all about Madonna

Madonna has become only the third artist to survive five weeks at the top of the download chart with her single Hung Up.
The Queen of Pop joins Daniel Powter who clung on for five weeks with Bad Day as did U2 with their track Vertigo.
Girls Aloud have knocked Westlife off the number two slot with their pop tune Biology while the Black Eyed Peas are hanging tight at three with Humps.
Stereophonics have this week's highest new entry with Rewind at number 28.
Nineties boy band Take That are back in the charts this week after promising their fans a reunion tour and greatest hits album.
Their hit Back for Good which was number one in the singles chart in 1995 has entered the download chart at number 36.
And Manchester bad boys Oasis make their fourth appearance in the UK Download Chart this week with their single Let There Be Love.
The track which appears on their Number One album Don't Believe The Truth is new at Number 38.
source : bbc

Top Albums:
01 (-) System Of A Down - Hypnotize (320,185)
02 (03) Kenny Chesney - The Road & The Radio (303,028)
03 (05) Various Artists - Now 20 (287,962)
04 (01) Madonna - Confessions On A Dance Floor (210,065)
05 (06) Various Artists - Get Rich Or Die Tryin' (Soundtrack) (207,114)
06 (04) Mariah Carey - The Emancipation Of Mimi (204,100)
07 (02) Carrie Underwood - Some Hearts (186,836)
08 (-) Enya - Amarantine (178,498)
09 (-) Juelz Santana - What The Game's Been Missing (141,461)
10 (-) Chamillionaire - Sound Of Revenge (129,537)

Hot Digital Songs (Digital Download) :
01 (01) Madonna - Hung Up (47,440)
02 (02) Black Eyed Peas - My Humps (43,047)
03 (04) D4L - Laffy Taffy (35,208)
04 (03) Kanye West - Gold Digger (38,381)
05 (05) Chris Brown - Run It! (34,003)
06 (06) Nickelback - Photograph (29,867)
07 (07) PussyCat Dolls - StickWitU (29,288)
08 (21) Santana Juelz - There It Go! (14,793)
09 (08) Fall Out Boy Dance - Dance (23,538)
10 (09) Young Jeezy Soul - Survivour (23,371)

The thunderous sound of foreheads being slapped across the globe met Madonna's statement that she wants to become a director.

"I would love to direct a film," she told Channel 4 news on Sunday night, where she was promoting the latest documentary to feature her, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret. "I felt very inspired making this movie ... I would like to do it on my own next time." The juicy soundbite is one way, of course, to garner a little extra publicity for Secret. But let us suppose she is for real. Is any film-making adventure she undertakes guaranteed to end in humiliation and disaster, as one might assume? Or is she, in fact, likely to make a better job of it than her husband, Guy Ritchie?

For almost as long as she has been a pop star, Madonna has clearly nurtured ambitions to make it in the movies. Selling vast numbers of records hasn't been quite enough. The music industry is a young person's game, and Madonna, in her late 40s, is perhaps on the verge of losing her creative dignity. The film world represents a different, more established kind of elite, and one where an artist can age gracefully.

Madonna hasn't always been terrible in the movies. (Nor, it should be remembered, has Ritchie, whose first two films were actually funny.) With a good script, sensible direction and a functioning sense of humour, Madonna has managed to put two bona fide good films on to her acting c.v. Admittedly, they were both a long time ago: Desperately Seeking Susan, from almost the dawn of her career in the 1980s, and Dick Tracy, from the Warren Beatty period in 1990.

Most of her other acting work has resulted in unalloyed humiliation, from her Sean Penn collaboration Shanghai Surprise to Swept Away, which played a central role in the immolation of Ritchie's own filmmaking career. Whoever she has allied herself with - whether romantic partners such as Penn, Beatty and Ritchie, or credible directors such as Woody Allen (Shadows and Fog), Abel Ferrara (Dangerous Game) and John Schlesinger (The Next Best Thing) - the result has almost always been bad.

You might think it obvious that her forays on to celluloid should end in disaster. In his excellent article on why musicians make such terrible film stars, Joe Queenan advances the idea that the very qualities that make someone a successful pop star - acting like a maniac, treating everyone like dirt, being overweeningly arrogant and accustomed to hugely exaggerated performing styles - work directly against what it takes to come across well on screen. Many others have tried - Jagger, Sting, Prince, Dylan, Elvis - and failed. Only those with modest cinematic ambitions, such as David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth, Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Tom Waits in Down by Law, have got away with it.

Fewer have had the temerity to sit in the director's chair. Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics made a complete pig's ear of Honest, the All Saints movie, which, with some justification, can be nailed as the film that brought down the lottery-era British film industry. Bob Dylan had a couple of gos in the 1970s, with unhappy results. Prince is credited director of the indefatigably self-serving Under the Cherry Moon and Graffiti Bridge. White Zombie's Rob Zombie has indulged, fairly successfully, in his personal taste for nauseating slasher films. Richard Jobson, one-time punk, is turning out one film after another, to mixed receptions.

The truth is that musicians are generally artists used to working alone, or with small teams of highly committed technicians. Film sets, with their battalion-sized crews and rudimentary privacy arrangements, are not the environments in which they flourish best.

But one aspect of Madonna's output - music videos - gives us some hope. Of course, it doesn't take a genius to hire David Fincher, Jonas Akerlund or Luc Besson to promote your music, but many others with similar purchasing power have done a lot worse. And though it's easy to put too much emphasis on competence in the music video arena (Dave Stewart is one of many who have conspicuously failed to trade upwards), Madonna has some claim to have developed a certain cinematic style in her videos.

This doesn't necessarily mean interesting narrative content - Like a Prayer, probably her best-known effort in this department, has school-play level acting and camerawork - but her evolving thematic obsessions have found convincing visual expression in one music promo after another. At one end of the 1990s, Vogue and Justify My Love did a good job in evoking Hollywood golden-age glamour and sleaze; at the other, Frozen and Ray of Light made simple but effective use of the advances in digital effects that the decade had seen. Interspersed between these high points are oddities such as Music, starring Ali G, or Beautiful Stranger, the song from Austin Powers, which confirm Madonna's astute eye.

She certainly has the strength of will to become a film-maker, too. Akerlund is the credited director of You're the Next Best Thing, but you can't imagine a single edit got in without Madonna's approval. And she knows the worth of a good photographer and art director, which is half the battle of film-making.

With her relentless drive, Madonna would have no trouble cutting the mustard as a producer - like her near-contemporary Michael Stipe, who has credits on Being John Malkovich, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing and Saved!. Putting yourself into the creative arena, however, is a step of a different magnitude.

Most successful musicians have decided they have too much to lose. Madonna, if she has any sense, will feel she doesn't need the pressure. But the siren call of the opening title may be too much to resist: A film by Madonna.

source : guardian.co.uk

Me and Elvis? Are you kidding?! I'm gonna tell my dad. Maybe that will impress him."

That was Madonna's reaction when we told the Queen of Pop that she has now tied the King of Rock n' Roll with the most Top 10 singles ever - 36 each. (Her latest being the crazily infectious "Hung Up.") Madonna had not heard the news yet. I guess she really does stay away from media! And, at 47, touchingly, she still looks for Daddy's approval. The star called from London. I wanted her reaction to Confessions on a Dance Floor reaching No. 1 status in 25 countries, including the good old U.S. of A.

"It was my husband, Guy, who told me the album was No. 1 in America. I was shocked, stunned, happy. I said, 'We have to celebrate. So we opened a bottle of champagne - not something I usually do, though I probably should do more of that - I had a glass, and then I sat and cried for 20 minutes. Really. So many conflicting emotions, but basically tears of joy. Don't let anybody tell you commercial success doesn't matter."

M ("everybody calls me M now, I never hear my own name!") is busy planning her next video for the second single, "Sorry." And M is thinking about her "Confessions" concert tour, which might include smaller venues "where I can hear myself singing, I can see the faces!"

Madonna also wants to build a film around her current troupe of dancers, which includes the phenomenally talented Cloud and Hypnosis. "They are not just dancers. They're filmmakers and artists. Creative cyclones. I adore them." We spoke of broken bones " I recently shattered a wrist, she quite a few more " and she said it was terribly difficult coming back from that, to dance again. "Your 46th comeback!" I joked. She laughed, "Yes, I've lost track of how many times I've been written off." She paused. "Maybe that's the reason I cried when I heard about the record. Here's a big scoop. We're human, too."

source : baltimoresun

Little Britain stars Andy and Lou switch on the Christmas lights with pop star Madonna and Stella McCartney last night.
The comic pair " David Walliams, 34, and Matt Lucas, 31 " joined Who's That Girl? singer Madge in London's Mayfair outside the flagship Stella McCartney store, owned by the 34-year-old designer.
The unlikely trio rallied round for their pal and turned on her fairy lights, with Andy dressed as Father Christmas and Lou as an elf.
Madonna, 47, even gave Lou a push in his wheelchair.
Three chairs for her!
source : thesun.co.uk

The most A-list comics around dressed up as their Little Britain alter-egos Lou and Andy to turn on the Christmas lights at Stella McCartney's London store yesterday.
And not only Sir Paul's daughter but her pal Madonna got in on the act, too.
An onlooker said: "It was hilarious. David was dressed as Santa while Matt was in full-on elf garb. Stella was in stitches and Madonna was nearly doubled over with laughter just standing next to them. She thinks the boys are hysterical." Yeah, we know...
source : themirror

Hung Up is now at #2 on TRL. Click here to vote for Madonna.

Thanks to Hector

Madonna spent years in a battle with a Belgian composer who eventually won a claim she had nicked parts of a song of his for her 1998 hit Frozen.
Now she could be in more hassle, over rights to a sample used on Get Together, a track from No1 album Confessions On A Dance Floor.
The song contains a disco riff by composer Dominic King. He originally lifted - with permission - part of CHAKA KHAN's Fate. The reworked sample was later used on Stardust's house hit Music Sounds Better With You.
source : thesun.co.uk

Madonna has held onto the top spot in both the UK album and singles charts.
Hung Up beat off competition in the singles chart to remain at number one for the third week in a row.
And Confessions On A Dancefloor stayed at number one in the album chart for a second week, preventing Will Young from claiming his third number one album.
The 26-year-old's new album, Keep On, had to make do with second place, nudging Take That's greatest hits collection down one place to three.
Former band-mate Robbie Williams stayed put at number four, with his latest album release Intensive Care, while Westlife dropped two places to five.
Aside from Young, the only other new entry in the Top 10 was Amarantine by Enya.
In the singles chart, the top three was a repeat performance of last week, with Irish group Westlife at two with You Raise Me Up and Black Eyed Peas' My Humps at three.
Girls Aloud's latest single Biology fell from four to five, making way for Simon Webbe from Blue's first solo single, No Worries, which climbed back up the charts.
The only new entries in the Top 10 were Dirty Harry, by Gorillaz, at six and Your Body by Tom Novy featuring Michael Marshall, at ten.
source : bbc

Madonna has revealed that the shooting of the latest documentary about her has made her want to follow film director husband Guy Ritchie behind the camera.
"I would love to direct," she said. "I felt very inspired by making this movie and I learned a lot about film-making.
"I would like to do it on my own next time," continued the singer, whose film I'm Going to Tell You a Secret will be shown on Channel 4 on 1 December.
Her latest album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, is top of the UK charts.
Madonna's comments are part of an interview due to be screened on Channel 4.

'Incredible ballerina'
In the programme, conducted by TV presenter Dermot O'Leary, the mother of two speaks proudly about her nine-year-old daughter Lourdes and five-year-old son, Rocco.
Viewers will see her describe Lourdes as "very musical".
"She sings quite well and she's an incredible ballerina," she says.
Earlier this month Madonna attended the London premiere of the new Harry Potter film with Lourdes, also known as Lola.
There, she revealed, her daughter was left speechless after a chance encounter with one of its stars, Emma Watson.
"In the middle of the movie she had to go to the bathroom," she told O'Leary.
"Hermione was in there washing her hands and Lola's jaw hit the ground."
But Madonna refused to discuss her recent riding accident, which left her with a broken collarbone and three cracked ribs.
"I don't want to go there - I get flashbacks," she said.
"I'm just starting to feel better."

source : bbc.co.uk

Madonna has become the first artist to have a simultaneous number one hit across Europe in every music format: single, album, download single and mobile phone ringtone.
The news, based on charts for Europe as a whole, points not only to the popularity of her single, Hung Up, and her album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, but also to the growing importance of new electronic media.
Warner Music, the US group behind Madonna, is placing more and more emphasis on so-called digital revenues from internet downloads and ringtones. Its most recent results show that digital revenues grew to $44m (£27m) in the three months to the end of June, accounting for 6 per cent of revenues, and up by 26 per cent on the previous quarter.
source : telegraph.co.uk

Madonna is nominated for Best Solo Artist, Best Single (for "Hung Up"), and Best Album (for "Confessions On A Dance Floor"). Click here to cast your votes.

Madge-related winning opportunity!
You'll need to sit down, readers, because we have such a brain-meltingly marvellous competition that you might keel over from excitement if we tell you too soon.
Right, are you sat down? Have you taken some deep breaths? Then we can reveal that we have 25 - count 'em! - tickets to the premiere of Madonna's documentary, 'I'm Going To Tell You A Secret'! To give away! To you!
More info here

This new Steven Klein picture is used for promo posters for Limited Edition of Confessions On A Dance Floor (Release Date : December 13)

Picture courtesy of Dago from MadonnaMad Forum.

Queen of Pop Madonna looks set for a second week on top of both the singles and album charts, according to early sales figures.
The star's latest hit 'Hung Up' looks set for a third week at the top of the singles chart in a quiet week for new entries.
According to the midweek chart, the only new entry inside the top 10 is Gorillaz' 'Dirty Harry' with new songs by Tom Novy, 50 Cent, Paul McCartney and Stereophonics set to chart further down the top 20.
In the album chart, Madonna's 'Confessions On a Dance Floor' is heading for number one, but faces stiff competition from Will Young's 'Keep On', which is at number two in the midweek chart.
Meanwhile, new entries are expected inside the top 10 from US alt-rockers System Of A Down and easy listening star Enya.

Midweek singles chart:
1. Madonna - Hung Up
2. Westlife - You Raise Me Up
3. Black Eyed Peas - My Humps
4. Girls Aloud - Biology
5. Simon Webbe - No Worries
6. Liberty X - A Night to Remember
7. Gorillaz - Dirty Harry
8. Craig David - Don't Love You No More
9. Will Young - Switch It On
10. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

source : virgin.net

On the eve of Thanksgiving, I have many blessings for which I am thankful. High on the list are you, my fans, whose devotion and passion have not gone unnoticed. Although my career has been filled with many highs, I do not take having a Number One album for granted. Confessions On A Dance Floor was a joy to make but having it debuted at No. 1 all over the world brings that joy to a whole new level. You may be proud of me but trust me, I could not be more proud and grateful to all of you for your continuous loyalty and support. I wish you all a beautiful Thanksgiving and I give thanks to each and every one of you.

Love, Madonna

source : madonna.com

Madonna has set the world dancing with the release of her phenomenal new Warner Bros. Records album, "Confessions On A Dance Floor," featuring the smash global hit, "Hung Up."

A bravura return to the iconic superstar's dance music roots, "Confessions On A Dance Floor" has swept the planet since its release on November 15th, debuting at Number One on Billboard Top 200 charts and repeating the feat in a staggering 24 other countries from Japan, Portugal, Spain and Australia to France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, the single "Hung Up" is setting charts everywhere ablaze, rocketing to the top spot in eight countries and ruling American dance charts for four weeks in a row. In the process it has joined the ranks of thirty-five number one dance singles from an artist who has single-handedly defined the genre across nearly two decades.

The MTV Networks (including MTV, VH1 and Logo) have been a huge part of the success of Madonna's new album. The "Hung Up" video, which reached number one on MTV's TRL for five consecutive days, while remaining in heavy rotation on both MTV (The Big 10) and VH1 (Gung Ho), further enhances Madonna's reputation as the premier video pioneer of our time.

It's a reputation spreading into digital realms as well, with three different configurations of "Confessions On A Dance Floor" currently holding three out of four top downloads spots on the iTunes Music store, while "Hung Up" is lodged at number one on iTunes overall singles chart. Altogether, the iTunes Music store sales represents nearly 10% of Madonna's overall CD sales. As a ringtone "Hung Up" is likewise making history since debuting a full month before its radio release, prompting millions of downloads across the world.

Racking up sales of over 350,000 units in the U.S. alone, "Confessions On A Dance Floor," joins Madonna's two previous albums, "Music" and "American Life," as her third straight number one debut. With a sound that evokes and embellishes all the excitement, energy and innovation that first set Madonna apart as dance music's all-time most original innovator, "Confessions On A Dance Floor," co-produced and co-written by Madonna and DJ wizard Stuart Price, is just the latest triumph from this incandescent superstar. Packing stadiums worldwide with her astonishing stage spectacles, Madonna has made music history with international sales of over 200 million albums. Her enormous influence has spanned six chart-topping albums and 46 Top 40 singles.

It's hardly surprising that fans around the world have taken the album to heart as a declaration of musical independence and identity. "Madonna has transformed herself so many times," observed Stephanie Rosenbloom in The New York Times, "that nearly every fan has seen a glimmer of herself, or himself, reflected in her at some point...To see even a part of yourself embraced by her, especially a part that you feel is marginalized, can be a heady validation."

With "Confessions On A Dance Floor" Madonna has offered glorious validation to our immemorial impulse to "dance for inspiration."

source : wb

Hung Up is still #1 on TRL. Click here and keep voting.

Hung Up is now at #7 on Billboard Hot 100 chart

1 (1) Brown - Chris Run It!
2 (2) Kanye West - Gold Digger
3 (3) Black Eyed Peas - My Humps
4 (4) Young Jeezy - Soul Survivour
5 (5) Nickelback - Photograph
6 (7) D4L - Laffy Taffy
7 (14) Madonna - Hung Up
8 (6) Sean Paul - We Be Burnin'
9 (8) Kelly Clarkson - Because Of You
10 (9) The PussyCat Dolls - StickWitU

This is Madonna's 36th single in Top 10, only Elvis Prisley has more (38).

Madonna notched another No. 1 album in Canada, but unlike her last effort, the sales figures were very impressive.
Her 14th disc "Confessions on a Dance Floor" debuted at the top of the charts on sales of 74,000, easily surpassing the numbers of 2003's "American Life", which sold 18,000 copies in its first week.
Madonna's previous albums, 2000's "Music" and 1998's "Ray Of Light," also debuted at the top of the charts with sales of 50,300 and 59,900 respectively.
"Confessions on a Dance Floor" surpassed Nickelback's "All the Right Reasons" (60,000) as the second best debut this year. Coldplay's "X&Y" continues to be the 2005 champion with first-week sales of 105,000.
source : canoe.ca

For the sixth time in her career, Madonna finds herself with an album in the No. 1 position on The Billboard 200. Her latest, "Confessions on a Dance Floor" (Warner Bros.), sold nearly 350,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, to bow on top of the chart.
"Confessions" is Madonna's third album in a row to top the chart, with "Music" and "American Life" preceding it. The new disc's first single "Hung Up" works its way into the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week.
source : billboard.com

It's not all that surprising that Madonna's Confessions on a Dance Floor " the Material Mom's first collection of fresh music in more than two years " opens atop the next Billboard albums chart, but it is something of a symbolic conquest. A top player in the game for more than two decades, Madonna has secured a spot among the most resilient pop-culture icons. But icon or not, bubbly "American Idol" victor Carrie Underwood and sultry diva Mariah Carey weren't about to just step aside and hand Madonna the Billboard championship belt. She was going to have to earn the win.

While Underwood came close, the latest "Idol" winner simply couldn't take the heat as Madonna scores her third-straight #1 debut (2000's Music took the top spot with close to 420,000 scans, while 2003's American Life finished at #1 with 240,000 plus). According to the latest SoundScan figures, Confessions sold close to 350,000 copies during its first week on record-store shelves, besting Underwood's debut, Some Hearts, by about 35,000 albums. Carey's The Emancipation of Mimi - Ultra Platinum Edition boosted the disc to #4 with 185,000 copies sold, right behind last week's #1, Kenny Chesney's The Road and the Radio, which slips to third with 191,000 plus scans.

source : mtv.com

Hung Up was #1 on TRL again. Click here and keep voting.

Madonna took a break from promoting her new album to sit down with Dermott O'Leary from UK's Channel 4 and discuss her latest documentary "I'm Going To Tell You A Secret". The hour long interview will air at 23:05 PM on Sunday November 27th. "I'm Going to Tell You A Secret" will appear in the UK on Channel 4 on December 1st at 21:00.

source : madonna.com

Confessions On A Dance Floor debuted at #1 in US with 344.061 copies sold !

01 (-) Madonna - Confessions On A Dance Floor - 344,061
02 (-) Carrie Underwood - Some Hearts - 303,300
03 (01) Kenny Chesney - The Road To The Radio - 183.928
04 (16) Mariah Carey - The Emancipation of Mimi - 182.873
05 (03) Various Artist - Now That's What I Call Music! - 165.254
...

2 HQ Pictures (Madonna in London, November 22nd 2005) are added to the gallery.

9 HQ Pictures (Madonna in LA, April 6th 2003) are added to the gallery.

Click on image bellow to download Hung Up on iTunes :

Tracklisting :
01 Hung Up (SDP Extended Vocal Edit)
02 Hung Up (Tracy Young's Get Up And Dance Groove Edit)
03 Hung Up (Bill Hamel Remix)
04 Hung Up (Chus & Ceballos Remix Edit)

source : itunes

Hung Up was still #1 on TRL today. Click here and keep voting.

Madonna is nominated for Best International Female Artist on 2005 NRJ Music Awards. Other nominees in this category are Mariah Carey, Shakira, Gwen Stefani and Natalie Imbruglia. Click here to visit their site and vote !

Here's the first picture of Confessions On A Dance Floor (Limited Edition)

Limited Edition includes 40 pages book and Bonus Track "Fighting Spirit"

Click here to pre-order it on Amazon.com.

picture from barnes&noble

Madonna finds a novel place for her mic as she strips down to a skin-tight pink leotard at London's G.A.Y. on Saturday.
The Queen of Pop " in fantastic shape at the age of 47 " whipped the crowd into a frenzy by ripping off her top during the five-song gig and popping the mic into her hotpants.
Thousands had screamed her name as Madge emerged from a huge glitter ball and then launched into Hung Up " the first track on her new album Confessions On A Dance Floor.
After pausing for breath the singer then dedicated the album to her huge gay faithful.
Some had waited for days outside just to catch a glimpse of their goddess.
To roars of appreciation she yelled: "I made this for you guys, just breathe in my air."
Teetering on black knee-high boots she performed other tracks from her new album, including Get Together and Let It Will Be, at the Astoria nightclub.
The sexy singer then dropped to her knees and writhed her body around the stage to another new track, I Love New York.
She told her pink posse of fans before the song: "I know London is my home but New York is where I grew up."
This spectacular came days after another Madonna "warm up" gig at Camden's Koko club " and it shows she still has more energy than any of her younger pretenders.
Hundreds of pink balloons dropped on to the sweaty, beaming crowd to end the show on Saturday " and to celebrate the return of her Madgesty.
source : thesun.co.uk

Madonna has added to her singles chart success by also seeing her Confessions On A Dance floor top the album chart.
The singer held on to her place at the top of the singles charts for the second week with dance track Hung Up.
In the album charts, Madonna denied 90s pop stars Take That's Never Forget - The Ultimate Collection the top spot.
Irish group Westlife stayed put at number two in the singles chart with You Raise Me Up and their Face To Face dropped to three in the album chart.
source : bbc.co.uk

HQ Pictures of Madonna's performance in G.A.Y. club are added to the gallery.

Video captures from Confessions On A Tour Documentory are added to the gallery.

More Video captures from BBC Children In Need are added to the gallery.

Madonna made a string of demands before performing at G-A-Y night in London's Astoria.
The Queen of Pop asked for her dressing room to be repainted and fitted with a soft carpet, requested huge amounts of English tea, fresh lemons and flowers to ensure that her room smelled nice, and wanted total silence while she prepared for the show.
"They went all out to make sure Madonna was treated like a queen," a source told The People. "The amount of money they spent on improvements was huge.
"Her people wanted the area as perfect as possible. They were adamant that there would be no disturbances. Everyone was ordered to keep quiet and as far away as possible."
The newspaper claims that Madonna was just as demanding before her Children In Need performance, apparently reacting in anger when her tea was served in a cup rather than a mug.
source : digitalspy.com

"Re-Invention" must be one of Madonna's favorite words. It was the title of her 2004 tour, and the news release for her latest album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor" (Warner Bros.), proclaims that the record "re-invents dance music for a new generation."
It doesn't say what generation that is, and she doesn't seem to be reinventing so much as retrenching. After the drubbing that met 2003's dour, sonically spare "American Life," she has scampered back to the shelter of the place she knows best: the grand, gaudy, glittering embrace of the discotheque.
"Confessions" is disco with a vengeance, a whomping, unapologetically air-headed engine of stroboscopic beats and succulent textures that exhumes dance music's time-honored values of celebration and affirmation.
What better way to signal this slant than with a sample of ABBA, whose "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" forms the spine for the party-starting "Hung Up"? From there, each track blends into the next in a riot of guilty pleasures, produced with invention and flair by Madonna and such collaborators as Stuart Price, Mirwais Ahmadzai and Bloodshy & Avant.
"Confessions" has a bratty ode to New York City, tales of forbidden love and futuristic love, empowerment anthems and an ethno-trance diversion into Kabbalah-centric introspection -- but it's short on confessions. When she does go into self-serious mode, the album loses its charm.
There's something almost wishful about the sentiments of the closing "Like It or Not," in which Madonna strikes a pose of puffed-up defiance. "This is who I am / You can like it or not / You can love me or leave me / 'cause I'm never gonna stop," she sings, as if people still got worked up about her the way they did back when she was the shock goddess pulling everybody's chain.
The world has moved on to other villains and heroes. Madonna should be happy there's a vacancy for a disco diva, and for most of this album she seems to be.
source : news&observer

With 'Hung Up' at number one and her new album also set to storm to the top of the charts, Madonna has taken back her crown as the undisputed queen of pop. Simon Garfield talks to her about her faith, her family and her ever-changing image. And she explains why, at 47, she has returned to her disco roots

'Have you brought three machines?' asks Madonna as I get out my tape recorder.

No, why?

'In case they don't work.'

In fact, there is recording equipment everywhere. Madonna is sitting on a stool in her producer's tiny home studio in West Kilburn, London, her feet resting by cables, her hands within reach of the keyboards and guitars and microphones that made her new album. She can also touch Stuart Price, the English producer who converted his loft into this studio a few years ago with the money he got from a publishing deal. He says that the walls are so thin that Madonna's new record may accidentally contain the sound of a neighbour weeping.

Price is 28, 19 years younger than Madonna. They started working together four years ago, when Madonna was looking for a keyboard player for a world tour and heard the DJ/remixing work Price conducted under the names Jacques Lu Cont and Les Rythmes Digitales. He then became her musical director, rearranging studio tracks for live performances, and they wrote a song together, called 'X-Static Process', that appeared on her last album. 'Writing is a very intimate thing,' Madonna says, 'especially when you write lyrics and sing them in front of someone for the first time. It's like a really embarrassing situation. To me, singing is almost like crying, and you have to really know someone before you can start crying in front of them.' She looks at her collaborator. 'Before now I just didn't feel that I knew you well enough. I wasn't 100 per cent confident in your songwriting skills, if I may be so honest.'

Stuart Price: And you were right.

Madonna: I liked this space, but I didn't think you were ready. The amount that you've grown from that record to this one is huge. But I only intended to write a few songs with you. I intended to do the bulk of the record with Mirwais [Ahmadzai, the producer of her last two albums Music and American Life], and then it turned out to go in the other direction, because the first song resonated so monstrously.

SP: 'Hung Up'.

M: And that song made up my mind in which musical direction to go in. Until then I had done an entire soundtrack to a musical called Hello Suckers, and that didn't pan out because I decided I didn't want to do it. Then I decided to write a musical with Luc Besson, with him doing the screenplay. So I started a whole new chunk of songs, and then I read the script and I hated it, and I thought, 'That's crap, let's scrap that'. And then I was exhausted. We finished the tour, and my record company was like, 'You owe us an album', and I was, 'I don't have any more ideas, I'm tapped out'. So I came over here to work experimentally, and because that song turned out so great, I said, 'OK, that's it, I'm making all dance music'.

She is wearing a black suit with pinstripes, and pointy black leather boots. Her hair is parted in the centre and straight, but the next day it will be made to look like Farrah Fawcett for her video for 'Hung Up'. People asked me afterwards whether I liked her, and I really liked her. She was in a great mood and laughed a lot. Some of the time she performed stretching exercises with her hands, which she said was an attempt to get back into shape after her recent riding accident.

M: The entire time I was recording the album I was also editing a documentary film that I've just finished, and that was a very painful... It's called I'm Going to Tell You a Secret and it's not a conventional documentary. It's cinematic, it's like a journal. I was flying to Stockholm every other week to work on the edit, then coming back here, and it was very difficult, taking 350 hours of film and putting it into two hours. I was so wiped out by it.

SP: So working on the record came to be a respite.

M: It was the antidote for the stress of that film. It was, 'I want to dance, I want to feel free, buoyant, happy, placated', and so I'm going to come up to this little white room with lots of cables and I'm going to do that.

OMM: The new record sounds modern, but there's a lot of your early years in the New York clubs that have gone into it. That dance floor hitting you when you were... how old?

M: God, 20, 21. Yes, my original impulse was to make music in the first place. I used to go to this club in New York, Danceteria, and I kept bringing my demos to the DJ, so all music for me begins with the DJ taking my first record, 'Everybody', and thinking it's good enough to play to everyone to dance to.

When I first moved to New York I wanted to be a dancer, I danced professionally for years, living a hand-to-mouth existence. I never tapped into nightlife, all I knew was dancers, we went to bed early and got up early and went to free concerts at the Lincoln Center and Shakespeare in the Park. Then I met this guy, as one does, and he brought me to a nightclub and I was like, 'Wow'.

It was called Pete's Place. In one room was John Lurie and the Lounge Lizards and all these guys who looked like Forties movie stars, and all the girls looked like Fifties movie stars and had perfect eyeliner, and I was like wearing my dance clothes, and I brought a book with me, just in case I got bored. It was an F Scott Fitzgerald book. I thought, 'You never know...'. And that was my introduction to dance music. I thought, 'Oh my God, are there other places like this?' I didn't know you could just walk into a club and start dancing by yourself. I thought someone had to ask you.

OMM: What an innocent girl you were.

SP: Hard to believe.

M: You can just dance for six hours and nobody will bother you and you don't have to drink. I felt an incredible sense of liberation, and I felt happier. That sense of freedom and feeling independent. I was used to dancing, but only when someone told you what to do. So in the nightclub I was all over the place, I combined everything. Street dance, modern dance, a bit of jazz and ballet, I was Twyla Tharp, I was Alvin Ailey, I was Michael Jackson. I didn't care, I was free. There was nothing fun or glamorous about my life and I needed some excitement. And believe me, there were a lot cooler people there than me. They were wearing black and not moving much, and I was giving everyone the retarded tingles.

The new album is called Confessions on a Dance Floor, and the tracks have been sequenced together to run as one continuous piece of music. The idea was to create a record that resembles the score of a musical, with recurring themes, combined with the feel of an hour at a nightclub. The predominant marketing image on the album artwork and advertising spreads is of a Seventies disco glitterball and a pop star keen on the Jane Fonda workout look. She sings about the usual things, which inevitably means singing about the saga of being Madonna: her quest for understanding, for a deeper truth beyond the trappings of fame, for a spiritual light in the darkness. There aren't many 'confessions', but there's plenty of self-assertion. The record is the closest Madonna has got to a concept album, and the concept is simplicity.

M: I tried to do some other stuff with Mirwais but it didn't resonate. I always kept wanting to run back to Stuart's studio.

SP: The escape pod.

M: Yes. You meet somebody, and you're already going out with somebody else, so you say 'Hi' and you have this fantastic date with them, and when you go back to this other person you're with all you can do is think about that other new person. I couldn't stop thinking about how fun it was to work with Stuart. It took me a minute to decide which boyfriend I wanted to have.

Have you ever met Mirwais? Jean-Paul Sartre comes to mind. He's very intellectual, very analytical, very cerebral, very existential, very philosophical. You have to be in the mood for it. I didn't want to over-think things too much. I don't want to be complicated now.

OMM: You feel that happened with American Life?

M: Yes. It didn't happen when we first worked together, on Music, but on American Life we both got into a sort of...

SP: Vortex.

M: We both got sucked into the French existentialist vortex. We both decided we were against the war, and we both smoked Gauloises and wore berets, and we were against everything. No, it's about the universe conspiring. With the last album I was in a very thoughtful mood, a very angry mood, a mood to be political, very upset with George Bush.

OMM: But now you're happier?

M: It's just that I did that already. I don't need to be going on about the war in Iraq. I made a lot of political statements in my show and in my film. I don't want to repeat myself, so I moved to another area and that's 'God, I really feel like dancing right now'. It was too intense. It's not just a reaction to what I was doing work-wise, but also a reaction to what was going on in the world. I just wanted some relief.

OMM: Fuck Art, Let's Dance?

M: What?

OMM: Used to be on T-shirts in the Seventies.

M: It's fuck everything, let's dance.

OMM: There seem to be a lot of references to your earlier records on it.

M: Really? Please tell us which ones. We listened to a lot of other people's records when we were making this - obviously Abba and Giorgio Moroder - so to me it's more of an homage to other people's records than mine. If there are references to earlier records it's probably done unknowingly, part of our molecular structure, it comes out again and again, hopefully not too boringly and repetitive.

I couldn't have made this record anywhere else but up here. Where you record is very important. It can't be too nice, it can't be too expensive, it can't have a view to an ocean or a field. I'd rather be in a prison cell with Pro Tools. I don't want to know what's going on in the rest of the world. I want it to be exactly as it was when I wrote my first song. In a small space with hardly any frills, I want it always to be straightforward. I can't deal with the pressure of how much things cost. Otherwise I think, 'Oh God, I've got to turn out 12 number one hits to justify how much the space costs.'

OMM: If I heard that from anyone else I might believe it.

M: What can I say? That's how I think. I loved lying on that couch with my notebook writing stuff and then crawling over to do the vocals. Every vocal I did here we also tried somewhere else and it didn't work. Other people who contributed to this record, we'd meet in this much larger, characterless space in Primrose Hill, and I would be totally missing the vibe that was necessary, and so I'd take what I did there and say 'thank you very much', and then run back here and say, 'Stuart, you've got to help me fix this. Help me'.

All the songs are to a lesser or greater extent biographical. 'How High' is obviously asking the question, how important is fame and how much does it matter? And what really does matter?

OMM: These are questions you must have asked yourself for 20 years. Have you reached any conclusions?

M: Sure, although my point of view and philosophy continues to change and grow. As the years go by you go through this evolution. You think, 'Oh my God, having a song on the radio and being number one is the most important thing in the world', and then that happens for a while and then you get the shit kicked out of you and you think, 'I can't deal with this', and you go into introspection mode and then you come through the other side. You realise that having a number one record and being loved and adored isn't the most important thing in the world. But at the same time, I don't have a problem with it. What I'm trying to say is, I'm not a reluctant pop star. I'm very grateful and happy for everything that I have and for things when they go well. On the other hand, I've had enough of the other side to know that if it doesn't, I will survive that and life goes on.

At the end of the day when I'm standing at the golden gates, I'm sure God doesn't give a shit how many records I've sold or how many number one hits I've had. All he gives a shit about is how I behaved, how I treated people. So understanding that, and still doing my best making records, is the conclusion I've come to. I think about that more now than I used to.

OMM: Do things hurt you still? You've had...

M: Anything and everything written about me. Honestly, I don't read newspapers, magazines, whatever. They're just not part of my lexicon. I don't want to be manipulated, or manipulated about other people's work. I don't want to be told how I should think or how I should receive things, and even when you know that the press writes a lot of shit about people, you're still tainted and influenced by it. I'm trying to remove that from my life. Also, I don't want to see pictures of myself with sarcastic quotes underneath. Even if it just pinches me for 30 seconds, I don't want it.

Before doing any interviews I like to know who I'm meeting with and get a bit of an idea of their sensibilities, so consequently I've read lots of reviews of my last tour, and all of them were really negative. They were, 'Oh it's not very good, not very exciting, not anywhere near as good as Blonde Ambition', which I'm sure they slagged off. Now I couldn't give a shit, but thank God I didn't read it when I was on tour.

OMM: Elvis Costello said that the worst thing would be to read something by an influential critic and then let it affect what you do. So if they don't like a particular direction you're going in, you think, 'Well, maybe I shouldn't be doing it'. And then you realise: why on earth is this guy deciding my career path?

M: Exactly. You have this inner struggle within yourself all the time, this pendulum that swings between you caring [what people think] and not caring. It's not important, but on the other hand the media is something that affects a lot of people, so you're constantly trying to strike a balance between respecting something and not caring about it. Let's talk about economics: I know there's a lot of competition in the world of magazines and newspapers and we have to make headlines and be sensational and sell, and saying bad things about me is going to sell more papers than writing good things about me.

OMM: But does it have an affect on you still?

M: It used to have a huge effect, but I'm so used to people slagging me off. Since the beginning of my career I've been told I have no talent, I can't sing and I'm a one-hit wonder. That was 22 years ago.

OMM: You really seemed to surprise people with your performance on Live8.

M: Lots of people called me. I was kind of surprised. I mean, it wasn't the first time I've ever done a show.

SP: It was the only time the backstage area cleared out to watch someone.

The studio door opens. Angela Becker, her personal manger, has bought drinks from Starbucks.

M: This is Chai Latte. I'm off coffee now because I'm on homeopathics. For my eight broken bones.

OMM: All healed now?

M: Not all. I have one rib that has not formed a union, as they call it in the mysterious world of orthopaedics. But all my other bones - there's cellular fibrous tissue that has joined them together, but my collar bone is still a bit of a problem. I can't lift my arm over my head yet, but I'm doing lots of rehab. Lots. I can't lift it above here...but I can still slap you.

OMM: It's like that Tommy Cooper joke. You know, quaint English humour.

M: I like quaint English humour.

OMM: You know Tommy Cooper?

M: The comedian.

OMM: Yes, died on stage and everyone thought it was part of the act. Did terrible magic tricks. And he used to tell this great joke; man goes to a doctor and says, lifting his arm a bit, 'It hurts when I do that,' and the doctor says, 'Well, don't do it then'.

M: Uh. [Tumbleweed.]

OMM: So where were we?

M: Talking bollocks.

OMM: That song on the new album, 'I Love New York'.

SP: That was written on tour at a soundcheck.

M: After an excellent police escort. The song is ironic! I love London. Please embrace my irony.

OMM: You diss London and LA and Paris. ['If you don't like my attitude, then you can eff off/ Just go to Texas, isn't that where they golf?/ New York is not for little pussies who scream.']

M: Funnily enough, I live in all those places. Well, I don't live in Paris, by the way. But let's face it, with New York, it's like putting your finger in a socket. When I walk down the street anywhere people say, 'Oh, there's Madonna', but in New York the cops are like, 'Hey, you're back'. It feels like I've come home.

OMM: What happens when you walk around here?

M: Here? I don't walk around here! I live in Marble Arch, and everyone's Saudi, everyone wears a veil and nobody pays any attention to me. If people notice me in London they don't make such a big deal about it.

SP: Oh, believe me, they notice you.

M: In New York they shout, 'I don't like the hair colour!' Here, they'll make their judgments but keep them to themselves.

I'm Going to Tell You a Secret will be shown on Channel 4 in December and then made available on DVD. It combines a backstage journal of the last tour with meditations on her spiritual quest for a good way to live her life. It ends with Madonna's trip to Israel last year to learn more about Kabbalah, and the closing shot is of an Israeli child and a Palestinian child walking down a road together. It's a political and revealing movie, and it provides a less artful insight into her world than her last tour movie Truth or Dare more than a decade ago.

It is particularly revealing about the scenes Madonna has chosen not to remove, not least the sequences with her children and husband Guy Ritchie. In one scene, Madonna and her kids are trying out the bed in her suite at the George V hotel in Paris: 'Who's the Queen, Rocco?' she asks her five-year-old son. 'You, you, YOU!' Rocco replies. In another, Lourdes, who is eight, teaches her mother how to say 'let me tell you a secret' in French; Lourdes tells the camera she's looking forward to the tour ending so she can see more of her mother. In a limo after a show, Madonna is upset that her husband has attended so few of her gigs, and doesn't believe his explanations. 'I got married for all the wrong reasons,' she says. 'My husband did not turn out to be the person I imagined him to be... There is no such thing as the perfect soulmate. Your soulmate is the person who pushes all your buttons, pisses you off on a regular basis and makes you face your shit. It is not easy having a good marriage, but I don't want easy.'

Stuart Price, who is in the film as much as Ritchie, appears in an early scene telling Madonna a joke, which she loves: 'What's so great about fucking twenty eight year-olds?' Answer: 'There are 20 of them.' Later, Madonna asks: 'What's the difference between a terrorist and a pop star? You can negotiate with a terrorist.'

'Hopefully people will see the film,' Stuart Price told me after a screening, 'and realise that M is actually one of the kindest and most personable people you could hope to meet, and not the lunatic most people think she is.'

OMM: It's interesting that you're not slowing down.

M: Hell no. It's probably the sign of a very sick person. Part of it is a true desire to grow and a searching, and part of is just good old-fashioned obsessive-compulsive behaviour. Everyone who knows me thinks I'm a bit of a work Nazi.

OMM: And you're keen to ensure that your children aren't slowing you down. You know that Sylvia Plath or Cyril Connolly or Cyril Knowles quote about the pram in the hall being the enemy of creativity and promise?

M: There's a thing I say in the film when I'm with all the musicians and dancers and it's the last show and I'm saying goodbye, and I've got my eyes closed and I start crying. Where I cry is when I say I feel the pull between my family and my creative life, and the struggle to keep it all balanced and to do it all right. It's a struggle, and I know where Sylvia Plath is coming from, to a certain extent, though I'm not as depressed as her. I was obsessed with her when I was in high school. The Bell Jar is my bible.

OMM: So if you didn't have kids...

M: My work probably wouldn't be as good. Having children made me go down a road of serious introspection and self-examination. I think it's informed and hopefully enhanced my creativity.

OMM: How do they like your music?

M: My son likes songs here and there. He's really into Usher and he likes R&B. He does the bump to it in the playroom. He's actually quite a good dancer. My daughter is a fan of mine but she doesn't want to be too obvious about it because I'm her mum and it's not cool. So she loves Beyonce and what's that boy group that every English girl's obsessed with?

SP and OMM: Backstreet Boys? McFly? Blue? Westlife?

M: No, get with it. This is pathetic.

OMM: What about your husband? He doesn't seem to me to be a Disco Queen.

M: No, he's not. In fact, he stormed out of the room when I played him some of these tracks. He thought it was 'shit'.

OMM: What does he like?

M: He likes Irish folk music, OK? I don't know the names of it, it's not something you hear on the radio. He likes songs with stories, pub music.

OMM: What do you listen to now?

M: I like film soundtracks. Incessantly I listen to Talk to Her, 2046, Frida and The Hours. I like the soundtracks better than the movies.

OMM: Did you see the Frida Kahlo show at Tate Modern?

M: Yes. Two of my paintings were in it. I'm waiting for them to come back.

OMM: But they don't say 'Property of Madonna' in the way that some of the Edward Hopper paintings had 'Property of Steve Martin' underneath?

M: Perhaps they should say 'Property of a Pop Star'. I think they just say 'Private Collection'. I did go to the show - kind of depressing.

OMM: Presumably there will be a tour next year?

M: Probably the Confessions Tour or Confess Your Sins Tour.

SP: In a live performance you realise within 30 seconds whether something's working or not. In a studio you can disappear into this intellectual, er...

M: Wank.

SP: Wank, yes. You can think you're making something really meaningful but in a live arena it just won't translate. So when we were working on stuff here I would play the tracks when I was DJing and nobody would know what it was and you could see how things were actually working from the reaction.

M: That was one thing we did on this record that I haven't had the luxury of doing before. Because Stuart DJs all over the world we tried it all out - dub versions so they wouldn't know it was me or there would only be a strain of my vocal in the background. I even made him film things for me on his telephone so I could see the crowd reaction.

SP: It just looks like Sodom and Gomorrah. If the reaction wasn't instant we'd go back and change the tracks.

M: If only I could do everything like that - anonymously.

OMM: What do you want the new album to achieve?

M: I just want people to hear it and go 'Oh my God'. I want it to lift people up and get them dancing round their house, driving round in their car until the record's finished. It's really simple. I just want to make people happy.

A few weeks after we spoke, with her bones healed, she emerged from beneath a glitterball to sing 'Hung Up' at the MTV Europe awards in Lisbon. The dance routine left her a little breathless, but she was clearly having a good time. Later in the show she gave Bob Geldof an award for his humanitarian work, and her presentation speech was as genuine as these things can be; Geldof had found a way to make a difference beyond music, something Madonna wished to do herself.

But for the time being, there was a disco album to promote, and when the MTV show was over she turned her attention to an intimate gig in Mornington Crescent, north London. Koko, formerly the Camden Palace, was the venue for Madonna's first appearance in the capital in 1983, and on her return on Tuesday night she performed as though there might still be things to prove. 'It is so fucking good to be back,' she said, not long before she started headbanging.

It was a great little show. Her clothes were mauve, the glitterball spun, Stuart Price and the other musicians looked like a Seventies covers band in their white suits. She started by singing 'Hung Up', her new number one, and followed that with three other songs from the album, which at that point in the week was outselling its nearest competitor three-to-one. She introduced 'I Love New York' with the explanation that it was where she learnt to survive. Ultimately, Madonna said, 'it's all about survival.'

The queen of pop: then & now

1990

· The 32-year-old Madonna was at the peak of her popularity and powers.

· Her Blonde Ambition tour, featuring costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier (including the notorious gold cone bra), travelled the world. During 'Like a Virgin', she humped a bed on stage, rubbing herself in an entertaining act of faux masturbation.

· She starred, too, in the film Dick Tracy, alongside her new lover, screen legend Warren Beatty. That year, Beatty is rumoured to have proposed marriage, but their relationship soon burnt out.

· In November, she released her greatest hits package, The Immaculate Collection, which contained eight chart-topping songs. It went on to sell 18 million copies worldwide.

· The album also contained a new song, 'Justify My Love'. MTV decreed that the accompanying video was 'religiously and sexually offensive' and promptly banned it.

· In 1991, a documentary charting the Blonde Ambition tour was released Truth or Dare (retitled In Bed With Madonna in the UK). The film included scenes of her fellating a wine bottle.

2005

· The 47-year-old Madonna is at the peak of her popularity and powers once more.

· Her Live8 performance was considered one of the highlights of the show at Hyde Park. She appeared on stage with 24-year-old Birhan Woldu, a victim of the Ethiopian famine that inspired the original Live Aid.

· She has been married for almost five years to Brit-flick director Guy Ritchie. They have a five-year-old son, Rocco, while Madonna has a daughter, Lourdes, nine, from her previous relationship with Carlos Leon.

· This month, she released her 11th album, Confessions on a Dancefloor. Produced by Stuart Price, it features the chart-topping single 'Hung Up', and signals a return to her Eighties disco roots.

· Madonna now lives principally in Britain, with a house in London and a country manor in Dorset. She is a keen horse-woman and wearer of Barbour jackets.

· Next month, her latest documentary, I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, will be screened in the UK. The film covers her 2004 Re-Invention tour and includes much discussion of her faith in Kabbalah.

· 'Confessions on a Dance Floor' (Warner Bros) is available now. 'I'm Going to Tell You a Secret' is on Channel 4 on December 4.

source : the observer (thanks to hector)

Madonna is poised to confirm her Queen of Pop reputation by topping both the singles and albums charts this weekend.
Her hot new LP, Confessions On A Dance Floor, has sold nearly 250,000 copies since going on sale on Monday and is poised to become the biggest-selling album of the year.
However the debut album of Potty Pete Doherty's new band Babyshambles has failed to spark much enthusiasm among music lovers since also being released on Monday. Down In Albion is poised to enter the chart at around No 6.
Meanwhile Madonna's single, Hung Up, has sold nearly twice as many copies as Westlife's You Raise Me Up, confirming her superstar status.
Gennaro Castaldo, of music retailers HMV, said Madonna's achievement was a fantastic double and showed that she was worthy of her place in the pantheon of pop royalty.
He said: "Both the album and her single Hung Up have been a massive event in the shops. We have struggled to fill the shelves back up quickly enough. She is a real superstar, the mere mention of her name causes a frenzy.
"It will be a double number one and the strange thing is Westlife will now have the honour of a double number two.
"Madge has another huge hit on her hands here. Everybody is humming the single and I have not read a bad review of the album.
"On the other hand Babyshambles will only appeal to a small fan base."
source : lse.co.uk

Madonna gave a dazzling performance last night as the BBC's Children in Need appeal got under way.
The Queen of Pop, wearing a silver sparkling 1970s style dress, sang her No1 hit Hung Up, upstaging bands half her age with her energetic performance.
source : dailyrecord

Video captures from BBC Children In Need are added to the gallery.

Video captures from ABC Primetime are added to the gallery.

The BBC telethon Children in Need has raised more than £17.2m during the annual fund-raiser.
The total is slightly higher than last year and is expected to grow to more than £30m when all donations are in.
Live performances from Madonna and Girls Aloud helped kept the public digging deep into their pockets throughout the 26th fund-raising extravaganza on Friday night.
A specially-written Doctor Who scene boosted the total even further as the seven-hour television marathon, hosted by familiar favourite Terry Wogan with Natasha Kaplinsky and Fearne Cotton, built to its crescendo.
Every penny raised goes directly to children and young people in need across the UK.
Liberty X kicked off the celebrations in the studio just after 7pm with the official BBC Children in Need single A Night to Remember, while a host of famous acts including Status Quo and Girls Aloud performed at a concert at RAF Brize Norton.
The appeal raised a record £34.2 million last year, £2.8 million more than in 2003.
source : ap

Madonna has spoken for the first time about her terrifying horse-riding fall and revealed: "My whole skeleton collapsed".
The singer broke her collar bone, ribs and hand in last August's accident.
Mum-of-two Madge, 47, fell after a friend persuaded her to ride a polo horse at her Wiltshire estate on her birthday. "I said I didn't really know how to ride a polo horse but my friend said: 'He's so tame'."
Madonna, with husband Guy Ritchie and friends, had only been riding a few months.
She added: "So I go on, and he went crazy and I went down. I was thinking 'I'm graceful, I'm a dancer, I'm going to land, I'm going to roll and it's going to be fine'."
Instead, she fell heavily on the hard ground. Madonna told US show Primetime: "I tried to stand up and my whole skeleton collapsed on me and I fainted." The accident nearly derailed Madonna's new album Confessions On A Dance Floor. She said: "I cried a lot, mostly from pain. When you can't set bones it's painful."
source : mirror.co.uk

Video captures from MTV Making Of Hung Up video are added to the gallery.

A Belgian songwriter has won a court battle against pop star Madonna after accusing her of plagiarising one of his songs for her 1998 hit single, "Frozen", his lawyer said on Friday.
Salvatore Acquaviva's lawyer said a court in the southern Belgian town of Mons had ordered the country's music stores to withdraw the record from their shelves within the next 15 days.
The court also ordered radio and television stations to stop playing the song, he said.
"(They) cannot broadcast the work 'Frozen' ... under pain of a 150,000-euro fine," he told the local radio network, RTBF.
It was not immediately clear if damages were awarded to Acquaviva.
The single comes from Madonna's "Ray of Light" album of the same year.
source : reuters