Your favorite Madonna album VS. your favorite Joni Mitchell album

I'd rather gouge out my ear drums with rusty nails, but honestly .... Madonna handily wins this one.

...and I'd go with True Blue.

I don't think there's a single Madonna album I can stand to listen to all the way through (maybe Like a Virgin?) and Joni has several so yeah Joni. I just like the sound of her records more. A lot of Madonna's stuff just sounds like shit - bad synths, bad drums, thin voice, etc.

waht

Prefer Madonna's songs, but Joni made better albums.

Holiday > Blue > any madonna album

I've listened to my favorite Madonna album more than my favorite Joni. Erotica and maybe LAP are the only ones that work as consistent full-lengths.

joni joni joni

but her over 99% of recorded music period so

btw Madonna's favorite album growing up was Court & Spark.

madonna

don't get me wrong I don't really have anything against Madonna, she's okay and obviously a fascinating cultural figure, but the actual music tends to just sound really cheap and crappy to my ears. sonically, the awkward transition from analog to digital that was going on in pop music during the 80s/early 90s resulted in a lot of weak sounding shit, and Madonna's albums suffer from that insofar as they are all very much "of their time". The time didn't sound very good, imho.

Mitchell's particular antipathy for Madonna is amazing coming from someone whose pals were all conspicuous West Coasters who never stopped pimping for magazines.

yeah Mitchell's criticism of Madonna for pimping out her sexuality is very uh waht pot callin the kettle black a bit there...

I don't see how Joni doesn't take this in a landslide.

because she is old and boring?

starting a Destiny's Child vs. Killing Joke poll in revenge for Alex's wrong-ass vote & reasoning on this thread

gays and people born after 1980 duh

xp

xps: like, yes she's a very important musical figure blah blah blah whatever, her actual songs are by and large things that I never, ever, ever want to hear, ever, in practically any context/situation

like, yes she's a very important musical figure blah blah blah whatever, her actual songs are by and large things that I never, ever, ever want to hear, ever, in practically any context/situation

hmm this is pretty much how I feel about Madonna haha

But you can dance to Madonna, so she wins by default.

...and I'd go with True Blue.

This. Handily.

But you can dance to Madonna, so she wins by default.

eh, not my brand of dance music tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q4foLKDlcE

WOO! BOGGIE DOWN!

btw that is not a typo, I fully expect you all to boggie down to this because you certainly can't boogie down to it

also she was really a fantastic singer

Hmmm. I have never listened to an album by either of these people. Maybe I should.

I'm not quite sure Mitchell is a person.

growing to enjoy joni after years of antipathy but I still enjoy You Can Dance (if we're allowed count comps) more than most albums ever. and joni comps all have "big yellow taxi" on them.

One of my biggest disappointments was buying the Joni Mitchell album that Jaco Pastorius played on and realizing that Joni Mitchell was still on it.

Did Joni ever write a prettier and more moving song than Little Green?

madonna should do a dulcimer record like when sting rocked the lute

Unfair poll. Please delete.

Did Joni ever write a prettier and more moving song than Little Green?

Yes. And Madonna has too!

Okay Joni + Madonna gorgeousness...pick only one?

I've come to realize that the main reason "Big Yellow Taxi" bothers me so much is because the note she sings on "gone" in the chorus is boring third of the chord that just sort of splats there with no momentum as opposed to a more interesting, dissonant fourth that would also tie the line directly into the first chord of the phrase "they paved paradise" since it's a note in that chord.

Few other people probably have this problem but I felt like sharing.

Hmmm. I have never listened to an album by either of these people. Maybe I should.

you really should!

this is one of those choices i genuinely can't make. can't even begin to compare them qualitatively, wouldn't know how or where to start.

"Justify My Love" vs "In France They Kiss on Main Street"

because she is old and boring?

― Marriage, that's where I'm a Viking! (HI DERE), Monday, April 26, 2010 6:00 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

RIGHT, BECAUSE MADONNA IS STILL MUSICALLY VITAL AND ETERNALLY YOUNG AND FASCINATING o_O

xp if you sing/imagine/follow along with the chorus, it's really easy to empathise with HI DERE. My problem is that I can't summon from my brain what a fourth would sound like in that context..I definitely don't have perfect pitch.

Joni Mitchell was always old and boring though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a5tNWKz9p0

OH OK so that's settled.

the first two minutes of that clip do wonders for reconsidering Madonna as old and boring.

xps: like, yes she's a very important musical figure blah blah blah whatever, her actual songs are by and large things that I never, ever, ever want to hear, ever, in practically any context/situation

― Marriage, that's where I'm a Viking! (HI DERE), Monday, April 26, 2010 6:01 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

^this

i've listened to waaaaaaay more madonna than joni over the years, but now....? hmmm, i was really digging hegira a couple months ago. first time i had ever heard it!

see, also, i really only was a madonna fan up to and including ray of light and the idea of listening to her newer stuff doesn't thrill me. i've heard all her old stuff a million times, but there is some joni i've never heard and that i might like.

which doesn't answer the question at all. i'm a big fan of madonna's singles. i just counted 40 singles - on her wiki page - by madonna that i like or love a lot. 40! joni can't compete with that.

A fair, potentially useful poll would be Joni Mitchell albums vs. Madonna singles.

xp if you sing/imagine/follow along with the chorus, it's really easy to empathise with HI DERE. My problem is that I can't summon from my brain what a fourth would sound like in that context..I definitely don't have perfect pitch.

The note I'm thinking of is a half-step up from the one she is singing.

xp yes although a different way of saying that would be that even many of her earlier songs seem to come from this 'mature' feeling, wizened perspective. Maybe a bit of a generalisation but Madonna's earliest music in comparison feels perpetually carefree and youthful.

I've come to realize that the main reason "Big Yellow Taxi" bothers me so much is because the note she sings on "gone" in the chorus is boring third of the chord that just sort of splats there with no momentum as opposed to a more interesting, dissonant fourth that would also tie the line directly into the first chord of the phrase "they paved paradise" since it's a note in that chord.

actually this is exactly the sort of thing that she took the most interest in post-Blue - her vocal lines became more and more about exploring territory outside of I/III/IV/V - Court and Spark has a lot of the last gasps of traditional pop melody stuff and by Hejira it sounds (to me) like she's trying to voice the pinkie finger of Bill Evans's right hand (what's she hitting on "-wayyy" in the chorus of "Coyote"- a 2nd I think maybe? it's one of my favorite things about her, how she grew out of one melodic tendency, really seemed to challenge herself to learn new ways of approaching vocal melody

also I like Madonna fine but her very finest work sucks compared to Joni imo

Erotica vs. Hejira, with the former winning. That said, second, third and fourth favorites pitted against each other would be much closer contests.

i don't think it does. but that's what makes us all snowflakes on god's green earth.

x-post

joni means a lot to me.

i like madonna, but blue and hejira and the hissing of summer lawns and court & spark just mean so much more to me.

joni fans think they are better than me. and they block the aisles at the co-op market like i don't even exist.

What M@tt said. My earliest musical memory is hearing The Circle Game.

it's the cry test for me - I cannot imagine crying in response to any Madonna song, whereas JM records get me bawling in no time flat

really this thread is ballin' vs. bawling

for you it's the cry test, for me it's the dance test

maybe I've always been a bad goth but dancing is way more important/vital/critical to my well-being than crying

Songs to a Seagull > Clouds > Ladies of the Canyon > Blue > For the Roses > Court and Spark

Untouchable series of albums.

and anyway "Live To Tell" should do the trick (crying, that is; maybe you can ball to it too).

oh you can totally ball to it

oh maybe I've said too much

yeah if it was dance test for me it'd be Madonna no question but I can dance to all kinds of stuff & get roughly equivalent pleasure from it whereas the stuff that can fuck me up is really precious & there's only so much of it, and a good % of it is by JM

i don't believe in any kind of blanket statements

saying that "music you can dance to" is the just the flip side of geir type nonsense.

nothing is true all the time.

not that i couldn't understanding preferring madonna, me liking joni is just my personal experience.

HI DERE,

don't you like opera music a lot?

it's the cry test for me - I cannot imagine crying in response to any Madonna song, whereas JM records get me bawling in no time flat

really this thread is ballin' vs. bawling

― brad whitford's guitar explorations (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, April 26, 2010 7:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see, it's actually the opposite for me. there are certain madonna songs that always make me cry. joni, for all her emotion, just doesn't move me the same way. the fragility in her songs is too quaint, or something.

xpost Alfred I don't mean to step on any toes but "Live to Tell" just makes me lol & lol

Quaint????

it's the cry test for me - I cannot imagine crying in response to any Madonna song, whereas JM records get me bawling in no time flat

i don't cry, but..."take a bow", "live to tell", "oh father", "bad girl", "in this life", "this used to be my playground" are all counterexamples there

don't you like opera music a lot?

you can headbang to a fuck-ton of opera music

I think I understand / Fear is like a wilderland / Stepping stones and sinking sands.

if you say so, but honestly it's not the most danceable stuff in the world IMO

but like i said it doesn't have to be...

also except for in one very specific club I hung out at in the 80s - RIP the City Niteclub, you made a guy feel good about himself & he'll never forget it - people laugh at me when I dance & it feels like shit, so my ability to enjoy dancing is generally limited to living rooms, and if I'm in my living room listening to music I'd just as soon be lying on the floor soaking up really heartbreaking lyrics sung by somebody with a kickass range

(as a total aside, it really cheeses me off when ppl assume that you can't dance to something just because it's being played by an orchestra rather than a band/DJ; it's fucking MUSIC ppl, get off of your ass and immerse yourself in it)

(and lex..."this used to be my playground" for example - it's just so corny. yeah they're tearjerker songs, but "little green" for example, that's got meat on the bones, stuff you can really get properly upset about.)

like, how can you hear "Habanera" from "Carmen" and not want to MOVE to it? ppl like that have no ears and no souls IMO

Another thing about Joni is that -- and this could simply be a function of who I am and where I am and how old I am -- her songs speak much more intimately to my experiences in life. I rarely worry about expressing my sexual persona, or what my public image is, etc. But I do think a lot about time moving on, and the things I fear, and the people I love who I'm afraid to lose, and social situations that are complex and tough to navigate, and how sometimes I wish I had a river that I could skate away on

haha i don't dislike "little green" but it's always seemed a bit corny/twee to me, especially in comparison to the real sucker-punch stuff elsewhere on blue

ppl assume that you can't dance to something just because it's being played by an orchestra

people do this?! o_0

i mean wtf do they think waltzes, tangos etc are played on?

i'm not saying classical or opera CAN'T be danceable

but some really great stuff i've heard in that genre is not danceable.

it just seems like you're setting up a challops and then trying to make everything fit into this weird blanket statement, which is the prob with making big sweeping statements in the first place

dan do you like any classical or opera that's not danceable in your opinion? is the stuff that is danceable inherently better than the stuff that isn't?

"come to the mermaid cafe and I will buy you a bottle of wine" <3

The title track is the song on Blue which I always found uncomfortable...borderline cringe even. See, that long note "i looooove youuuuu".

"Buy your dreams a dollar down."

xpost in re carey oh yeah but the backing vocal arrangements just make me swoon

I blame the gentrification of classical music; the fact that most orchestras play in seated concert halls and the highbrow connotations associated with that creates a headspace where the entire concept of marrying that type of music to physical movement is completely foreign for the average person. They'll go see "The Nutcracker" and then assert that, in a different context, you can't dance to the music from it; it's too formalized, too rigid and too much of a compartmentalization of what different types of music can do/should be.

xp: The thing you are not quite grasping here is that I dance to EVERYTHING. Like literally, EVERYTHING. I always have. I express my enjoyment of music through song and through movement; I have to have a physical, active connection to it in order to enjoy it. There are likely some very abstract choral pieces I've performed that one wouldn't consider danceable, but whenever I've performed them I have invariably swung my body to the music, so no, I don't think there's any music out there that I active like which I wouldn't consider to be undanceable.

haha i don't dislike "little green" but it's always seemed a bit corny/twee to me, especially in comparison to the real sucker-punch stuff elsewhere on blue

I know this doesn't really impact the text but did you know that that's the song on blue that's really 100% auto-bio - it's about her giving up her own daughter for adoption? I didn't either until years after I already loved the song, but anyway yeah any corn in it is, like, legitimate corn

xp yeah..."i'll put on some silk". I adore lots of jazz but I can't really get into anything post Blue. It's just not as...raw and searing.

I know this doesn't really impact the text but did you know that that's the song on blue that's really 100% auto-bio

yeah, though i didn't find out until years after i'd first heard the song

okay, madonna fans, it's time to pack up and leave. you can't argue with joni fans. she is ms. precious perfect and holy and all that. its like arguing with geir about rap or something. no good will come of it. everyone can come to my house for a dance party!

Even just reading the lyrics to "Little Green" makes the hair on my skin stand on end.

xpost to hi dere

fair enough

i'm going to start daggering one of my co-workers while playing shostakovich symphony #5 and see how it goes

god forbid people argue about their preferred choice in a poll thread! xxp

yeah but its no fair when some people prefer a great entertainer with great songs and some people worship GOD.

"there'll be icicles and birthday clothes / and sometimes they're be sorrow" is like the most understated heartbreaking line ever, imo

"physical attraction" moves me more than any joni mitchell song ever has. for me, it's about the juxtaposition of the sexual, or superficial, with something much more meaningful. joni is a little too profound, or intimate, for me at times. i have a lot of "deep" thoughts, but i also have a lot of other thoughts, and i appreciate the ways in which this sort of paradox is reflected in some of madonna's music.

scott, maybe it says something about the two artists that one inspires those kinds of reactions. maybe you shouldn't be blaming the fans for being moved.

okay, madonna fans, it's time to pack up and leave. you can't argue with joni fans. she is ms. precious perfect and holy and all that. its like arguing with geir about rap or something. no good will come of it. everyone can come to my house for a dance party!

joni fans are having a nice discussion about all kinds of stuff, mr. petulant

Little Green was my early favourite but now I'm partial to 'All I Want' with its beguiling, twisting melody - "do you want, do you want, do you wanna dance with me baby.."

i'm going to start daggering one of my co-workers while playing shostakovich symphony #5 and see how it goes

well generally speaking, daggering co-workers ends poorly regardless of the music played (hi dere HR, I am here for my sexual harassment seminar), but I used to pogo a lot to movement IV of Shostakovich 5 (NY Philharmonic + Bernstein recording) when I was a kid

my workplace is sexually liberated...Patra is our HR director

xp she definitely inspires this holy devotion, and believers can find all this 'stuff' in her music to defend her and to argue about with others.

I really like Blue, but I'm nowhere near some people on this board. Ask me about XTC if you wanna see some gushing heheh.

who would have thought that this would turn into the butthurt thread

just saying not a lot of room for discussion when you write this:

"also I like Madonna fine but her very finest work sucks compared to Joni imo"

case closed!

i guess. i just don't think it should be forbidden to say that you greatly appreciate one artist over another, ESP if you include "in my opinion" in the assertion.

Since we're now citing lyrics as evidence of Joni's genius, "If I ran away I'd never have the strength to go very far/how would they hear the beating of my heart" gets under my skin like those lines from "Little Green."

her songs speak much more intimately to my experiences in life. I rarely worry about expressing my sexual persona, or what my public image is, etc. But I do think a lot about time moving on, and the things I fear, and the people I love who I'm afraid to lose, and social situations that are complex and tough to navigate, and how sometimes I wish I had a river that I could skate away on

totally feeling this yep

I'm trying to think of any gay men I know/have met who are not Madonna stans (Morbz maybe?)

music makes the people come together

I'm living in the Bizarro World--my three or four favourite Joni Mitchell songs beat my three or four favourite by Madonna, but as an album, I like True Blue better than any of Joni Mitchell's. So it's Joni Mitchell, singles artist vs. Madonna, album artist. (Maybe True Blue's title was intended as a putdown of Blue, i.e. my relationship album is the real thing.) (Yes, I'm kidding.)

no, i wasn't saying that. maybe joni fans just bug me. i don't know. or the type of fandom. not the actual fans. i like all you guys.

x-post

rarely worry about expressing my sexual persona, or what my public image is, etc. But I do think a lot about time moving on, and the things I fear, and the people I love who I'm afraid to lose, and social situations that are complex and tough to navigate, and how sometimes I wish I had a river that I could skate away on

A pretty good encapsulation of Hejira's greatness. Lots of Madonna songs do this too.

xp to Alfred, that's a good example. I really don't care about "them" hearing the beating of my heart. Madonna has a relationship with a large body of people in her work that doesn't speak to me that all. My relationships are much smaller. If I ran away I wouldn't worry about disappointing my fans who want to hear me express myself. But I would worry about leaving my loved ones behind.

Also: most of Hejira chronicles what it's like to always be on the move, and this includes sexually. So these things aren't mutually exclusive, Mordy.

Tbh, Heijira isn't anywhere near my fave Joni album.

I really don't care about "them" hearing the beating of my heart. Madonna has a relationship with a large body of people in her work that doesn't speak to me that all. My relationships are much smaller. If I ran away I wouldn't worry about disappointing my fans who want to hear me express myself

With all due respect, where are you drawing these assumptions? You think Mitchell has a mainline straight to you?

I mean, music is made for consumption. It doesn't matter whether one or one million people hear it.

Alfred, I don't really understand what you're disagreeing with. Joni's songs are often about one particular person that she loves and is losing. That Madonna song seems to me (tho I'm open to other interpretations) about an artist who worries that if she left the scene, how would they hear her heartbeats.

Another thing that I'm sure people will disagree with me regarding: Joni + sex/religion is much more quiet ("your in my blood like holy wine"), where religion is sexual and sensuous and we live in these categories of holiness and impurity. And with Madonna it always seems much more loud almost? Her religion stuff always seems very powerful and almost angry and vibrant. But they lack the subtle quiet moments of spirituality that are actually true to my experiences of religion + love. So I can totally see how they could speak to someone else -- someone who feels outspoken on these things. But for me Joni works much better on these themes.

just saying not a lot of room for discussion when you write this:

"also I like Madonna fine but her very finest work sucks compared to Joni imo"

case closed!

yeah dude you'll forgive me but imagine if the case were, say, black sabbath vs. motley crue. motley is fine, just fine - I'll go to bat for "live wire" any day. black sabbath on the other hand...c'mon. and that is about exactly the level of disparity we're talking about here, imo.

I'm trying to think of any gay men I know/have met who are not Madonna stans (Morbz maybe?)

Plenty! I wrote a Stylus essay a few years ago about mapping a gay identity on Madonna songs, but, wow, I have NO idea what draws gay men to Madonna (and it embarrasses me slightly that Madonna recorded the only music of quality that a lot of gay men own).

Alfred, I don't really understand what you're disagreeing with. Joni's songs are often about one particular person that she loves and is losing.

So are Madonna's! And what difference does it make if it ISN'T one person?

i guess, to me, they aren't as far apart as that.

x-post

Because I can't relate to worrying that your fans will miss your heartbeats if you leave the limelight!

I mean, the song is called Live to Tell and is (to me) about Madonna wanting to tell this secret of herself to the world, but worrying that she won't be able to do it. I can't relate to this sentiment at all.

... "Live To Tell" has nothing to do with her relationship to fandom and (I thought???) everything to do with being jilted in a relationship by people who should otherwise care about you, so I have no idea where you are getting that reading of the lyrics from.

The movie the song is from is about a crime family where the father rapes the son's girlfriend to intimidate the son into keeping quiet about the family's illicit activities; does that make the song any clearer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Close_Range

Ok, I did not know the film context! That makes sense.

(But, um, yeah, that context is even LESS relatable to me.)

If I were to close my ears to songs because they don't "relate" to my gayness, more than half of rock music would be closed to me. I care more about "empathy" than in reading myself into every song -- which is ultimately exhausting and not very rewarding.

Ha, actually "Live To Tell" was written for this movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_with_Fire

context, she is an amazing, mutable creature

i think it's important to remember a sense of "intimacy" doesn't have to be as pointed as it is in some of joni's songs to be incredibly powerful.

another vote firmly on the joni mitchell side, tbh i can kind of take or leave madonna most of the time, she doesnt really do anything at all for me -and i am down w/dance stuff, i just never really thought of madonna as really all that awesome in a dance music contest (except for maybe w/ a few of the mirwais things she did).

also (get ready to get angry doods), im going to pull a 180 on dan here and say that i generally find madonnas vocals to be kind of palpably bad and poorly executed.

no one listens to Madonna for awesome singing; if that was the metric most of us would unequivocally vote Joni

fire with fire was my friend kari's first movie! horrible movie. we all went to see it the night it opened in danbury.

i actually prefer madonna's voice to joni's voice. doesn't mean that joni isn't a better singer though.

yah

xpost to Alfred, Joni isn't writing about my life and my circumstances (obviously), but she's dealing with emotions and sentiment that are incredibly intimate and close to my experiences. That's my only point. I'm not even saying that I dislike music that doesn't do this -- I like Madonna! But they just aren't comparable for me. One feels like they're singing to my life and the other, as great as it can be, doesn't. "Polly" is an incredibly empathetic work, for instance, but I've never cried to it.

OK, fair enough. I find most of Mitchell's takes on romance fascinating, complex, bewildering, and touching; very rarely do I go "Alfred Soto can relate to this." But I guess we listen to music differently; autobiographical parallels aren't a huge priority.

Ok I misread some of the singing comments then - it has been a real deal breaker for me re:madonna

btw most of Madonna's ballads before her Tony Opera Lessons have perfectly adequate singing; and I love how avid she sounds on "Open Your Heart" and "Live to Tell."

and "Into the Groove" is a textbook example of how you should sing over a electro-dance groove.

There is a rasp there that has the potential to really set your teeth on edge, though.

I'm trying to think of any gay men I know/have met who are not Madonna stans (Morbz maybe?)

Bringing back fond memories of a dark day on the gay thread where it seemed like I was about the only one defending her (and I don't even like her all that much).

Listening to her sing that fauxhindu shit on the MTV VMAs qualifies as emotional torture imo.

honestly and I know this is splitting hairs but I think most of the credit for how the into the groove vocal sits over the groove should go to the mixer, not the singer

The engineer didn't sing though.

I didn't think that autobiographical parallels are that important to me either but maybe they are in this case - I've never found any of Madonna's songs remotely relatable.

xps

so Shakey, in your experience music has never been the bourgeoisie and the rebel?

i am now imagining the fits of rage i would have if i started the janis ian vs. joni mitchell poll i was just considering and watched ian get just crushed.

are all joni fans also nina simone fans? okay, now i'm just trolling. i'll stop. i'm gonna go find a joni album in my store that i've never heard and play it.

I'm not a HUGE fan of either one, but am voting Joni.

Autobiographical parallels are a red herring -- I'm talking about emotive landscape parallels. I have the capacity to understand the feel the affects that Joni is transmitting. I feel incredibly powerful emotions when I listen to her music. I actually turned on Clouds last night because I wanted to listen to something I liked while I read that wouldn't distract me (like Court + Spark or Blue which capture my complete attention), but even Clouds was too distracting. It made me feel hopeful and sad, and nostalgic, and, and, etc. Whereas with Madonna the emotional impact for me is never that great. But I imagine it is for some people! So relationality obv has something to do with it. But I don't think it's autobiographical relationality. I think it's more that Joni feels in similar ways that I feel. (Or communicates feeling in ways that I am most receptive to hear -- tho there are autobiographical stuff in this, some of this is obv because I grew up on Joni, and her songs are often associated with deep memories of my childhood, parents, friends, life, etc.)

I love Ian hugely. That would be a great thread. I'd vote Joni, but Ian is incredible.

I need to find an old post on the direness of "relatibility" as a concept. Without proof I said that we started learning how important this concept supposedly is as education got more democratized. For example: a farm kid from Iowa suddenly getting Jane Austen force-fed to him for the first time must have a teacher explain what an early 19th century novel "says" to him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdU3fKbbbu0

while you're all here, a) whoa what the hell is this, and b) what's that organ line from??

She's making the organ sound with her teeth.

I don't think we can talk about transmitting affect without talking about various models of reception of that affect. I don't hear NSBM the same way that neo-Nazis do, for instance. I may hear hate and they may hear pride.

apology made to whoever pleases/now they got her like Jesus

all I know about that organ line is that it was also sampled by DJ Shadow

gah that's it. morricone probably?

I really don't remember.

btw it's amazing how tying Madonna to a cross and keeping her immobile allows her to sing in tune

so Shakey, in your experience music has never been the bourgeoisie and the rebel?

hahaha wait waht did Madonna actually say "the music is the bourgeoisie" in one of her songs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUL_OScSRLs

unlike the others I'll do anything/I'm not the same/I'm bourgeoisie/I'm on fire iirc

guys it's Giorgio Moroder's "Tears" fyi

xp

music isn't the bourgeoisie and the rebel, it makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel

hahaha wait waht did Madonna actually say "the music is the bourgeoisie" in one of her songs?

Do you actively run away when popular culture threatens to encroach upon your personal space?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sdz2oW0NMFk

xp: oops, Eric OTM

okay, found one. don juan's reckless daughter. as a prog fan i'm kinda curious about the side-long paprika plains. best thing about this record is the back cover with the picture of little joni dressed as an indian and saying "how". it's racist, but its funny.

Do you actively run away when popular culture threatens to encroach upon your personal space?

run away? this kinda stuff just does not come into my life - I don't listen to the radio, I don't watch videos, I don't go to dance clubs, etc. I think I have only one close friend who might conceivably make me listen to Madonna. It's more like popular culture just doesn't have the reach it used to.

I mean I spend all day in an office, at night I hang out with the wife and read and watch movies. Otherwise I spend my free time making music and hanging out with my kid. Madonna is not really part of any of that equation, is that really so hard to believe?

yes

sooo... yes

haha xp

i am crying laughing at the "rock cover" i posted btw

crying

oh, oh dear

couldn't handle paprika plains. that one must be for troo joni superfans. and jaco was kinda bumming me out on side one.

i think i actually prefer madonna's dude obsessions too. joni's a complainer and it gets kinda tedious for me. on the other hand, joni does boredom and ennui REALLY well. which i appreciate.

I'm a huge Joni fan and have basically no time for anything she's done after 1974.

Cosign.

man you guys are crazy, I can listen to Night Ride Home all day

Boring opinion: Joni wins this one thanks to "Blue"

If I'm looking at their whole careers though (ya I know that's not what the poll question is asking but I'm just sayin) then it's Madonna by a landslide. She had only one really boring period (the "Evita" era) whereas 50% of Joni's career has been boring.

I've come to realize that the main reason "Big Yellow Taxi" bothers me so much is because the note she sings on "gone" in the chorus is boring third of the chord that just sort of splats there with no momentum as opposed to a more interesting, dissonant fourth that would also tie the line directly into the first chord of the phrase "they paved paradise" since it's a note in that chord.

okay that is super interesting and I will listen for that

I didn't think that autobiographical parallels are that important to me either but maybe they are in this case - I've never found any of Madonna's songs remotely relatable.

you have obviously never fell in love with san pedro.

That would be accurate.

I'm going to Scott's for a dance party. I can't stand Mitchell, though I do have a soft spot for Dylan's version of "Big Yellow Taxi".

fuck that song forever yo. i like me some malls

you have obviously never fell in love with san pedro.

Madonna was in the Minutemen?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2136/2094708080_9c2d7b115d_o.png>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>every Madonna album

Shakey Mo you know you are begging for a poll where a buncha clowns vote Madonna over the Minutemen just to provoke a Shakey Moquake

to further elaborate on the idea of paradox, there's something to be said for the co-existence of joy and pain in music. that's something i've always heard in madonna's songs. the joy is plain to hear, but there's a very real quality of sadness in her voice as well -- a certain desperation. that contrast has always connected with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drMzeN1eXdA

^^^ totally voting Madonna

"Like a Prayer" is for me slightly better than "The Hissing Of Summer Lawns", although both are great albums.

Madonna debut > Court And Spark, but it's close.

Would take The Immaculate Collection over Joni's Hits too -- less close but still not a total rout or anything.

Own a few other Madonna albums (and 45s) at the moment, no other Joni ones I don't think.

Shakey Moquake

I think they sell these at Starbucks

Dairy Queen iirc

Nothing against Madonna -- lots of great singles, in fact -- but Joni's run of Court and Spark through Hejira is unimpeachable, IMO.

Hejira > Blue > Erotica > Hissing Of Summer Lawns > Madonna = Like A Prayer > For The Roses > Court & Spark > True Blue > Bedtime Stories > Night Ride Home > the other stuff in their respective careers

Just to illustrate the linear analysis of Big Yellow Taxi that I was sketching upthread:

http://sites.google.com/site/pnauert/BYT-linear.jpg

Honestly, Ray of Light is the only album by either one that I have any urge to listen to these days, so Madonna wins.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted favorite joni but might take the immaculate collection overall. actually, fuck that.

ILX is fucking crazy lately.

spring fever

Great post Paul, I partially agree. I actually hear 8-7-6-5-4-5. Interestingly, you you can actually hear the linear descent best in the last two occurrences of that sequence, which also have the most pronounced pauses that one could argue serve to disrupt its flow. That gets overpowered earlier in the song when the acoustic guitar moves so forcefully into the IV-V-I conclusion. And of course the Miles of Ailes version has another take on it.

Joni in a total walk, though Immaculate Collection would make it at least semi-interesting.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

that's right

oh thank god

RONG

oh yeah, that's right!!

ilx otm although this thread has opened my eyes to the surreality of ILM music talk