Ryan Seacrest just announced on his radio show that due to some miscommunication with an assistant in Madonna's camp, she won't be able to join the show today.
Apparently Madonna was not informed of the interview being scheduled for today and she's not able to join Ryan on the phone today due to other commitments - but she's expected to talk to him tomorrow.
Source: MadonnaTribe
Masterbeat is offering a free download of Madonna’s hit track, CELEBRATION (Benny Benassi Remix), for the next couple of weeks! More info and download at: http://www.masterbeat.com/celebrate
Thanks to Jeff!
Google Inc.’s YouTube reached an agreement with Warner Music Group Corp. that will bring artists including Madonna and Metallica back to the video-sharing site, Chris Maxcy, director of YouTube Partner Development, said today on a conference call.
“It’s a win for artists and fans around the world, and it represents many months of hard work for both companies,” Maxcy said.
Videos from Warner Music artists will return to YouTube by year-end, Maxcy said. Warner plans to hire outside agencies to sells ads and find partnerships, such as sponsorships of videos and artists.
“Members of the YouTube community will not only be able to access videos and other music-related content from Warner Music Group recording artists and songwriters, but will also gain access to an enhanced user experience on YouTube with a feature- rich, high-quality premium player and enhanced channels,” Warner Music said in an e-mailed statement.
Source: Bloomberg
US celebrity DJ Ryan Seacrest has just announced that Madonna will be his special guest on his 'On Air with Ryan Seacrest' radio show tomorrow.
The 'American Idol' star's show is broadcast from Los Angeles on 102.7 KIIS-FMbut is also played between 10am and 2pm EST on various different regional stations across the USA - e.g. Z100 in New York.
Fans can tune in online to listen live here.
Source: MadonnaTribe
“Celebration” Benny Benassi remix on Spanish TV:
Thai fans celebrated Madonna’s new album at an event, held at Siam Paragon at Bangkok (Thailand), organised by Warner Music Thailand).
And here’s a fan made Celebration video that was sent to us by Eric:
Thanks to Julen, Tony and Eric!
The cover of Madonna's new "Celebration" ultimate collection of hits is printed on the front of the newest official t-shirt available to purchase at the Madonna Official Store.
The new "Celebration Tee" is available in white, 100% cotton and printed in full-color, and can also be bought in bundle with a copy of the 2CD Celebration saving $10 over the purchase price.
Check it our now at the Madonna Official Store.
Sources: Madonna.com, MadonnaTribe
The hottest Madonna release right now - greatest hits compilation Celebration, peaked at the very top of album charts last week in two more european countries, Italy and Germany. That makes Celebration 11th #1 album in Germany and 12th in Italy.
Madonna’s new compilation Celebration leaps straight to number one in the Official Album Chart and brings her level with Elvis Presley’s record of eleven UK number one albums, the Official Charts Company reveals today.
No other solo artist can match this achievement. Only The Beatles, with a total of fifteen, have had more number one albums in chart history.
This feat marks yet another record for Madonna, the most successful female solo artist of all time. She has also:
- Spent more weeks (29) at number one of the Official UK Album Chart than any other female solo artist.
- Had more UK number one singles (13) than any other female solo artist.
- Achieved the chart double (simultaneous number one album and single) more times (4) than any other female solo artist.
- Completed the highest grossing tour in history (her recent Sticky & Sweet tour) for a female artist
Celebration brings together 36 tracks spanning Madonna’s entire career so far and includes a newly recorded song Revolver featuring Lil Wayne.
Celebration The Video Collection DVD with 47 tracks is released tomorrow, Monday 28th September 2009.
Madonna’s UK number one albums:
LIKE A VIRGIN (1984)
TRUE BLUE (1986)
LIKE A PRAYER (1989)
THE IMMACULATE COLLECTION (1990)
EVITA (OST) (1996)
RAY OF LIGHT (1998)
MUSIC (2000)
AMERICAN LIFE (2003)
CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR (2005)
HARD CANDY (2008)
CELEBRATION (2009)
Chart Information: The Official Charts Company
Source: madonna.com
Madonna’s “Celebration” album debuted at #1 on UK Album chart this week by selling 77.000 copies, marking the eleventh Madonna’s number one album in the country. With it, Madonna equalled Elvis Presley’s total of 11 UK album number ones.
Warner Music Group has completed a deal with YouTube (Google) that will bring back music videos for Green Day, U2, Madonna and other artists to the video-sharing site from which they were removed in December, according to two executives familiar with the talks.
Source: EthioPlanet
Madonna will visit the Late Show with David Letterman airing on Wednesday, September 30 on the CBS Television Network.
This will mark her eighth appearance on the CBS broadcast.
Madonna was last interviewed on the show on January 11, 2007, with prior sit-down interviews in 2005, 2003, 2000 and her memorable appearance on March 31, 1994.
Madonna also made a brief cameo appearance on the February 13, 1995 episode, when she delivered Valentine’s candy and flowers to Letterman.
On December 28, 1998, she appeared in a taped celebrity Top Ten List of the "Top Ten Things Beautiful Women Love About Dave."
The Late Show with David Letterman is a production of Worldwide Pants Incorporated. Barbara Gaines, Matt Roberts, Jude Brennan, Maria Pope and Rob Burnett are the executive producers.
Sources: CBS, MadonnaTribe
Madonna has topped the Irish albums chart with her new greatest hits collection Celebration this week.
The Queen of Pop beats off competition from US rock band Pearl Jam, who land at second place with their ninth studio album Backspacer.
Muse's The Resistance falls from the top spot to third place, followed in fourth by Jay-Z's The Blueprint 3, which is down one position.
Meanwhile, David Gray's Draw The Line falls three spots to fifth.
Source: Digital Spy
Thanks to londonfan30 from Madonna Fanzine!
Mihran Kirakosian 24 grew up in a family filled with talent his father was a famous dancer/choreographer, in Armenia, and his mother a singer. Mihran has famously danced for Madonna but also many other A-list stars including Pink, Britney Spears, Ricky Martin, to name a few.
Here are the parts of the interview, where he talks about the queen of pop:
Besides dancing, was music always an aim of yours? When did you first realize it was something u wanted to do?
The excitement and drive to continue a career of a dancer is not there anymore. I need to accomplish something innovative and exciting to get the same drive back. I have always wanted to be an artist since I was 7 years old; however, I pursued dancing before and I really can’t explain why. If I can go back in time and initially be an artist, I wouldn’t. I have learned so much about the music business by touring with artists, especially Madonna. I would have never been able to acquire this knowledge and experience in any classroom. I got to experience it first hand and there is nothing better than that.
We all know you for a being a brilliant dancer and through your career you worked with music's one and only Madonna, how was it working with Madonna?
It was amazing working with Madonna. She is a really hard worker and I am sure everyone can see that in her performances, shows, and videos. She is a phenomenal artist and one of a kind.
Do you still keep in contact with Madonna & the other dancers from her tours?
Yes I still keep in touch with Madonna; we are great friends. I just recently saw her show in Paris, France. It was the first time I watched a Madonna show as part of the audience. I also keep in touch with the current dancers; we are all good friends.
You didn’t work with Madonna on her last tour 'Sticky & Sweet', why was that?
It was time for me to move on and pursue my dream of becoming a music artist. I used most of 2008 writing and recording my album. I felt like I did two amazing tours with her and I didn’t feel the urge to do another one.
I got to ask is Madonna really that hard and difficult like the media makes her out to be?
She’s very fun to be around and loves to joke around but when it’s time for work then it’s time to work. She’s a perfectionist so when it comes to work she wants things done right and in her way. This is the reason why she is on top of the world.
You can read the whole interview at our friend Alistair’s website EntertainmentHit.com
Thank you, Alistar!
Amazing scenes in downtown Tokyo as hundreds of dancers set up a flash mob to mark the release of Madonna's new record yesterday, September 22.
The surprise event was organised by Sticky & Sweet Tour dancer Takahiro Ueno, who told Splash News he had been preparing the event to mark the launch of "Celebration" for months: "For practice we had just one day because we used more than150 dancers but I have been preparing it for two months."
The party got started in the streets of Shinjuku, Tokyo shortly after 2 PM when large speakers began blaring a medley of Madonna hits. A crowd gathered to see what the commotion was before five break dancers appeared on the high-street showing of their moves.
They were followed by a group of five girls in red ballet tutus and leotards. More than a hundred other dancers then appeared out of the crowd and joined in the tightly choreographed routine.
They cleared as Takahiro took centre stage dressed in a black hat, shades and a waistcoat.
The snake-hipped performer moonwalked around the street and performed several sommersaults for the crowd.
A group of drag-queens joined in the rave in the last moments before the entire group left the scene and scattered - leaving bystanders wondering what had just happened. Check out a cool video at Splash News.
Source: MadonnaTribe
"Celebration" sold 25,000 copies on its first day of release in Finland today, September 23, and qualifies for Platinum.
The ultimate collection of Madonna hits is already the most sold non-Finnish album of the year! The accompanying DVD will be released in Finland on September 30.
Source: MadonnaTribe
Italy doesn't have a proper midweek chart data report but estimates are available to work who work in the industry and MadonnaTribe can report they indicate that "Celebration" is set to enter straight to #1 in the Italian album chart in the next update that will be released next Monday.
This will make "Celebration" the fourth Madonna CD in a row topping the charts in Italy (not counting the audio CD in the I'm Going To Tell You A Secret and Confessions Tour DVD bundles).
The top placement for Madonna's albums in the Italian charts (so far) are as follows:
Madonna #8
Like a Virgin #1
True Blue #1
Who's That Girl #1
You Can dance #6
Like a Prayer #1
I'm Breathless #1
The Immaculate Collection #9
Erotica #2
Bedtime Stories #2
Something To Remember #1
Evita #2
Ray Of Light #1
Music #1
GHV2 #7
American Life #1
Confessions On A Dance Floor #1
Hard Candy # 1
Source: MadonnaTribe
You can download the interview at Absolument Madonna.
Picture Format: 4×3
Multiple Viewing Angles: No
Color Mode: Color
Region Code: Zero
Duration: Disc 1 – 99min / Disc 2 – 112min
Subtitles: None
Language And Audio Content: English, PCM Stereo, Dolby Surround
Source: Madonna Records
Madonna is looking to equal Elvis Presley’s total of 11 UK album number ones this weekend with her new retrospective Celebration opening up a narrow lead at retail.
The double set is presently a few thousand sales ahead of its nearest rival, fellow Warner Bros release The Resistance by Muse, which debuted at one last Sunday.
If Celebration remains in front it will place Madonna in joint second place with Presley behind The Beatles with the most UK chart-topping albums. Her tally of 10 album number ones dates back to 1984’s Like A Virgin and also takes in the Evita soundtrack, which features both her and other artists.
Madonna’s album leads another bumper week of new releases with four other newly-issued albums among the 10 biggest sellers of the week so far. These include Dizzee Rascal’s new Dirtee Skank-issued album Tongue N’ Cheek, which features his three number one singles, Casablanca/Island act Mika’s second album The Boy Who Knew Too Much and Pearl Jam’s Island debut Backspacer.
Midweek chart:
1. Madonna - Celebration 21.9k
2. Muse 17.7k
3. Dizzee Rascal 16.8k
4. Mika 14.8k
5. Pearl Jam 13.3k
Source: Music Week
Sweet Machine:
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Thanks to dunylito!
Music producer/writer Fernando Garibay, known for his work with Britney Spears, U2, Lady Gaga, Ashlee Simpson, Enrique Iglesias, Pussycat Dolls, Will.I.Am, P.Diddy,…(check his production credits on Wikipedia), posted a message on his Twitter site this Friday, saying “Madonna coming soon”.
He posted a similar message some time ago, saying “Britney comin’ soon”, when he was producing Brit’s Amnesia and Quicksand for her latest album – Circus.
Remember that it could “only” be a remix or even nothing might happen.
Update: according to “Stereomover” from Madonna Fanzine, Fernando has produced a remix for upcoming single “Revolver”.
Madonna shows Dan Cairns all too clearly who is in control - of her life, her astonishing 27-year career, and their meeting.
The British nerve centre for Madonna Inc is to be found in two adjoining townhouses in central London. The buildings are a home for the singer and her four children when they are in this country, plus offices and a personal gym. From the outside, the six-storey edifices are standard-issue London mansions — that is, way beyond the standards most of us are accustomed to. There is something impregnable about such streets: an air of discreet luxury pervades them. Litter seems not to blow or rattle down their immaculate expanses; no chewing gum or urgently expelled kebab encrusts their gleaming paving stones. You might glance up at Madonna’s perfect residential pair and admire their symmetry, the cleanness of their architectural lines. But you would be more likely, unless you were a lurking paparazzo, not even to notice them; they are merely two houses in a long, wide street of the things. Anonymous, ordered, well maintained and with a touch of class. Madonna wouldn’t have it any other way. “Where do you live?” she asks when we meet later. Dalston, I say. The name doesn’t register. Stoke Newington, I add as a pointer. “That’s not even in London,” she scoffs. And it isn’t, to be fair. Or not in this London, at any rate.
The evening before I walk down her street and ring the doorbell, I visit another imposing building near the singer’s home. A few days earlier, a leaflet had been thrust into my hand. “It’s a Sign,” it read, and considering that it went on to invite the bearer to an introductory talk on kabbalah at the centre Madonna bought for the organisation six years ago, it seemed just that. The lecture offered an hour-long precis of what cynics would dismiss as woolly mumbo jumbo. One per cent of each of us is concerned with our corporal beings; concentrate on the remaining 99%, the speaker suggests, and we locate the key to a spiritually nourishing life. There is, however, an impression of calm, wellbeing, even complacency. And Madonna, as even a cursory knowledge of her questing, controversy-courting 27-year career will attest, needs calm. Because the opposite of calm, of control, is? “Chaos,” she says later. “Pain, suffering.”
We are meeting to discuss Celebration, the two-disc, 36-track greatest-hits collection that marks Madonna’s final contractual obligation to her record label before she skips off into the $120m embrace of Live Nation, the American concert promoters. Conditions have been imposed: no questions about adoption, about her divorce, about her love life, her faith; discussion is to be confined to her music. Refereeing the joust is the singer’s longtime American publicist, a formidable, don’t-mess-with-me powerhouse named Liz Rosenberg, whose manner, if not appearance, puts one instantly and inescapably in mind of the character of Roz, the giant snail in the film Monsters Inc, with her catch phrase: “I’m watching you, Wazowski. Always watching.” She has worked for the singer pretty much from the moment, in 1982, when Madonna was first handed the keys to the candy store of stardom. “By the way,” Madonna says at one point, “my dream was always to work in a candy store. It was because of my obsession with candy; I don’t have it any more, now that my teeth are all rotten. I did go to a university for a year, as shocking as that might sound to people, and there was a candy shop that I used to go to all the time, an old-fashioned one where all the candy was in these big glass jars. I used to go in there and look at all the candy and think, ‘God, it would be really cool to work in here; I could have candy whenever I wanted.’ So I did want the keys to the candy store, but I had different keys.” Confectionery’s loss, pop’s gain.
In Life with My Sister Madonna, Christopher Ciccone’s bitchy and embittered memoir, the singer’s brother recounts how every single minute of his sister’s day is planned and accounted for. Today, however, that schedule has gone awry. Seconds before I am due at her front door, a call comes through advising me to delay by 15 minutes. Which I duly do, only to be parked in the reception hall for a further quarter of an hour. It gives me a chance to take a look around. As I wait, Madonna appears briefly before descending to the basement, from which various sounds drift up: a peal of throaty laughter; a burst of her new single; and the noise of a vacuum cleaner. Is she catching up on housework, geed up by one of her own songs on the stereo and skipping round, Dyson in hand? Unlikely, but it’s an appealing image. In the hall where I wait, a painting by the 17th-century Dutch baroque artist Gerrit Dou hangs on one of the walls, which are covered with blue brushed velvet. On another wall, a pair of circular canvases show a troupe of pierrots, rope-dancing. Scented Christian Dior candles fill the air in a space so dimly lit, it seems both slightly theatrical and quasi-religious. A huge telephone with multiple extensions bears labels such as M study, M dressing room, M bathroom, Laundry, Music Room, Kitchen, Mews. The picture is one of great wealth combined with logistical and organisational rigour. Discipline, control, precision. “And that’s the definition of me?” Madonna says later, finishing my out-loud train of thought. “Yeah, but I don’t even think, when people write that, that they really believe it. I just think people are tapping into a zeitgeist and repeating things they’ve heard other people say; and it makes good copy.”
Our encounter finally gets under way in Madonna’s study, an all-grey room with a Frida Kahlo painting above the huge art-deco desk, glass shelves bearing art books and family photographs, and two semi-facing armchairs, on which we sit. In the flesh, in black trousers and a sleeveless shirt, the 51-year-old is tiny, even in heels, and pretty, her face somehow more animated and readable than you expect, her features forming into butter-wouldn’t-melt or knowingly ironic expressions as she talks. Her accent is noticeably clipped, with a Queen’s English clarity, a result of the amount of time she began to spend in this country following her marriage to Guy Ritchie. For a good 10 minutes, her discomfort is visible, a hand covering her face as she answers. And when, during this initial awkwardness, I lean into the space between us to emphasise a point, I sense without any room for doubt that I have crossed an invisible line.
You begin to understand why people are so in awe of her: you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of one of her frosty glares. Does that mean, I ask at one point, that we have stopped treating her as a mere mortal? “A lot of people are just really confused by me,” she says. “They don’t know what to think of me, so they try to compartmentalise me or diminish me. Maybe they just feel unsafe. But any time you have an overtly emotional or irrational, negative reaction to something, you’re fearing something that it’s bringing up in you.” She pauses and looks over at Rosenberg. “Let’s all call our shrinks right now and have that discussion. Liz?”
When, last year, an American magazine writer profiled Madonna and wrote “Think back on her career. It’s not songs you remember, or not primarily”, you knew what he meant. Videos, film roles, marriages, haircuts, children, charity work: all carry visual freight that has often seemed to overshadow Madonna’s original claim to fame. But doesn’t Celebration, I suggest, indicate that the songs figured in there somewhere, too? That writer, Rosenberg barks suddenly from behind the desk, “is an arsehole”. “Those are harsh words,” Madonna chides, unable to suppress a laugh. “I don’t know, I guess it depends on what side of the fence you’re on. Some people don’t appreciate my music, so they’re not going to think of me as a musician or songwriter. They like to think of me as a sort of cultural phenomenon.” So people listen to her songs and react visually, more than emotionally or musically? “Right — ‘That’s when she had the cone bra on’, ‘That’s the burning-crosses song’. That kind of stuff. I suppose that’s partly my fault.” And when we sift through the milestones of her career, we look for, what? Motivation, irony? “Manipulation, provocation,” she says.
Another commentator wrote that Madonna’s “ability to absorb and incorporate knowledge keeps her one step ahead”. Certainly, her instincts about music, fashion and future cultural trends have proved uncanny. But doesn’t this concentration on her skill for assimilation overlook what she herself does with that knowledge? “Well, yeah,” she replies. “We can all take in information. It’s how we regurgitate it that makes us different. Right?” And might concentrating on the absorption remove her own subsequent input from the equation? “Well, it’s an undermining thing to do, isn’t it?” She laughs. “Isn’t that the point of the exercise?”
I ask her about her early days in New York in the late 1970s, where she arrived, penniless and a university dropout, to pursue a career as a dancer. And where she earned a reputation as a stop-at-nothing, manipulative, sexually promiscuous wannabe, discarding managers, bandmates and boyfriends on a whim.
Five years of hard graft, thrift, ruthlessness and opportunism paid off when she signed a record contract in 1982. But they also marked her, indelibly, as an artist; indeed, from the way she talks about the period, you get the sense that, no matter the rumoured £300m fortune, the art collection, the toy boy, the record-breaking tours (her most recent, Sticky & Sweet, grossed a staggering $408m), there is a part of Madonna that is still motivated by the cross-fertilisation and experimentalism of early-1980s New York.
Physically, she left it long ago. Artistically, she’s still there, in her own imagination at least: zooming around taking on influences and collaborators, draining them dry, moving on, a cultural magpie. The budgets, and the headlines, have got bigger; the spirit, she argues, remains. “The city will never be the same,” she says. “It was an amazing time, an amazing convergence of pop culture and art. To think I used to have dinner on a regular basis with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. That was like an everyday thing. It was a much more informative part of my life than most of the parts people choose to focus on. I got to do gigs at places like CBGB before I got put underneath the microscope, and that was helpful to me, as an artist, and also to give me a sense of confidence about myself — regardless of the subsequent beatings I would take.”
Madonna contra mundum? It’s a condition you find in many artists, a willed psychological state that pumps them up before they rescale the heights with each successive album or tour. The affirmation of album sales — Madonna is the most successful female recording artist of all time — cannot shake such people from a sense of victimhood, of being misunderstood or underappreciated. Possibly, this is rooted in the belief that what they create is ineffably trivial. That might explain why some, especially the intellectually curious (or insecure), dabble in a multitude of other arts disciplines or gather around them the appurtenances of cultural refinement and significance. (How revealing, after all, is that “I did go to a university for a year, as shocking as that might sound to people”?)
Madonna is surely better placed than most to resist such doubts. Her recent releases may have been patchy — you’d need to go back to 1998, and Ray of Light, to find her last bona-fide classic — but Celebration offers indisputable affirmation of her pop genius. Vogue, Cherish, Into the Groove, Borderline, Like a Prayer, Material Girl, Frozen: the hits rattle by, potent reminders of what we — and Madonna, too — have lost by drowning in the froth of celebrity, rather than being swept along by the music. “The song comes first,” Madonna agrees. “And all of those other things that people remember, the imagistic things, are secondary, or certainly not as important.” She wants us, she implies, to get back to the music. But surely she doesn’t care, by now, what people think? “I do too,” she zaps back. “But I think I’ve become pretty good at sussing out when people’s opinions of my work are coming from what they think of me personally. You just have to do your thing and then let it go out into the world. The rest, you’re not in control. So there goes that theory that I’m a control freak. I can make all the music, do all the shows that I want, make all the films I want, but I can’t control people’s reactions — at all. They’re going to think what they want to think, and feel what they want to feel. I can only control myself — and sometimes I can’t do that very well.” Her reputation for ruthlessness is, she argues, confused with simple self-discipline, although she concedes: “Sometimes I will stop at nothing.”
Again, it was New York that finetooled that drive into the unstoppable force it still is today. “That was when I knew,” she says, “that that’s what I was going to do — be a singer and a songwriter and an entertainer, and I don’t care if I have to starve, and live in a room with five guys, and wash in a sink; this is what I’m going to do. And because I lived a pretty dismal life and I didn’t care, well, if you’re living a dismal life and you don’t care and you’re enjoying it, then that must be proof that you’ve committed to something.”
The 36 songs on Celebration document the succession of skilfully selected producers and writers — John “Jellybean” Benitez, Steve Bray, Pat Leonard, William Orbit, Mirwais, Stuart Price — Madonna has worked with during her career. Other collaborations — with Prince, with Michael Jackson — either went off like a damp squib or failed entirely. Of the Jackson collaboration, she says: “We spent a chunk of time together, and became friends, but it never happened. I wrote a bunch of words and presented them to him, and he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t want to be provocative. And I said, ‘Well, why come to me?’ I mean, that’s like asking Quentin Tarantino to not put any violence in his films. I felt like he was too inhibited, too shy. Well, I’m shy too. When you’re writing with somebody, you immediately become shy, because, unless you’re already good friends, you can’t be honest and say, ‘That’s the shittest thing I’ve ever heard.’ You’re afraid to say that you don’t like something because you don’t want to hurt their feelings, or you’re afraid your ideas are shit; and if you reveal those cards, they’re not going to want to work with you.” Surely any musician in the world, I think, would kill to work with her. But of course that’s not the point. Madonna needs to want to work with them. It’s never the other way around.
“The first thing that came into my head,” she continues, referring now to Jackson’s death, “was the word ‘abandoned’. I feel like we all abandoned him and put him in a box and labelled him as a strange person. And it used to pain me to see people go write such horrible things about him, accuse him of being a child molester, and all these things that nobody had any proof of — because, you know, I’ve had plenty of things I’ve been accused of. When I adopted David, I was accused of kidnapping him, for God’s sakes; and it’s very hurtful, and people love to jump on bandwagons. The lynch-mob mentality is pretty scary.”
As Madonna said in her tribute to Jackson at last week’s MTV awards, she lost her mother at six, and he lost his childhood. Both engaged in a long search for something to fill those gaps. Madonna is still looking, but alive. Something armoured her on that journey that was missing in Jackson. What advice would she give to her 24-year-old self, about to release her first single and blast into the limelight? “Don’t take it personally,” she answers without a pause.
Listening back to the tape later, I’m struck by how un-uptight she sounds, but also how tired. Perhaps that’s because she still had a few shows left before her world tour finally wound up. But there is, in her voice, the beginning of a sense of weariness, even as she recites self-motivating mantras such as: “I’m still curious and still hungry. I want more knowledge, I want more information, I want more experience.” Her enthusiasm for London, for music, for success, is both audible and visible, especially when she laughs, which she does often. But there are moments when you can’t help but wonder if she doesn’t dream of jumping off the carousel. And, however circumscribed the line of questioning, it is nothing like as controlled as Madonna’s candour, which seems nonetheless designed to brook neither argument nor deeper inquiry. She is open to an extent, but determinedly crease-free.
A growl from Rosenberg indicates that my time is up. And with that, Madonna looks at the watch hanging from a chain around her neck, rises from her chair and says, “Ooh, bathtime.” And is gone. Off to a room that doubtless has its own telephone extension. In a pristine household where everything runs (almost) like clockwork. You look back at the career Celebration marks, at how much could have gone so horribly wrong, and suddenly that craving for order, for security, for predictability, begins to make a lot of sense. Perhaps that’s what it’s all been about, at heart. “Pain, suffering,” she called it. At a young age, Madonna resolved not to experience that again. How much of her has succeeded in that avoidance strategy, only she can know. But that’s probably the only percentage that counts.
Celebration is released tomorrow on Warners
Source: Times Online
Janet Jackson and Madonna are not planning on teaming up for a musical project, despite a report in a British tabloid.
The U.K. version of OK! Magazine reported that following Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards, pop icons Madonna and Janet, who were both part of the Michael Jackson tribute at the event, had decided to collaborate.
“It was a meeting of two great musical minds. Madonna was so impressed with Janet’s tribute to Michael that they started talking about how great it would be to honour him by doing something together…There was definitely something very interesting being planned between them,” a source told OK!, MTV U.K. reported.
When contacted by Access Hollywood, however, a rep for Madonna said the report was not true.
Additionally rumours that the two ladies went to dinner together following the VMAs also did not happen, the rep said.
Source: Access Hollywood
In the "Celebration" booklet, the indisputable queen of pop, also takes time to write a few words to say thank you to her fans. Here's the quote:
"Thank you to Michael Rosenblatt for bringing me to Seymour Stein who made it possible for me to make music.
Thank you to my Warner Bros. Records family for all you hard work and effort throughout the years.
Special thanks to all the fans for your love and support. I appreciate every single one of you."
"It's So Cool" started as a collaboration between Mirwais and Madonna during the process of writing and recording of American Life album, but was put in their vaults and remained unreleased. Now, seven years later, Paul Oakenfold reworked the track and is being released as a bonus track on iTunes edition of Celebration 2-disc version.
The credit for this song goes to: Madonna, Mirwais AhmadzaΓ―, Monte Pittman and Paul Oakenfold.
Listen to the new, bonus track from Celebration – “It’s So Cool” on YouTube.
2 CD Poster and inside:
1 CD Poster /Booklet (Sides A & B) and inside
2 CD Booklet:
Thanks to truthordare from Madonna Fanzine!
"Celebration", the ultimate compilation of Madonna songs is released in Europe tomorrow and Madonna took some quality time to sit down with Larry Flick and talk about her new album, the new single and video, have a look back at her career, and much more.
Here's an excerpt from her interview when Larry asks her about her daughter Lola appearing in the "Celebration" videoclip directed by Jonas Akerlund.
LF: The video features your daughter, Lourdes. How did that happen?
M: She hangs out with the dancers a lot. She's a dancer herself. The video is about the celebration of music and dance. There's an improvisational moment when we're all in a circle and each dancer does their specialty or a special move that they do well. She wanted to do hers, so she did.
LF: Were you comfortable with her doing the video?
M: Yeah. She really wanted to do it. It's just a little moment.
LF: Are you getting an inkling that she wants to follow in your footsteps?
M: No. I don't she wants to be a singer. I think she wants to be an actress.
LF: How do you feel about that?
M: I'm fine with it, as long as she finishes school, and takes it seriously. She also plays piano, and she's really into clothes and fashion and style. She can go in any direction. She's got a lot of diverse interests right now. We'll see. I'm not pushing anything. We'll see what she wants to do.
LF: She always seems so poised.
M: Yeah. She's grown up in the limelight, for sure. She's been protected, but she's been chased by the paparazzi since she was a tiny baby.
LF: How is she dealing with being the big sister? Is she protective?
M: She's super-sister. She's amazing with the little ones. She has the typical relationship with her brother, Rocco. They're like “I love you”/”I hate you” every five minutes. But with the two little ones, she's great. She's amazing. Very protective.
LF: Are you going to be a Mom to any more kids?
M: Who knows? (laughs)
LF: Is that something you’d like?
M: (More laughter) You know, I have my hands full right now! I have no idea! That's all I'm going to say. But we never say never.
LF: Celebration is about to come out. This is your third greatest hits album, but you're not the look-back girl, are you?
M: No.
LF: So, does it feel weird that everyone's so excited about revisiting your old songs?
M: No, I'm not thinking that way. I'm happy that people want to hear my old songs. I've written some good songs!
LF: Do you ever listen to them, yourself?
M: I try not to (laughs). Actually, sometimes, I do. But the thing is that I'm on tour right now, and I'm doing some of those old songs. Inevitably, I'm going to be sicker of the songs that I'm singing every night. It's nice to revisit songs that I haven't heard for a while, and I think, “Yeah that was a good song. I like that.”
LF: What song are you feeling really good about right now?
M: That is old?
LF: Yeah.
M: I like “Beautiful Stranger.” That's a good one.
LF: Are there are any song that you don't want to celebrate?
M: No. They are all a part of me, and an aspect of me, or a pivotal moment for me, even if they're not necessarily pivotal in a big, public way for me. I can certainly pinpoint what was going on in my life at that time. They are sign-posts.
LF: Is there one song of yours that you think is perfect?
M: I certainly have songs that I feel resonate more and speak truthfully more about me than others. Like “Don't Tell Me.” Or “Like It Or Not.” Also, “Live To Tell” would be one too.
LF: Do you ever stop and think, “I sure got a lot done”?
M: (Laughing) Sometimes. That would require free time!
LF: Being on the road sounds like a military operation. How long does it take to get ready for you to go on tour? For you physically?
M: First, I start to train for several months, just to get my cardiovascular endurance up so that I can sing and dance at the same time. Then putting the show together and figuring out the choreography and experimenting.
Then I spend hours and hours with my band and my dancers and my choreographer and my director. It just becomes an endurance test. So by the time the show is put together, I'm physically ready, just from doing it over and over for months.
LF: At what point do you say "stop, get me outta here, this is too hard"?
M: Right about now. (Laughs) We did the tour for 4 months, and then we took a break. And now we've been on the road for a couple of months. It feels like a good time to end it. I'm ready to have another creative experience. I don't know how people go on the road for 18 months and do the same show. I couldn't do it.
LF: You're not the sit-around girl, either, are you?
M: No, not much. Not with kids and a job. Every once in a while, I have a moment of reflection. It's usually because I'm forced to look back at it from somebody else's point of you… or if someone does a retrospective of my career. Then I go, "I did all that?" It's usually someone else reminding me.
LF: You have a knack of writing songs that are pointed and political, but also for writing songs that are carefree and fun. Which do you think hit people stronger?
M: People who are more politically aware and want to be inspired like songs like "American Life," and people who just want to have a good time will like my more let's-have-fun kind of music. I think people are in different moods at different times. I'm in different moods at different times.
LF: What kind of music are you listening to a lot these days?
M: I'm listening to a lot of electronic music.
LF: Do you still like going clubbing?
M: Yes, but I certainly don't go clubbing when I'm on tour, because it's not really good for me. You can't talk loud after shows and stuff in smokey nightclubs.
LF: Tell me about the working on the track "Celebration" with Paul Oakenfold. What was it about working with him that was interesting to you?
M: Paul has done so many remixes for me. We've collaborated on a lot of music, just because of that. Plus, he's been opening for me on most of this tour, and we've hung out together a lot.
He has played at parties I've thrown. I like his energy. I like his ability to make people get up and dance. He knows how to work a crowd. He's a very positive person, himself.
I heard some of the production that he has done with other artists, and I decided to experiment with him.
LF: What do you imagine your next record is going to sound like? Have you thought about it yet?
M: Not really. I love electronic music, so I'm sure that I'll keep doing something in that area. But I don't know who I'm going to work with yet.
LF: What next on your life check-list? What are you hoping to get done?
M: I have several projects going. I have another script that I've written, and I want to direct another film. Hopefully, I'll be doing that next year.
I also have many, many projects going on in Africa right now that I want to bring to fruition, like building a girls school and working on two new documentaries that I want to make. So, I've got lots of projects going.
LF: Could you ever imagine that your life would turn out this way?
M: No way!
LF: It's pretty awesome, isn't it?
M: It's insane. I'm very lucky. I feel truly blessed.
Source: MadonnaTribe
Thanks to AdonaiGermany from Madonna Fanzine!
Song Information
Written by C. C. Battey, S. A. Battey, D. Carter, J. S. Franks, B. Kitchen and Madonna / Produced by Madonna and Frank E
As announced earlier, a second version of the ‘Celebration’ video has been created and features footage of fans filmed during the Barcelona and Milan stops of Madonna’s 2009 ‘Sticky & Sweet Tour’!
Make sure to check Madonna’s official Myspace page by 8:00am GMT tomorrow for the video premiere as well as a related Myspace based game!
Source: Madonna.com
Madonna headed out last night in New York to dinner with Jesus Luz and Steven Klein. Full gallery is available at AllAboutMadonna.com
Source: AllAboutMadonna.com
The Wednesday updates on the UK Singles Chart are out, and unfortunately they don't look good for "Celebration" that slips to #3 with David Guetta at 300 copies ahead and Taio Cruz with 14,700 copies ahead.
1 Taio Cruz 35.700
2 David Guetta 21.300
3 Madonna 21.000
4 Jay Z/Rihanna/Kanye West 18.200
5 Shakira 18.200
Source: MadonnaTribe
26 years to the chart week after notching her first No. 1 on Dance/Club Play Songs, Madonna rules for a 40th time, rising 2-1 with 'Celebration.' She easily extends her lead for most No. 1s in the chart's history, pulling further ahead of runner-up Janet Jackson, who has 18.
Madonna first appeared on the tally with 'Everybody' on the chart dated Nov. 6, 1982, eventually taking the cut to No. 3. Her follow-up, 'Burning Up/Physical Attraction' (counted as one title in Billboard's archives), also reached No. 3.
The third time was the charm for Madonna, as the double-sided 'Holiday/Lucky Star' marked her first No. 1 stay beginning Sept. 24, 1983.
To read a more detailed list of Madonna's 40 hits visit www.billboard.com
Source: Billboard.com, Madonnalicious
AllAboutMadonna is reporting that Madonna is currently Number 2 on the Official UK Midweek Charts with her new single 'Celebration'. Hopefully by Sunday’s chart show Madonna will be back where she belongs at the Number 1 hotspot.
1. Taio Cruz
2. Madonna
3. David Guetta
4. Shakira
5. Jay Z/Rihanna/Kanye West
Source: AllAboutMadonna
The Culture supplement in the Sunday Times will have an exclusive Madonna interview next week.
"A lot of people are really just confused by me. They don't know what to think of me, so they try to diminish me," Madonna tells the Times.
From her early life in New York to her move to Britain, Madonna talks the magazine through her evolving career in a rare and candid encounter with Dan Cairns.
Source: MadonnaTribe
After talking with MTV News' Jim Cantiello about her heartfelt tribute to the late Michael Jackson at the VMAs on Sunday night, Madonna also answered questions about Lady Gaga and her daughter, Lourdes.
Gaga, of course, has been frequently compared to Madonna — both musically and as an icon — and her performance at the VMAs on Sunday has been compared with Madonna's iconic VMA performances.
While she didn't see Gaga's performance from the audience, Madonna did catch it on a television screen backstage. "I just saw Lady Gaga," Madonna said with a smile. "She looks like she's going to carnival in Venice, very beautiful."
When asked if she feels at all threatened by the comparisons, Madonna said, "No, I'm very flattered." What about Lady Gaga's escort, Kermit the Frog? "I missed that," Madonna said, then joked, "But I've dated some frogs."
When asked if her daughter Lourdes — who is such a big Gaga fan that she danced on a table during a Gaga concert that Madonna took her to earlier this year — is interested in show business, Madonna turned serious.
"She's got school tomorrow so she's in the bed sleeping," she said. "I think she has an interest, but she has time — she's not even 13 yet, so give her a few more years."
Thanks to mashusan!
Source: Amazon Japan
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Madonna surprised MTV’s VMAs tonight by opening the show with a long speech about Michael Jackson. Read her entire tribute here:
“Michael Jackson. [Cheers] I have a little bit more to say than that. OK, here we go again. Michael Jackson was born in August 1958. So was I. Michael Jackson grew up in the suburbs of the midwest. So did I. When Michael Jackson was six, he became a superstar, and was perhaps the world’s most beloved child. When I was six, my mother died. I think he got the shorter end of the stick. I never had a mother, but he never had a childhood. And when you never get to have something, you become obsessed by it.
I spent my childhood searching for my mother figures. Sometimes I was successful, but how do you recreate your childhood when you are under the magnifying glass of the world.
There is no question that Michael Jackson is one of the greatest talents the world has ever known. That when he sang a song at the ripe old age of 8 he could make you feel like an experienced adult was squeezing your heart with his word. That when he moved he had the elegance of Fred Astaire and packed the punch of Muhammed Ali. That his music had an extra layer of inexplicable magic that didn’t just make you want to dance but actually made you believe you could fly, dare to dream, be anything that you wanted to be. Because that is what heroes do and Michael Jackson was a hero.
He performed in soccer stadiums around the world, and sold hundreds of millions of records and dined with prime ministers and presidents. Girls fell in love with him, boys fell in love with him, everyone wanted to dance like him. He seemed otherworldly - but he was a human being.
Like most performers he was shy and plagued with insecurities. I can’t say we were great friends, but in 1991 I decided I wanted to try to get to know him better. I asked him out to dinner, I said “My treat, I’ll drive - just you and me.”
He agreed and showed up to my house without any bodyguards. We drove to the restaurant in my car. It was dark out, but he was still wearing sunglasses.
I said, “Michael, I feel like I’m talking to a limosine. Do you think you can take off your glasses so I can see your eyes?”
Then he tossed the glasses out the window, looked at me with a wink and a smile and said, “Can you see me now? Is that better?”
in that moment, I could see both his vulnerability and his charm. The rest of the dinner, I was hellbent on getting him to eat French Fries, drink wine, have dessert and say bad words. Things he never seemed to allow himself to do. Later we went back to my house to watch a movie and sat on the couch like two kids, and somewhere in the middle of the movie, his hand snuck over and held mine.
It felt like he was looking for more of a friend than a romance, and I was happy to oblige. In that moment, he didn’t feel like a superstar. He felt like a human being.
We went out a few more times together, and then for one reason or another we fell out of touch. Then the witchhunt began, and it seemed like one negative story after another was coming out about Michael. I felt his pain, I know what it’s like to walk down the street and feel like the whole world is turned against you. I know what it’s like to feel helpless and unable to defend yourself because the roar of the lynchmob is so loud you feel like your voice can never be heard.
But I had a childhood, and I was allowed to make mistakes and find my own way in the world without the glare of the spotlight.
When I first heard that Michael had died, I was in London, days away from the start of my tour. Michael was going to perform in the same venue as me a week later. All I could think about in this moment was, “I had abandoned him.” That we had abandoned him. That we had allowed this magnificent creature who had once set the world on fire to somehow slip through the cracks. While he was trying to build a family and rebuild his career, we were all passing judgement. Most of us had turned our backs on him. In a desperate attempt to hold onto his memory, I went on the internet to watch old clips of him dancing and singing on TV and on stage and I thought, “my god, he was so unique, so original, so rare, and there will never be anyone like him again. He was a king.”
But he was also a human being, and alas we are all human beings and sometimes we have to lose things before we can appreciate them. I want to end this on a positive note and say that my sons, age 9 and 4, are obsessed with Michael Jackson. There’s a whole lot of crotch grabbing and moonwalking going on in my house. And, it seems like a whole new generation of kids have discovered his genius and are bringing him to life again. I hope that wherever Michael is right now he is smiling about this.
Yes, Michael Jackson was a human being but he was a king. Long live the king.
Source: Rolling Stone, MTV
Madonna with Andre Balazs, Jesus Luz and Steven Klein attends Boom Boom Room Club Opening (September 12 2009).
Source: All About Madonna
