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Feature > Madonna: A sapphic bird's eye view!Great, I thought, I get to write about Madonna, but let’s face it – where do you start? As with most articles, research seemed to be the key so, trusty mouse in hand, I started to do a little Madonna-digging. Firstly, I googled Madonna – Lord knows given half a chance a large proportion of Sapphic-land would do more than just google the woman – but it seemed like a good point to start. My heart sank: over 73 million search results and, wading through a fair proportion of them, they all seemed to be about Madonna – pop queen – rather than any other one. Okay, so Madonna is big – I already knew that. How big though? I googled some more. My ‘extensive’ research uncovered the following:
** Google.com search results rounded to the nearest million In this internet-dominated world that we live in, if google is in any way indicative – and why shouldn’t it be – Madonna is a reasonably big fish in a huge global pond. Of course this isn’t definitive research and it took all of about 20 minutes. But the more you look, the more it becomes apparent just what a phenomenon Madge has turned out to be.
Social science degrees abound with Madonna modules or lessons included in their curriculum. Whether your bent is media, gender, cultural, political or queer studies, Madonna seems to have made her mark – even business and marketing studies are getting in on the act. And why shouldn’t they? More than twenty years after breaking into the big-time with Holiday, Madonna is not only still going – but still going strong. In August 1987 I saw her wow the Wembley crowd – myself included – with her Who’s That Girl tour. Almost 17 and then 19 years to the day I witnessed the Madonna phenomenon all over again with her Re-invention and Confessions tours. This year in Wembley, days off her 48th birthday if I didn’t know better I’d have tagged her for a 30-something year old. The woman has got stamina. She has her critics of course. It has been mentioned, for instance, that for £100.00+ a ticket she might have done an encore or had a support band. Maybe so – I was a bit miffed myself at the lack of an encore, but not because I was feeling short-changed – merely because I wanted more. When you’ve got a repertoire that spans 2 decades and more – great new album or not – chances are a reasonable proportion of the audience wants more of the ‘greatest hits’ thrown in too. But where do you draw the line? It’s the Confessions tour, not the greatest hits one after all. To give her her due, she did manage to sneak a few old favourites in. Ray of Light, Music, Like a Virgin, to mention but a few and let’s be honest for any woman, not least for one just shy of 50, the Confessions album is a little bit jiggy! Think back to the energetic 10-minute performance at Live8, only 12 times as long and you get the idea. Did I mention already that the woman has stamina? I do believe she’s starting to mellow a bit too. Am I the only one who sees a more humble side to her
But then inexplicably, when she smiles at the audience – as she tends to do these days – you find yourself foolishly smiling back. And when you look around you, you see that you’re not alone – there’s a few thousand others grinning back at her too – up on their feet, like you; sweating, like you; struggling to keep up with her, just like you. Did I mention that the woman has stamina? |
"She has her critics of course. It has been mentioned, for instance, that for £100.00+ a ticket she might have done an encore or had a support band. Maybe so – I was a bit miffed myself at the lack of an encore, but not because I was feeling short-changed – merely because I wanted more..."
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