all about Madonna

Madonna's last album, American Life, was one of her worst-selling. Her last film, Swept Away, was a resounding flop. Her makeover as the world's most famous Kabbalist and honorary English countrywoman is typically bold, but does not promise much in terms of great pop music. The vultures may not be circling the most successful female singer yet, but they are beginning to take an interest in her career.
Her "Re-Invention" tour answers doubters with a hi-tech spectacle and a set drawn from more than 20 years of hits (unlike the last time she toured in 2001, when she played mainly new material).
Having begun the tour in the US, she launched the European leg in her adopted homeland at the weekend, when she showed a flattering appreciation for the finer points of Britishness, such as wearing a T-shirt reading "Brits Do It Better". "It's true, I should know," she added, in Mrs Guy Ritchie mode, perhaps hoping no one present had seen her wearing an "Italians Do It Better" T-shirt during her American shows.
The tour's theme of reinvention refers to her incessant changes in image, the most recent being her announcement that she had changed her name to Esther as a result of her growing interest in Jewish mysticism. At 45, she has left behind the extrovert Catholic iconoclasm of her youth and replaced it with a new emphasis on inner life and occult spirituality a point underscored by the start of her concert which opened with a tape of Madonna (or Esther) sententiously reciting verses from the Book of Revelation. For those of us who don't go to see Madonna to be enlightened about the end of the world, this was an ill omen. But suddenly Esther's spectre vanished as the singer emerged on stage wearing a diamante slip and thigh-high black boots, contorting her body to the beats of 'Vogue". The lyrics about artifice and striking a pose neatly inverted the show's apocalyptic opening, proof that her self-projection as a performer is as astute and brilliantly choreographed as ever.
The concert ran as smoothly as a Broadway show. During costume breaks we were kept entertained by a fire juggler, a skateboarder and frenetic break-dancers. Madonna's outfits were more muted than on previous tours no conical bras), but the staging of her songs was imaginative, sometimes eccentrically so. Why she sang a syrupy ballad from Evita strapped in an electric chair was unclear, while the use of a kilted bagpiper and Highland drummers on "Into The Groove" was even more curious. By giving one of the key hits of the 1980s an unsettling Brigadoon vibe, she provided a compelling argument against pop stars getting married in Scottish castles.
Her most arresting piece of choreography came when she and her dancers dressed up as soldiers to perform a hyper-charged version of "American Life" in front of pictures of injured civilians in Iraq and Vietnam. The polemic was crude but bold. It was as if Madonna and her well-regimented dance troupe were trying to reclaim pop from the US military, which has been known to use loud rock songs as a psy-ops tactic. (It is ironic that there has been so little prominent anti-war pop music during the Iraq conflict, yet such widespread use of it as an instrument of war.) A mawkish version of "Imagine" took the gloss from her politics, and seeing her sing piously about imagining a world without possessions while charging "20 for a tour programme was disgraceful.
But other attempts to inject seriousness and maturity into her music had more success. "Like A Prayer" was given a gospel backing that preserved the song's exuberance yet added a fresh sense of tuneful sanctity, and "Material Girl" took on added weight with Madonna playing guitar, looking every inch the principled singer-songwriter. She ended with a trio of songs that emphasised how full of life and relevant her music continues to be. "Papa Don't Preach" bounced along, "Music" juddered past and segued into her finale, a cleverly updated, techno version of "Holiday". Escapist and fun, it also struck conscientious notes with lyrics such as "Come together people in every nation".
Madonna's desire to tackle big themes can lead her down some dubious musical byways into some trite sentiments but it has also freed her and given new impetus to her work.
source : ft.com