My recent piece titled Vogue reminded me that at one time I was a big Madonna fan, back when she and I were both younger.
I loved a lot of her songs and a lot of her videos and read more about her and watched more interviews than I typically do. I'm not real big on invading the private lives of artists. They are still people and it's not really our business just because we like their work.
Of course I don't actually KNOW, but as best I could tell she was neither an addict nor a teetotaller, she had a serious career but didn't seem to be some man-hating bitch, she was sex positive but seemed to respect herself and seemed to express herself as a woman who liked sex rather than some so-called "artist" whoring herself out "because sex sells."
She was wonderful in the behind the scenes interview linked in that piece, saying she's both sweet and a bitch because she's human. She seemed shockingly grounded for a big star and it seemed like that was why she was a big star that the world couldn't get enough of.
Then she got rich and fame apparently turned her into a narcissist. I don't know what the hell went wrong -- perhaps fame sucked the life out of whatever creative process gave us the Madonna of my youth -- but she began doing crap like Bitch, I'm Madonna.
No, bitch, you ain't the Madonna I knew and loved in my youth.
Why don't you use reinvention as a goal rather than a tour title? Because the world desperately needs good role models and I'm still pissed that we lost you as one.
I mean, come on, you actually got stinking rich being a good role model and now your work just stinks.