Showing posts with label Madonna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Madonna. Show all posts

Friday, February 27, 2015

20 Reasons why Madonna is awful and needs to just go away.

Yes, there was a time, 30 years ago or so in the 1980s, when Madonna could do no wrong, her name synonymous with damn entertaining music and videos that broke cultural boundaries and redefined pop music like no one other than Michael Jackson. But since then, Madonna has seen a sad and slow decline, one which even her billions of dollars and the best dancers and producers and concert promoters in the world could delay, but not avoid. Now, pushing 56 years old, Madonna has become a weird cautionary tale, diluting her legacy past the point of repair and becoming a bizarre caricature of herself. If it was just bad music and uncomfortably awkward performances befitting someone 30 years younger, she’d join the ranks of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones and we wouldn’t think much more of it. But Madonna is a victim of her own fame, one which she refuses to relinquish as she gets older and so keeps making desperate and futile attempts to reinvent herself and become relevant once again. In summary, there is no more narcissistic, out of touch, self-possessed, and generally b-a-n-a-n-a-s superstar in the world. While there are countless examples of her bad career choices and scummy misbehaviors as a bad human being, we collected these 20 reasons why Madonna is awful and needs to go away.

1. Her recent concert at Hyde Park in London failed to sell out, despite the fact that she hadn’t played there in 4 years. Of course she didn’t endear the fans by saying, “I love you Poland,” at one point. It turns out, many concert goers walked out early, calling it the worst concert they’d every seen.

2. Although in her mid 50’s, Madonna tried to rely on her typical sexually charged bag of tricks at that concert, putting on a strip tease show that had people yawning – or just grossed out.

3. That’s still better than her 2012 concert in Istanbul, Turkey, where she pulled down her lingerie to expose her nipple to 50,000 concertgoers…in a conservative Islamic country.

4. To further trample on and disrespect the cultures of millions of fans who put money in her pocket, she wore Hindu facial markings during her MTV performance of the song Ray of Light. Unfortunately, the markings signify the ideals of chastity, purity, and devotion in the Hindu religion, and she wore them while simulating sex acts and basically making a mockery of their religion.

5. By the way, her 11-year old son is now on stage with her as a backup dancer at some of these concerts as his mommy writhes, gyrates, simulates sex acts, and exposes herself. Mom of the Year?

6. Apparently her new album and concert tour, MDNA, is all a shallow attempt to be cool with a younger generation who sometimes use the designer drug Molly, or MDMA. Just to remind audiences how “hip and trendy” she is in case they didn’t catch on, she’s been known to yell Molly references to the crowd during concerts.

7. Never one to avoid a cheap prop to try to shock audiences and critics into giving a shit about what she’s doing, Madonna had a music video where she was holding prop guns to her head and pointed at other people, as well as another video where she committed all sort of violent crimes, both of which were censored off of MTV and VH1. (Just imagine the backlash if she was black and singing rap music?!)

8. She once put out a book called Sex, which of course she starred in because apparently, she invented sex. In the book she posed in compromising erotic positions with Vanilla Ice, Naomi Campbell, and other sycophants.

9. Because her ego couldn’t be confined to music and had to spread like a fungus over cinema, too, she made the movies Evita, Shanghai Surprise, Swept Away and Who’s That Girl. We really wish she hadn’t.

10. Her brother is homeless. Let that sink in. Anthony Ciccone lives on the streets in poverty. Says Ciccone about his rich and famous sister, “My sister’s a multimillionaire, but she earned it. I have to give her credit for that. But you’d think there’d be some more family loyalty, and that’s not the case. Just to communicate would be nice.”

11. She talked trash about Lady Gaga in a classless display, while Gaga had done nothing but show her reverence and give her credit as being a huge influence on her music.

12. She wrote a children’s book called English Rose, filled with lessons from the Kabbalah after she adopted those spiritual practices. Is Madonna really the person we want teaching our children, and what makes her an authority on Kabbalah after following it for like, 5 minutes?

13. She once tried to sabotage her appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in 1994, dropping 13 F-bombs and disparaging the host during the live network television broadcast. Luckily, her foul language was bleeped out and Dave gave it right back to her, but why would she do that? It’s funny that she got all sorts of mad at MIA during their 2012 Super Bowl performance when MIA flipped the national audience the bird.

14. To reignite her failed persona of a sexual icon, Madonna appeared at the 2003 Video Music Awards and shared a faux-passionate tongue kiss with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. But instead of turning people on it was just sort of pathetic and creepy.

15. She’s literally had plenty of “No eye contact!” moments, like when her security guards ordered her own volunteers to turn the other way while she passed at the Toronto International Film Festival.

16. For some unknown reason, Madonna released a series of photoshopped promotional photos via her Instagram in which she likens herself to civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela and others, except she photoshopped in cords wrapped around their faces and torsos. All this while she calls her white son “#disnigga” on Instagram.

17. Never one to turn down a ridiculous display of self-importance, Madonna appeared hanging on a cross during her performance of “Live to Tell “ during her 2006 Confessions Tour. So now she’s Jesus-like?

18. Even worse, her face appears with a Nazi swastika on it during her MDNA on-stage video performance, as well as superimposed on the forehead of the French president.

19. Madonna steals. A lot. Like, a whole lot. It’s a fact that during her career she’s made a mockery of copyright laws by ripping off songs, beats, lyrics, and just about everything she can from scores of other artists. She’s dealt with hundreds of lawsuits but has the money and the power to make them go away without redress. Her photo shoots, too over the centuries – oops, I mean decades –that’s she’s been in the public eye have blatantly imitated Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol photos, and many others. She has absolutely no respect for other artists.


20. Just a week ago she took a tumble on stage at the 2015 BRIT Awards show, when her cape wasn’t unfastened and a backup dancer pulled her to the ground in a choreographed move gone terribly wrong. The spill, in which she adeptly reenacted the gyrations of a newborn giraffe, kindled a barrage of hilarious memes and tweets in which people expressed concern that she didn’t break a hip or fell and couldn’t get up.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

The 10 biggest thieves in the music business.

Madonna
Madonna has been accused of "sleeping her way to the middle" in late 1970’s New York City, but she definitely stole her way to the top from there.  On top of imitating everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Andy Warhol with her photo shoots, dress, and appearance, her hit, “Justify My Love” is a startling replica of Public Enemy’s “Security of the First World.  Chuck D and PE sued, winning an “undisclosed sum.”  But that wasn’t the end of her trouble with that song.  A poet Ingrid Chavez sued because Madonna had stolen her lyrics for the same song, word for word!  She won and was issued royalties and a writer’s credit.

At last count, Madonna has been slapped with 15 plagiarism lawsuits over her career, and who knows how many more never made it that far?

Kid Rock
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Kid Rock is one flattering mofo.  His whole shtick seems to be a performing caricature of other musical forms – at some times classic rock, country, and even a little white-trash rap thrown in.  He’s blatantly boosted Bob Seger, Lynyrd Skynard, Johnny Cash, Metallica, Grandmaster Flash, Warren Zevon of Werewolves Of London, and even sings the lyrics to Sweet Home Alabama word for word in his 2008 hit, All Summer Long.  Somehow, it’s still hard not to like Kid Rock, though we’ve definitely lost respect for him as a music artist.

Oasis
The band that was called “better than the Beatles,” – by themselves – shamelessly jacked other musicians.  As early as their breakthrough song, "Cigarettes and Alcohol" they copied the T. Rex classic "Get It On (Bang a Gong)”

And the Oasis song “Step Out,” sounds surprisingly like Steve Wonder’s classic, “Uptight.”  So much so that “Step Out” was included on promotional copies of Oasis album but pulled at the last minute.  When the song finally was released, Stevie Wonder was listed as a songwriter – a “collaboration” he surely never approved.

Radiohead
Oasis’ archenemy isn’t exactly innocent when it comes to stealing music.  Their hit, “Creep,” is basically "The Air That I Breathe" by the Hollies, so much so that the Hollies sued.  They won, and Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood from the Hollies are now listed as writers.

But Radiohead didn’t stop there, stealing “Karma Police” from the Beatle’s “Sexy Sadie.”

The Beatles
Speaking of the Beatles, they may have been imitated often but did their share of musical thievery, as well.  Listen to the main riff of Bobby Parker's "Watch Your Step" compared to the Beatles' "I Feel Fine."  George Harrison even admitted stealing Parker’s guitar riff.  They also confessed to be “influenced” by the Isley Brothers on, “From Me to You.”

John Lennon’s iconic song, “Come Together” was blatantly ripped from Chuck Berry.  Posthumously, Barry’s reps sued Lennon, who’s defense was that he and Pau McCartney had slowed the rhythm and added more bass to make the Chuck’s song “more original.”

Green Day
California’s punk revival band that blew up in the 1990’s revitalized their career in the early 2000’s with American Idiot.  But if you listen to the opening of the song, "Doublewhiskeycokenoice" by an obscure punk band called Dillinger Four, you’ll realize it they boosted it

On their follow up album, Warning, Green Day is charged with stealing an old Kinks song and adding different lyrics to it for the title track.

Led Zeppelin
Jimmy Page stole the chords and some of the lyrics for "Dazed and Confused" from the Yardbirds, who he played with back in 1967.   The song ended up on Zeppelin’s 1969 debut album with no mention or credit of its origin.

They didn’t stop there – the opening notes of their most famous song, “Stairway to Heaven,” were taken from “Taurus” by a little-known band called Spirit.  Oh, and Zeppelin had opened for Spirit on their first U.S. tour.  Hmmm…

Metallica
Called the greatest American band, Metallica followed the practice of their British counterparts by burglering the competition for their music.  To start, listen to "Welcome Home (Sanitarium)," side by side with Bleak House's "Rainbow Warrior."

It’s been confirmed that their songs "My Apocalypse," "End of the Line" and "The Day that Never Comes" were stolen from The Offspring, Pearl Jam and Joe Satriani.

But perhaps their greatest hit, "Enter Sandman" is a smash-and-grab of the song "Tapping into the Emotional Void,” by the little-known band Excel.

The Black Eyed Peas
Recently, rapper Phoenix Phenom accused the BEP’s of stealing her song “Boom Dynamite” for their hit “Boom Boom Pow.”

On "Party All the Time," the Peas sampled the song “Mancry” by Freeland, without any credit or clearing the sample.  It goes on: in 2007, will.i.am used a good portion of Daft Punk’s “Around the World” in his single.

But for any classic rap aficionados, the plagiarism that stings most is Fergie’s hit, “Fergelicious,” which is basically J.J. Fad’s “Supersonic” redone.

Lenny Kravitz
Since his very first album, critics have pointed to Kravitz’s desire to be Jimi Hendrix, to be the Beatles, and to be Prince, all in one.  His debut album in the 1980’s lay the groundwork for that accusation and Kravitz has done nothing to dispel it to date.  As examples, “Are You Gonna Go My Way” or “Fly Away” are based entirely on a single Hendrix riff, and “You Belong to Me” is a nice Prince-like love song.