1: talk and talk and talk and talk, and like you'll
Speaker 1: always say, She'll always say something funny.
Speaker 5: She's got a really good memory too, which they don't always.
Speaker 5: I'm also a stan of a Jane Fonda. Yeah, the
Speaker 5: degree to which Jane Fonda can remember everything in her life,
Speaker 5: Like you don't always get that from a superstar, you know,
Speaker 5: even Madonna.
Speaker 3: Now, I feel like it's sort of if.
Speaker 5: You were to ask her about, like what was performing
Speaker 5: in Speed the Plow like on Broadway, would you remember
Speaker 5: any of that?
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I don't think she would.
Speaker 2: But I think she would make up a memory of that, sure,
Speaker 2: Like I don't think I don't think Madonna is ever
Speaker 2: caught out. Like if Madonna doesn't know the answer, she's
Speaker 2: gonna make it up and she's gonna.
Speaker 1: Make you believe that She's Yeah.
Speaker 5: I like, did you hear that? A couple of years ago?
Speaker 5: It must be like six or seven years ago.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: She did an interview with Howard Stern.
Speaker 5: I remember he asked her he like popped all around
Speaker 5: the eras.
Speaker 3: I was very surprised.
Speaker 5: But he asked her about in Truth or dare the
Speaker 5: woman who gets raped in the movie Oh Man. She
Speaker 5: ended up talking about Warren Batty, and she's like, I
Speaker 5: was just so he used to be with like Julie Christie.
Speaker 5: It's like, wow, you have a memory of being obsessed
Speaker 5: with like the celebrity Laura around Warren Beatty, Like I
Speaker 5: had never heard that, So it's I actually don't know
Speaker 5: what memory she still has lurking in her. You know,
Speaker 5: it's like we're about to get this giant barbar streisand memoir.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, in her, you know, so excited, the
Speaker 2: one that Leah Michelle is learning to read so she
Speaker 2: can read.
Speaker 1: Who would ghost write Madonna's memoir? Like that is just
Speaker 1: like no one, no one? Because as herself.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, because as we have learned, she's not willing
Speaker 2: to let someone with everything that happened with her biopic,
Speaker 2: which thank god, it's not happening. She's not willing to
Speaker 2: let someone else tell her own story. I think that
Speaker 2: is a quality that has served her for most of
Speaker 2: her career. I think a couple times it's gotten her
Speaker 2: in trouble. But she's not willing to hand over control
Speaker 2: of her own image. Like we talk a lot about,
Speaker 2: you know, pop stars who are like exploited and celebrities
Speaker 2: who are exploited, And I think the thing about Madonna
Speaker 2: is she was always the one exploiting herself. Yeah right,
Speaker 2: I think that's why she is this like sex symbol.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is sounding like a brag, but I'm staying
Speaker 5: to bring up a point. My best girlfriend is Diablo Cody,
Speaker 5: who broke like a draft of her biopic and when
Speaker 5: she was being kind of picked to.
Speaker 3: Like start on the project or whatever.
Speaker 5: I don't know who it is, like Warner Brothers or
Speaker 5: Amy pas Galer, whoever was in the orbit around that movie.
Speaker 5: They had some briefing period with Diablo. Brooke is her
Speaker 5: real name, And we're both huge Madonna fans, like always
Speaker 5: talking about her, obsessed with her, know everything about her.
Speaker 5: Like Brooke I believe has a book of dreams people
Speaker 5: have had about Madonna. It's just like, you know, if
Speaker 5: you grow up, if you're like Brenn anywhere between nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy five and nineteen ninety, you probably have like a
Speaker 5: lasting impression of Madonna.
Speaker 3: And we're both obsessed with her.
Speaker 5: Anyway, when she was being oriented for this project, it
Speaker 5: was crazy how the people like briefing brook on how
Speaker 5: to deal with Madonna or how to talk to her
Speaker 5: or what to say, you know, just once you get
Speaker 5: in the room. They treated it like nobody knew how
Speaker 5: big a star she was. They were like, yeah, did
Speaker 5: you know that once upon a time she was married
Speaker 5: to Sean Penn and Brooks response to her Brooks response was,
Speaker 5: excuse me, I was flying the helicopter.
Speaker 3: Over that wedding.
Speaker 1: That's so funny I was.
Speaker 5: I just remember being so shocked, like, yeah, we're all
Speaker 5: up to date on Madonna, like namely like Brooke, who's
Speaker 5: like soapop cultural anyway, like of course she.
Speaker 3: Knows about Madonna.
Speaker 2: I do think that makes sense though, you know, because
Speaker 2: I did. I interviewed Madonna once and like that does
Speaker 2: ring true with me that the people around her want
Speaker 2: you to always be cognizant of who you're talking to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's that's not always true with celebrities. I think
Speaker 2: there are some celebrities like want this false sense of
Speaker 2: like we're just hanging out, like I'm just a normal person.
Speaker 2: They want you to feel super comfortable. No, if you're
Speaker 2: talking to or meeting Madonna, it's around her. Wants you
Speaker 2: to know that you are having an audience with Madonna.
Speaker 2: Did you know her? Madonna? Like when when I interviewed Madonna,
Speaker 2: it happened because her publicists just texted me one day like.
Speaker 3: That way, I was just gonna ask all this.
Speaker 2: I don't know how she got my I don't know
Speaker 2: how she got my member. She just texted me and said,
Speaker 2: I heard you want to speak to Donna.
Speaker 3: And you assumed it was God from God. Yeah, text
Speaker 3: a way.
Speaker 2: Do you have a favorite Madonna film role, because we
Speaker 2: haven't really touched much on Madonna's movie star, which, as
Speaker 2: you said, she has not done as successfully as some
Speaker 2: other pop stars.
Speaker 5: Right, I think I would have to say ultimately A
Speaker 5: League of their Own. And I think it's worth noting
Speaker 5: that Madonna's two best film roles, which are that and
Speaker 5: Desperately Seeking Susan, we're both directed by women, and in fact,
Speaker 5: like her kind of most fun moments in the movies
Speaker 5: are interplay with women. I love her friend ship with
Speaker 5: Rosie O'Donnell, which was like a towering thing about her
Speaker 5: in the early nineties. She's so funny in that movie
Speaker 5: and gets to be herself and also somebody totally different.
Speaker 5: There's a big dance sequence in that movie that's so fun.
Speaker 5: She looks amazing, of course with really dark hair, so
Speaker 5: just plenty of things working in her favor at the
Speaker 5: lead time.
Speaker 1: A League of their Own is unfortunately like three hours.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's three hours long, like it's it's
Speaker 1: as I've I've never made it through the whole.
Speaker 3: Oh really, Oh my god, I love it.
Speaker 1: I think my favorite Madonna film is the next best thing?
Speaker 3: Whoa crazy answer? You can make it through that.
Speaker 1: What's the next best thing?
Speaker 3: I have special skills.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a movie where she and Rupert Everett
Speaker 2: are best friends and they decide to have a baby together.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 5: Yes, and she it's one of those movies in the
Speaker 5: early nineties or late nineties where she has a crazy
Speaker 5: rom com job that would never afford her the house
Speaker 5: she has. She's like a yoga instructor and lives in
Speaker 5: like a house with gables.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's that's not actually my favorite Madonna holme bro.
Speaker 2: I do think it's probably it's really seeking season. It's
Speaker 2: not Avita me neither.
Speaker 5: Avita is the weirdest case of you know, at the time,
Speaker 5: it was like talked about like an Oscar snub, But honestly,
Speaker 5: I would compare it to the Elvis movie we have
Speaker 5: right now, where there's no scenes in it. It's filmed
Speaker 5: basically as a montage, so you don't even really get acting.
Speaker 3: It's all a music video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's and she's really good at making music. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: oh do you have a favorite Madonna music video.
Speaker 3: It will always be Vogue. It will never not be Vogue.
Speaker 5: Also, it's just like something about that song fran you
Speaker 5: were just talking about, like you know how smart it
Speaker 5: was to illuminate the subculture, and you know how she
Speaker 5: gave voice to something that is so awesome that we
Speaker 5: all care about so much.
Speaker 3: Now. I don't want to say it's only because of
Speaker 3: the song Vogue.
Speaker 5: But you know somewhat, yeah, But also just like the
Speaker 5: homage to old Hollywood, like that's so an important part
Speaker 5: of like my faggotry, just like her being like, no,
Speaker 5: you have to understand Greta Garbo and Betty Davis if
Speaker 5: you're gonna understand me, Like.
Speaker 3: I've always always loved that.
Speaker 5: And the song itself is just when it comes on
Speaker 5: at some gay club, like the tone changes like faggot's
Speaker 5: become you know, angles and poses and it's just its
Speaker 5: own vibe forever, like nobody will ever be able to
Speaker 5: do that.
Speaker 1: I do think it's like the best music video ever
Speaker 1: mane yes.
Speaker 5: Oh, and also what's his name? David Fincher made it
Speaker 5: when he was like twenty eight. What it's so disgusting.
Speaker 1: Wait, I also didn't know that David Fincher made that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, express yourself.
Speaker 2: Guy exists in the Vogue, exists in the Girl with
Speaker 2: the Dragon time cinematic correct.
Speaker 3: Yes, Rudy Mara was born of this video.
Speaker 1: That's that That makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Yeah, I that's wild to me. I I
Speaker 1: think you know when you said like people knew about
Speaker 1: the subculture because of the Vogue, that that really is true.
Speaker 1: Like like Ballroom has not had that many like placements
Speaker 1: in the mainstream, and it was like there was like
Speaker 1: America's next best dance crew, there was Paris Is Burning,
Speaker 1: and then there was the Vogue music video, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. The only thing that would like kind
Speaker 1: of put Ballroom on a platform after that was like
Speaker 1: pose right like it it really crude people everyone. The
Speaker 1: way people talk about Madonna now, which is like fair,
Speaker 1: and the way people talk about Vogue now is like
Speaker 1: she was like exploiting like marginalized groups and like stealing
Speaker 1: from this culture and blah blah blah, and it really
Speaker 1: is just more nuanced than that, Like there there's so
Speaker 1: much more that happened between her and those kids that
Speaker 1: when you when you watch the Truth or Der video
Speaker 1: with sorry when you watch the Truth or Der documentary.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there's a lot of controversy about
Speaker 1: them feeling really abandoned after that, but it's like, there's
Speaker 1: no question that she was invested in the lives and
Speaker 1: stories and culture of like what she was inspired by
Speaker 1: at the time, and she wasn't afraid to put credit
Speaker 1: where credit was due and to take them all with
Speaker 1: her at the time. And that's just not something that
Speaker 1: celebrities do at all now. And I think that what
Speaker 1: you know, Beyonce is doing with Renaissance is like unheard of,
Speaker 1: Like she's putting all the credit where the credit is due,
Speaker 1: and like people just haven't done that since Madonna. I
Speaker 1: feel no, right.
Speaker 5: Also, it's like, I mean, I agree with criticism that, like,
Speaker 5: all right, it's a little weird that this like white
Speaker 5: woman at the top of the world is like, you know,
Speaker 5: kind of candy craning her arm down and picking this
Speaker 5: thing and turning it into her thing. Yeah, But at
Speaker 5: the same time, it's like I've never seen her perform
Speaker 5: Vogue without like black and Latin men around her, who
Speaker 5: are certainly fagots, certainly like making the art form look
Speaker 5: like some wild, kind of addictively coordinated thing that you've
Speaker 5: never seen before.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: It's like, I mean, all I can say is when
Speaker 5: you're growing up in like the suburbs of Chicago and
Speaker 5: like a Polish Catholic suburb and you see something like that,
Speaker 5: like for me, my brain changed. I'm like, how do
Speaker 5: I get to be that? Like I know that's for
Speaker 5: me and I don't even know what the word gay
Speaker 5: means yet. Yeah, she I would Actually I would say
Speaker 5: this about Margaret Chow, who is a comedian I was
Speaker 5: really obsessed with pre coming up. Obviously still fabulous, but
Speaker 5: like Madonna was one of the first people who made
Speaker 5: me realize, like, oh, gay people, you just want to
Speaker 5: know them because like they're the most fun or like
Speaker 5: they know the most people, or they have like the
Speaker 5: parties you want to be at, or they're hilarious or whatever.
Speaker 5: Like she always had that sense of like, imagine not
Speaker 5: knowing gay people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but not faggots who hate women. I'd kill fagots
Speaker 1: who hate women. Oh so good, so fucking funny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I uh, I think that that is just like it.
Speaker 1: I think I said this earlier, but like pop stars
Speaker 1: now do what Madonna does like she created this template
Speaker 1: for pop star that like didn't exist, Like I think
Speaker 1: that the only other person that I think had a
Speaker 1: more big historic presence in like cultivating the pop stars,
Speaker 1: like maybe like Diana Ross, but she like did it
Speaker 1: in a very different way that like Beyonce might have
Speaker 1: like taken the template from right like it's but she
Speaker 1: people just don't what she does, similar to like maybe
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson is now like omnipotent in pop music, Like
Speaker 1: pop music now sounds like Madonna kind of right.
Speaker 2: All these bitches as yeah, okay, so so well, first
Speaker 2: I want to know, do you do you have your
Speaker 2: tickets secured for Madonna's Greatest Hits towards celebration.
Speaker 5: My friend Jon Hatchwell, who is an obsessive Madonna fan
Speaker 5: also great pop music fan in general. If you don't
Speaker 5: follow him on Twitter, y A N N. Hatchwell, great guy.
Speaker 5: He got me the tickets. We are on the floor
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles floor.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm okay.
Speaker 2: So, so what songs do you need her to do?
Speaker 5: I mean, there are so many that I love that
Speaker 5: I know she will do. We'll get some form of Vogue,
Speaker 5: et cetera. But I would love to hear I'll Remember,
Speaker 5: which I think is the underrated Madonna ballad of all time,
Speaker 5: even though if it was, it was a huge hit
Speaker 5: at the time. Yeah, it's on the soundtrack for With Honors.
Speaker 5: I just missed like Indigo tinged ballad Madonna you Know
Speaker 5: You'll See and the Power.
Speaker 3: Of Goodbye and things like that, So I hope you
Speaker 3: get I'll Remember. I've always love that song.
Speaker 1: Any other deep cuts Madonna? Deep cuts are Madonna gems
Speaker 1: that people don't appreciate. Mmm.
Speaker 5: I I love words from Erotica. I just love the
Speaker 5: like grunginess that album gets into. Even though it's like
Speaker 5: a pretty emotional album, people think of it as just naughty,
Speaker 5: and it really is more like this kind of burlesque
Speaker 5: where you think you're getting sex and instead you get intimacy.
Speaker 1: Hmmmm, what about you?
Speaker 2: I would really like if I make it to the tour,
Speaker 2: I would really love her to do Human Nature Sure,
Speaker 2: one of one of my favorites and such a good video,
Speaker 2: although you know the corn Rows right, the corn Roads
Speaker 2: are our corner. Yeah, and I would love her to
Speaker 2: do Candy Perfume Girl.
Speaker 3: Oh Yes, which is a baffling song, but I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, baffling.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, but I I would really love her to perform.
Speaker 1: I want her to do her cover of Fever.
Speaker 3: I love that. I'm on snl oh right, I wait.
Speaker 1: I actually haven't. I'm realizing I haven't seen that performance
Speaker 1: that I want to see.
Speaker 3: It's not among her best live performances.
Speaker 5: And she also did a Bad Girl on that episode,
Speaker 5: and that's when she It was right after Snead O'Connor
Speaker 5: had ripped up the Pope and she did a parody
Speaker 5: of that where she ripped up a picture of Joey
Speaker 5: botafuco very nineteen ninety two tabloid stuff. Yeah, okay, okay,
Speaker 5: good to know.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, maybe y'all see y'all at the Eras Tour.
Speaker 1: Who knows not the Eras. That's what it's called, girl,
Speaker 1: That's what we're calling at.
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