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 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
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Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Madonna
Dear Madonna,
I think I owe you an apology. While writing about “Crazy For You” earlier in this book, I made a few statements that need to be reconsidered. I started this project with the conviction that I would avoid vitriol, but in retrospect I can see that I was less than kind in my opinions of your musical output. Worse, I was less than fair. Rather than give you the same benefit of the doubt that I would normally apply to any other artist, I found myself approaching your music with a pre-determined attitude. Back in the late eighties, I dismissed most everything you recorded as extraneous pop product aided by a powerful sales pitch. Due to some type of knee-jerk reaction, probably brought on by stupefaction, I categorized most of your sexually based dance music somewhere between vapid and vacuous. Sex sells, so I thought of you as a top-grossing saleswoman pitching style over substance. Maybe there was some jealousy involved as well, brought on by the glamour that surrounded you. Through the haze of manipulative titillation, I just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I didn’t understand it, which is usually the basis for all negative criticism. It’s taken me years to come around, but now it’s easy for me to see you as an industry icon, a figurehead for contemporary women and a talented, visionary performer, actress and musician. What took me so long? What was I thinking?
When your video for “Borderline” was in constant rotation on MTV, I had the recurring sensation that I had seen you somewhere before. Then, like a flash, it occurred to me. I remember sharing an elevator with you, before you were famous, at a Manhattan rehearsal studio on Eighth Avenue. I was headed for an audition with what turned out to be some god-awful band and had no idea who you were at the time. I only remember you running into the elevator, looking a lot like the character you would later portray in “Desperately Seeking Susan.” A band called The Dance was rehearsing in the room next to mine – maybe that’s where you were headed. I remember thinking that you were beautiful. I smiled wordlessly, wishing I could say something clever, and you smiled deferentially in return. We left the elevator, and that was that, except for a moment when I poked my head in on The Dance, wondering if I might see you again. The whole incident was so meaningless, but what makes it amazing in retrospect is that I would remember it. Even then, your presence was stunning enough for me to have total recall of our chance meeting. I meant nothing to you then -- In light of your subsequent conquering of the world, I’d imagine that I matter even less now -- but my memory of this encounter has only served to exacerbate the guilt that I feel about my subsequent negativity toward your work.
I liked “Borderline”. I liked most of your first album, but the provocation that was part and parcel of your subsequent work left me feeling alienated. The controversy that surrounded “Like a Prayer” seemed like willful calculation and I resented the sense of being manipulated. Despite this, I thought “Crazy For You” was fabulous, and I had to admit that I liked it, in spite of the brooding prejudice that I was developing toward the bulk of your work. It was while in this frame of mind that I wrote about “Crazy For You” and expressed my thoughts concerning your career.
In the mid-nineties, I noticed a subtle shift in my attitude. Slowly, I felt less threatened, moving toward a degree of acceptance. Through the musical confections, the movie roles, the business maneuvers and the personal disclosures, a fuller picture slowly came into focus, changing my perspective little by little until I found that my judgmental stance was absolutely inappropriate. In retrospect, I see that I had treated you unfairly. I would imagine that the level of success you’ve achieved has rendered most criticisms moot, anyway, but that wasn’t the point. I’m not at all delusional enough to think that my previous opinion mattered to you, but it did bother me, so I’d like to correct the situation with this apology and with some honest praise for “Ray of Light”.
“Ray of Light” is a spiritual masterpiece dressed in techno clothes. It’s the work of a mature artist capable of affording the best, and ensuring that it is put to use in service of an artistic vision. William Orbit does a commendable job of creating a trance-inducing whirlwind of sound that perfectly evokes the sense of mysticism expressed in the lyrics. In short, it is one of the most perfectly realized pop songs I’ve heard in years. I’m not just saying this as some type of misguided compensation, in fact quite the opposite. I might have never been aware of the manner in which I sold you short had it not been for the brilliant artistry of “Ray of Light”.
It’s funny to think that if we were to once again happen upon each other in an elevator, the odds are very good that one of your hits will be playing over the sound system. The odds are better that I’d be even more dumbfounded than I was the first time. Perhaps you would once again offer me a deferential smile, and all at once I would recognize what I should have known all along since that day from twenty years ago; Before drawing any conclusions, I should have gotten to know you better.
 
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