ack in 1983, when American Bandstand presenter Dick Clark asked Madonna what she wanted to achieve in her professional life, she replied: “To rule the world”. And she would achieve that feat less than a year later. Al- though she’d made a breakthrough on the American music scene in 1983 with the hits Holi-
With over 35 major world hits, it will be extreme- ly difficult to shortlist 20-22 songs (the usual num- ber for an average concert), but those appearing on her social media stories and rehearsal papers have included Vogue, Like A Prayer, Rescue Me, Bad Girl, Papa Don’t Preach, Crazy for you, Human Nature and Lucky Star. Us fans hope that she won’t turn to her last three albums too much, because apart from the fact that they didn’t yield any hits, people were left feeling largely indifferent to them. It is common knowledge that Madonna has nev- er lectured and has defied the laws of the music in- dustry, which always pushes younger artists, at least when it comes to women. That’s because it was at the age of 40 that Madonna experienced her own musi- cal renaissance with the album Ray of Light, which was followed by the album Music, the controversial American Life, then Confessions on a Dance Floor, one of the most critically acclaimed, and Hard Can- dy, which categorised Madonna for the first time as someone who follows trends rather than creating them (due to her collaboration with Justin Timber- lake). Her move in releasing the single 4 Minutes turned out to be very calculated and successful, be- cause it propelled her back to the top of the charts at the age of 50 and launched the most successful tour of her career, the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which also brought her to Belgrade and Budva and which no one has surpassed for 15 years. Madonna is al- so the only female artist to have total tour earn- ings exceeding $1.5 billion. She is only ranked be- hind The Rolling Stones, U2, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen, and she is set to overtake them after the Celebration tour. Without Madonna’s courage and audacity to al- ways push the limits of acceptability in popular cul- ture, it would today be impossible to imagine the looks of Britney Spears, Beyoncé or Lady Gaga, who very directly drew inspiration for their performanc- es from Madonna’s early works. That’s because, de- spite not being the best singer, Madonna has always been the very best when it comes to overall stage performance. Although she hasn’t stated publicly that this is her “last” tour, her manager Guy Oseary was very ex- plicit in that sense. This tour will enable the queen of pop to bid farewell to audiences in great style. As far as I’m concerned, regardless of the quality of music over the last decade, Madonna’s discography remains the soundtrack of my life. This is music that I return to both with joy and sadness. Just like David Bow- ie, who was her greatest inspiration, but also my fa- vourite singer. If it is my task to recommend some- thing to someone, I’d say figure out a way to attend a Madonna concert, regardless of the kind of music you listen to. Her concerts are a complete experience and an emotional rollercoaster that leave no one feel- ing apathetic. And this might be the last chance...
day, Lucky Star and Borderline, her first global suc- cess came with the song Like A Virgin and the al- bum of the same name, with 22 million albums sold. Forty years after the release of her first album, Madonna is launching her 12 th world tour in Van- couver on 15 th July. A total of 72 dates have been booked so far, including 45 in the U.S. and 27 in Eu- rope. That is still three months away, and I, like all great fans around the world, can only hope that the set list will somehow include all the songs that we love (which is impossible, of course). After the Ma- donna concerts that I attended in 2008, 2009 and 2015, I have to wait until 10 th September in Miami for the next one, and then one of the six scheduled for Los Angeles on 1 st October, for which I treated myself to a ticket right beside the stage. For me, this love affair began in the 1990s, which were very turbulent in Serbia, so the focus growing up in my family was reoriented towards art, primar- ily music. I’ll never forget my mother giving me sev- eral Best of CDs, by Queen and David Bowie, Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album and, finally, The Immac- ulate Collection, the first compilation of Madonna’s greatest hits. Apart from Vogue, the first songs I loved were Holiday and Into the Groove. I was only six years old, and I’d been enchanted completely by Madonna’s voice. Growing up to the music of Ma- donna in the ‘90s is one of the things that shaped me the most as a person, despite me being too young to understand the messages of many of the songs. And, at almost 65, Madonna doesn’t have any- thing to prove to anyone. She remains the best-sell- ing female vocalist of all time, with more than 300 million albums and singles sold, and until the “dig- ital era” was the artist with the most Top 10 singles in America: 38, including 12 number 1. Madonna is one of the few artists to have succeeded in unit- ing people of all nationalities, ages and religions, achieving enormous success in all countries around the world. My absolute fascination with her definite- ly began in 1998, with the cult album Ray of Light, which I began to experience personally despite not being formed emotionally as a person.
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