Friday, July 6, 2012

Lady Madonna: A Change of Face 1986

Face. Hair. Silent Film Star Teeth.

17 comments:

  1. Her makeup artist forgot the tweezers.

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  2. Her makeup artist forgot the tweezers.

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    1. Big brows were very in at the time and I love them.

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    1. It means yuck. I think this look was terrible.

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    2. And of course the pic in your avatar is you, right? Of course! :)

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  4. Agree. Even thought this was an important time in her career, this look was hideous. Maybe at the time is was cool, but looking back at the style makes me cringe. Madonna even said so herself durning the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame speech.

    But, still it did make her more relevant in pop culture back then. She wasn't just a cookie cutter pop tart, but a smart, artistic revolutionist. She set the trend for many others and that's why i can tolerate those bush caterpillar eyebrows and Annie Lennox ripped off hair style.

    Ps: I wished she would have kept the hair more of a pixie cut like on the cover of Rolling Stone in 86 and the Papa Don't Preach single cover. I actually liked that.

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    1. Looking back on it, it was an incredible look and the most important because it was the first major change. I guess we have to look at it in the context. At the time there was no such thing as a pop star, or any famous person really changing looks. You developed a look and you stayed with it for life a la Liza Minnelli because otherwise the public would get confused and not buy the product, it was the established marketing strategy that had worked for a century.

      This was also expected of Madonna but of course she didn't follow suit. When she debuted this look it must've been incredibly shocking, but it worked. And not only did it work but it set the template for the way music is marketed today. The only difference is that Madonna's image changed organically as her own life changed and evolved, now Katy Perry and Rihanna sit down with a marketing team of 30 people to choose what look to go next with.

      Now to the look itself, I derided it many times but I have since realized that it was in a way groundbreaking. First of all it's quintessential Americana, like Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis, but at the same time it is completely new. It's Coca-Cola, Cadillac, Diners, Edward Hopper, everything the American Dream is supposed to be, in fact it WAS the American Dream.

      A middle class girl from the Midwest who made good and now looked like a star, she was the american dream in a time where things were rather bleak all over the world.

      And, since it was a look that borrowed, or rather reinvigorated the Glamour of Golden Age Hollywood, it instantly set her APART from the rest of the music scene.

      While Michael Jackson further spiraled into madness, and Prince and Cyndi Lauper looked like FREAKS, Madonna in contrast looked like a STAR, like those minted directly from the Paramount lot.

      And I see the videos now, True Blue and the rest and they are indeed so beautiful, and she is so beautiful in them.

      I think the moments when the look DIDN'T work were when she was shooting Who's That Girl and events she did around that time which if you really look closely was NOT the look immortalized by Herb Ritts, or that featured in videos from the time.

      Oh and the Who's That Girl Tour, I think she's at her best shape, she can't dance now like she did on that tour, it was hardcore, not even in blond ambition did you see dancing like that, and I saw it a few days ago and all I could think of was that THIS, Madonna at that time must've been like watching Sarah Bernhart onstage, or the dancers of the Moulin Rouge, performers that depended SOLELY on their body, true performance art.

      I didn't live through it but now I can see it was her best time.

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    1. Stop trying to make 'it' happen. It's not going to ;)

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  6. The First of the Reinventions. Madge the Little Girl was hurting, growing up and needing to be loved. Madonna became an artist. A singer is born. The album-True Blue.
    The song-Live to Tell. The result-AOR that is still brilliant and classy.

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    1. Agreed, Trey! Live to Tell is a sad and beautiful Maddy Artwork. Madonna at her brilliant best!

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