Twenty years ago this year, Madonna made history… again. I was part of it. And I loved being part of it. As a matter of fact, a significant portion of the population was part of it.
On March 3, 1989, I was a 13 year-old eighth grader who had gotten into the groove over and over… with her music, of course. And I wasn’t just like a virgin. I was a virgin, and it would be a few years before I would be touched for the very first time. Long ago, before I would dare acknowledge I was gay, before I even knew that loving Madonna was once considered prerequisite among admission requirements to the society of gay men, I loved my Madonna cassettes. I played them to death. I envisioned myself as the pervy little kid in the “Open Your Heart” video. I asked the middle school Spanish teacher what the Spanish lyrics in “La Isla Bonita” were. I thought “Who’s That Girl” was not only an awesome pop song, but that the film of the same name was worthy of being watched repeatedly.
In hindsight, I remember feeling a tingly at the sight of Griffin Dunne’s hairy chest in that film, but… eh, I was 13. What did I know? At the time, I was just confused. That’s what the priest told me in confession. But, anyway, back to that day in March, twenty years ago…
Way back when, after getting home from school, I would watch MTV when my father wasn’t home (watching music videos was tantamount to burning down the Vatican, so he couldn’t know I was doing it). I vividly remember seeing that Madonna’s ZOMG NEW VIDEO was premiering on Friday, March 3, 1989. The commercial promoting the premiere was practically titillating for me. And what was up with Madonna’s hair? She was platinum blonde before, but now, her hair was this gorgeous dark brown, falling in curls over her forehead and down just past her shoulders. And then, there was the spaghetti strap dress (?) showed her ample cleavage as she wrapped her arms around her torso; that tiny gap between her front teeth as her mouth opened in both singing and ecstasy.
I was so ready. I rushed home after school that Friday afternoon. The school bus let us off about one-half mile from my house and I raced through the Portuguese Catholic church parking lot on the end of my neighborhood, hopped the chain-link fence that separated it from the dead end street adjacent to mine, and made it home just in time for… Like A Prayer.
And it was jaw-dropping. I was a Roman Catholic altar boy who went to church every single week, but I was watching this violent and sexual piece with burning crosses and lots of cleavage, and… I was transfixed. I remember being alone in the living room, on our old scratchy couch, staring at the screen, and loving every minute of it.
For a number of years, I denied my favor for Madonna. It wasn’t until my early 30s when I finally realized that I didn’t really give a shit what it meant about me. Years after I came out, I was comfortable enough with who I was to say, “OH, God. I love Madonna. I love that song. I love this song. That video is hot.” And while I dropped the ball on her new single, Celebration, I was happy to finally not only hear it in my friend Peter’s apartment earlier this weekend, but also to see the video.
Of course, the video doesn’t relay the same artistic thrill that came from Like A Prayer, or her mega-smash from 1998, Ray Of Light, but it’s exciting, nonetheless. There’s an awesome energy that comes with Madonna’s dancing, that of many dancers joining her on the screen, her startlingly attractive young boyfriend, and an unexpected video debut by her (clearly talented) 12 year-old daughter, Lourdes. The editing is just right, the moves are just so, and the song… well…
The song itself, if you’ve yet to hear it, is pretty extraordinary, and with good reason: it was co-written, co-produced, and later remixed by Paul Oakenfold, a master of both house and trance music. While the video uses an edit of a Benny Benassi remix, the single has three mixes for which Oakenfold can claim credit. Truthfully, though – and this is an unquestionable rarity – there isn’t a bad remix to be found on the single.
Trust me when I say that you want to hear and watch this. You want to own this. It is this gay man’s humble opinion that every gay man should love Madonna’s new single and video. And not just because it’s Madonna, but because it’s a further and exciting reinvention of the Queen of Pop. You don’t find many 51 year-old divorced mothers in this world who can capture you this way.
In three and one-half minutes, she does it again. Check it out.
done var vars = {javascriptid: 'video-0', width: '500', height: '272', locksize: 'no'}; var params = {allowfullscreen: 'true', allowscriptaccess: 'always', seamlesstabbing: 'true', overstretch: 'true'}; swfobject.embedSWF('http://v.wordpress.com/26Tv0bVf', 'video-0', '500', '272', '9.0.115','http://v.wordpress.com/wp-content/plugins/video/expressInstall2.swf', vars, params);p/s – you can buy the song, the remixes, and the video on iTunes. Go! Do it!
No comments:
Post a Comment