DUKE

I used to be quite a collector and I'm sure to have spent quite a few thousands through the years on collecting all kinds of formats, releases and whatnot. But it doesn't really excite me anymore. I have a billion collector editions of various albums and singles, tons of CDs and vinyls, but with Lana I really do only have the albums: Born to Die - Deluxe Edition (Vertigo Berlin) and Paradise - EP (Interscope/Polydor). I've been thinking about buying the Paradise Edition vinyl-set which holds the Deluxe Edition of Born to Die, too, but it seems kind of pointless to me. Maybe I've just grown up.

Me too.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Same goes for 'their' and 'there' and, in rare cases, 'they're.'

Off-topic, but those kind of tweets make celebrities or people who think they are celebrities look like stupid six-graders attacking each other on Facebook. Seriously, get a life outside of Twitterland.

This caught me totally off-guard.

Usually, she's been on tour throughout those four years but I can't really imagine that she's begun working on new material. The Biophilia project seems to be far away from being finished...

Björk - "Who Is It (Carry My Joy On the Left, Carry My Pain On the Right)"

Am I the only one who has a hard time kind of getting into other people's lists? Not that this is a fundamental problem in my life or probably anybody else's but my imaginative power seems to be restricted to my very own list. I'm sure that if I heard those lists live, it would make sense to me. But only written... hm... So much for my pretty pointless contribution to the topic.

This would be my exact choice, too.

Congrats to her! Well-deserved, well-deserved...

Once again you don't get what I mean. You claimed that Ray of Light is the album which is [i'm quoting you] "known as the album [which] launched eletronic music in the mainstream." Which is wrong. That is my point. By extended logic this means that it was only in the year 1998 that electronic music could be heard in the mainstream, whatever this mainstream might be. Really, I'm not going to argue from there on. Madonna didn't do mistakes. She had her peak. What follows is the slow but save decrease of quality, and the returning celebration of past achievements. And it's happening since Hard Candy. Keep on bringing up your numbers, yes, she will always be a massive touring act. Because of her past achievements, not because of her recent achievements, or rehashes if you will. That's why she focusses on it, she knows that her time as a first class musical act is over. It's not working out. There is a new generation of popstars that are taking the place where she used to be. She is entering the league of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Cher and thousands of other artists that had their peak, have been revolutionary but - again - have had their peak. Their time as leaders is over. Read about her and you will know what I mean. She is tired of the business. She is too old for it. She is a superstar from another time. I cannot but repeat that over and over again. I don't want to discuss this anymore. I think you have made a lot of great points, but if you are really interested, read read read about her. Not short media portraits. She is, as you pointed out multiple times, fascinating. But the myth is just a myth. And not reality.

It's official for me and I am dead.

Thank you, I have seen this along with all the other interviews she did around the world. I'm gonna leave it to this. Really, I am done here. All I will say is read more of you really want to know things about her. If you wish to repeat the same "She's an icon" crap that gets spread everywhere in the media, fine.

I'd love them to actually write a song together. Now that so much has changed in their lives... would be interesting.

Well, those books are infamous. However, I was suggesting you things for further reading because you seemed interested. You are free to have your opinion but further reading might be useful when things you said are factually incorrect, which they were. Don't even try to defend Madonna in front of me. There literally is no point in it. Also, I know the ticket prices and I paid for it. I absolutely love Madonna, but it really is no surprise she made this one of the most profitable tours of 2012. First of all, I wasn't even addressing you with anything I said about her methods not working out. But oh well, as you want. Also, she doesn't book herself into some show. It's Guy Oseary - "the oh-so hated manager that does everything wrong" - who pushes her to do TV appearances. She couldn't care less about any of that. None of her touring incidents, which received quite some media attention, compare to the impact she has had before in the media. I was referring to her work as a recording artist. It just doesn't work out anymore. It's her usual following that buys her records. She does land headlines while on tour, no doubt about that, but this is in no relation to her statements made with an album. Not a tour. She is a megastar, an icon, from another time. She is the same. But the business has changed. She knows the music business from her days. However, she is out of touch with how things work nowadays. Yet she tries to make it with her old standards and the commercial failure of MDNA and its modest critical reception pretty much prove that. Look at modern day artists: they do sell records. Madonna, being extremely opposed to the internet, held her albums back until 2006 to be released on iTunes. Again it was Oseary who convinced her that this was the right thing to do. I was suggesting you to add paragraphs to your text(s) because it would make them easier to understand. If that makes me rude, I am all for it. It was all for the sake of making your posts easier to follow since they do have substance and a lot of content. However, this is hard to see when it's just sentence after sentence after sentence and one big block of text.

Not really sure how to answer this, too...

I can't even say exactly what it is that you said about Britney because now edited the post. I don't mean to be the pissy Madonna fan that's like "What do you know? " but just for the sake of you understanding the mechanisms and the way she works, I advise you to read a little more about her. Not necessarily the infamous biographies by Carol Clerk or J. R. Taraborrelli, but more critical works such as the biography by Lucy O'Brian which is well-written and the most accurate book in terms of names and numbers you will find to this day. What you said about Madonna and her ability to change, her impact and whatnot, that's all true. But it only applies to the past. She was that. She's not anymore. Her methods don't work out anymore. She's a superstar from another time, literally, and whatever it is that made her an icon, it doesn't keep her on top anymore. In fact, she struggles with being an artist in the 21st century. The internet makes it impossible for her to pick up on underground movements to commercialize them. She is now jumping onto the bandwagon because all happens too quickly. She strictly denies to participate in the common celebrity online culture. It's a wonder she joined Instagram and does now post regularly. And may I ask you for something else? Paragraphs. Really, it would make your posts so much more clear and easier to follow. But the way it is now, it's just one big mass of text that I can hardly follow.

I agree with everything except for one thing. And I couldn't disagree more here: dancing. Madonna is a classically trained dancer. She did it all. Ballet, modern dance, jazz dance. She knows what she's doing. She is able to tear a choreography apart into its very essential fragments and judge like a professional, because that's what she is. And it shows. Her dancing is incredible. You've got to see it with your own eyes. Britney, God bless her, is nowhere where Madonna is as a dancer. I have seen her too and don't recall ever seeing somebody dance with this low motivation and grace. Really, I felt embarrassed for her watching what she was doing. The thing is, Britney was a great dancer, but look at her now. And look at Madonna, too: nothing has changed for her. Oh, and she has referred to herself as une artiste at least a billion times in the course of the past decade.

It would be more surprising to see her inappropriately dressed. She always looks so perfect.

I don't think anything has so far reached iconic status yet. In fact, she has contributed to certain looks' iconography. I know that I'm probably totally annoying with this and the worst nerd ever when it comes to this... but can we please not confuse pretty with iconic? These words really mean something completely different and I literally look like this emoticon whenever I see them twisted around.

I know! The remix was extremely popular at the time, but I don't know how they could come up with the idea of adding it to the album.

Sorry, but how out of place is this "Professional Widow" remix? I have the original version of the album, too.

I... I... I... drink to that... I guess....