NEWS - MARCH 2007 « February (part II) - News index - March (part II) »

14 March - Robbie's 'Madonna' does not hit Robbie Williams' new single "She's Madonna" from the album Rudebox unfortunately fails to become a big hit in the UK, where he's been enjoying a big success for many years. The catchy song, which is a story about Guy Ritchie ending his relationship with Tania Strecker in favour of Madonna, told in lyrics interspersed by various Madonna references, enters the charts at #16, which is a far cry from a #1 hit, which has been predicted by critics at the release of the album. Since the release, the album has been panned by critics and received bad word of mouth, even if it's a new direction of him. This paralels Madonna's "fall" during the Erotica & American Life eras... 14 March - Like A Virgin in Definitive 200 Albums On a slow news week, we look at the recent Definitive 200 Albums, compiled by the National Association of Recording Merchandisers and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Unfortunately the list - based on popularity & sales, but not critical acclaim or votes by fans - features Madonna only once, with her sophomore 1984 smash Like A Virgin at a dismal #164. We're not putting down other albums (some of them are of course deserve to be there, some don't), but the accuracy of the list is doubted without the inclusion of critical & commercial successes Like A Prayer or Ray Of Light. Anyway, here's what the list says about Madonna. The review is quite positive, and in the good side, the whole promotion gave a sales boost for the album in the US: Madonna's second album was her breakthrough, thanks principally to two gimmicky hits: the sinuous Like A Virgin, with its taboo-busting metaphor for that fresh, clean new-love feeling, and the cutesy, Betty-Boopsy Material Girl. Most of the rest of the album, although similarly frothy, is superior to those warhorses, notably the irresistible LP tracks Over And Over, and Pretender--which adds a bit of gossamer delicacy to the mandatory bounciness. Dress You Up is a Madonna classic, an insubstantial dance-pop delight bedecked in synthesized bells and replete to the beat with kinky suggestions. And there's a sign of greater depth to come in her cover of Rose Royce's elegiac ballad Love Don't Live Here Anymore, a heartfelt vocal supported by a subtle, gorgeous arrangement helmed by producer Nile Rodgers and his two key Chic instrumental compatriots, Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson. 10 March - Madonna lures H&M customers to Asia Hennes & Mauritz AB, Europe's second-largest clothing retailer, said the premiere of a product range designed by Madonna helped lure hundreds of customers to its Hong Kong store, which opened its doors for the first time today. "Hong Kong is a good fashion city," Chairman Stefan Persson said in an interview at the opening today. "The interest is enormous. There's good potential in the Asian market." The first 20 customers through the door of H&M's four-floor, 3,500-square-meter store located in Hong Kong's prime central district received a trench coat signed by pop star Madonna, with the next 500 getting a pair of sunglasses from her M collection. The shop paves the way for H&M's expansion into the world's most populous continent, with stores to follow in Shanghai and Tokyo. The Stockholm-based company will be taking on larger rival Inditex SA, the owner of the Zara chain, and Hong Kong- based outfitters including Esprit Holdings in Asia, where rising incomes and personal wealth are making the market more attractive. "It's the first step of moving into the bigger mainland China market," Theresa Lo, a Hong Kong-based analyst at BOC International Holdings Ltd., said in telephone interview before the opening. "They're serious operators, so when they go into China they'll be looking at big cities. Aside from Europe, H&M is under-established in the rest of the world." China Sourcing H&M buys more than 60 percent of its clothes in Asia and sells them at about double the price. The company has had a sourcing office in Hong Kong for 30 years, making its introduction into the Chinese city smooth, Nils Vinge, director of investor relations, said earlier in an interview. "We are expanding stores at between 10 percent and 15 percent worldwide a year," Vinge said. "When entering a new market, the trick is finding the right balance between `adapt' and `adopt' in regards to local sensibilities." The retailer has no plans to create a distribution or logistics center in China, responsible for 30 percent of its clothing purchases, Vinge said. The Madonna-designed collection, heavily promoted in Hong Kong through saturation advertising and newspapers and public transport, is the latest tactic to win back market share from Inditex, which last year surpassed H&M as Europe's largest apparel retailer. More than 500 people lined up outside the Hong Kong store, vying to grab a piece of the M Collection. The first in line, Wilkie Chu, said he's a huge Madonna fan. Madonna Fan "I want to get the signed jacket so badly," said Chu, 35, who started the queue at 10 a.m. yesterday. "I'm going to buy everything shown on the posters" H&M has also offered collections designed by Viktor & Rolf, Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney to revive revenue, and earlier this month hired Australian pop singer Kylie Minogue to model its range of beachwear. The company plans to add three more stores in Hong Kong this fall and aims to open two stores in Shanghai, with the first due to open April 12. "We see a vast potential in China for expansion and we are well prepared for it," said Lex Keijser, country manager of greater China, in a statement. It plans to enter Japan next year after opening stores in Slovakia, Greece and Qatar in 2007. "I love H&M," said Christabelle Bishman, 15, who visited the New York store last summer. "We'll buy anything that looks fashionable." Bishman was queuing outside the Hong Kong store with her sister Angelina and friend Joanna Fu. (source: Bloomberg) 10 March - Madonna set for Nip/Tuck Madonna is set to join the cast of hit plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck after confessing she's a big fan of the show. Creator Ryan Murphy reveals he's currently writing a part for the pop superstar. Murphy would like Madonna to play opposite pal and A League Of Their Own co-star Rosie O'Donnell, who has become a regular on the show after hitting the headlines for a sex scene she filmed with Nip/Tuck star Julian McMahon last season. Murphy says, "I'm going to write something for Madonna, who is a fan of the show and I would love for her to do something with Rosie." Madonna isn't be the only big name being considered for upcoming episodes - Nicole Kidman has already signed on for a cameo and McMahon explains his Premontion co-star Sandra Bullock is also interested in a role. He adds, "Sandy said she wanted to come on last year and she didn't. She wants to come on the last episode and she wants to get her whole body done, or something." (source: Contactmusic) 10 March - Question about new collaborators in Ask Billboard Keith Caulfield has answered yet another Madonna question in his Ask Billboard column, regarding her new collaborators and sales info of recent releases: Hey Keith, Once again, I just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading your column. I look forward to it every week. I have a Madonna question for you (one of your millions I am sure)! I heard a rumor that she is in the studio with Timbaland working on her new album. Is this true? Are there any details about a release date? Also, I was wondering if you could give me album sales for her past three releases: The Confessions Tour, I'm Going To Tell You A Secret and Confessions On A Dance Floor. Thanks so much! Ryan Gibson Toronto Hi Ryan, Well, there is no official word that Madonna has actually set foot in a studio with Timbaland. When our intrepid R&B Editor Gail Mitchell quizzed Timbaland for our recent cover story, he said that he was supposed to call up Madonna that very night to discuss a possible collaboration. Will anything ever come of this? Who knows. What we do know is that in a telephone interview with former Billboard editor Larry Flick on his Sirius satellite show a few weeks ago, Madonna joked about how she was going to run downstairs and "tell Pharrell" something Flick said. Flick didn't follow up and ask her about the new album or Pharrell, but it's fair to assume that Pharrell was probably really there with her working on music. So far, her last studio album, Confessions On A Dance Floor, has sold 1.6 million copies in the U.S. The I'm Going To Tell You A Secret documentary CD/DVD package has sold 76,000, while the Confessions Tour live CD/DVD set has moved 77,000. 09 March - Former nanny to tell Madonna tales EW.com has seen a proposal for a book revealing intimate details about Madonna's children, husband, and the controversial Malawi adoption A woman claiming to be a former nanny for Madonna is currently shopping a tell-all memoir detailing the inner workings of the Madonna-Guy Ritchie household. EW.com has seen the 80-page proposal, which is being circulated among major publishing houses. The document proposes a book that will reveal intimate information gleaned from Melissa Dumas' service as Madonna's nanny. Sample chapters and chapter summaries provide a laundry list of alleged details pertaining to Madonna's marriage to Ritchie, their children's behavior, the family's participation in Kabbalah, and the motivation behind Madonna's decision to adopt a boy from Malawi. The pitch also contains personal photos of Madonna's family, as well as photos of the alleged nanny playing with Madonna's kids. The proposal includes a copy of an unsigned nondisclosure agreement that the author claims Madonna issued to her only after she had already resigned as her nanny. Sharlene Martin, the literary agent listed in the proposal, would not confirm nor deny an affiliation with the proposal or the listed author. She also would not confirm or deny that the proposal has been bought by a publisher. Neither Dumas nor a representative for Madonna responded immediately to efforts to contact them for comment. (source: Entertainment Weekly) 08 March - H&M starts online promotion Fashion store H&M has started the online promotion for the new line "M by Madonna". Check out the new H&M website, which is completely restyled with the Madonna pictures taken by Steven Klein. They also premiered the new H&M commercial, featuring ànd directed by Madonna herself. It features Madonna as a dominant fashion guru - similar to Meryl Streep's character in 'The Devil Wears Prada' - discussing with her designers how to drastically restyle a young girl. The superb ad exists in a 44 seconds version and a long direcors cut of 1'30. You can watch IT on our brand new video blog: blog.mad-eyes.net. In the next few days, all the H&M stores in the world will be completely Madonnanized. The stores in Hong Kong were the first to premiere the new look. The new clothing line itself will be in stores as of March 22nd. 06 March - Badly Drawn Boy desperate to work with Madonna Badly Drawn Boy star Damon Gough is so keen to work with Madonna he has already written a song for her. Gough referred to the Hung Up singer on his 2002 hit You Were Right, and despite having worked with Hollywood star Jack Nicholson and French singer/actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, the 37-year-old is still desperate to record with the pop superstar. He says, "I'd like to work on collaborations with some other artists like Madonna. She would be my first choice. I do have one song in particular I think would be perfect for her. (It's) one that didn't get released so it didn't have an official finished title. But the working name was In Two Minds." (source: WENN) 06 March - How to get Madonna's look for less From Material Girl to clothing queen, now you too can dress like Madonna without busting your bank account! Jennifer Uglialoro, H&M's fashion spokesperson, revealed how you can look like a rock star for under $200. Thanks to H&M's new line, M by Madonna, you can dress in a wide array of immaculate yet affordable clothes and accessories inspired by Madonna herself. "It's a collection of her personal favorites, so it's really unique, timeless and glamorous," Jennifer dished. Madge's first famous look for less: the infamous cat suit! "This is very Madonna, it's the one piece in the collection that really screams her," Jennifer displayed, which retails for just $34.90. Meanwhile, the Madonna-inspired denim suit is always in vogue and can be worn day or night! "The jacket is $79.90; it's an update from a regular denim jacket," Jennifer said. "We have the skinny black pant with zippers on the bottom." If you want something a little more classic, there's also the proverbial little black dress. "It's timeless, it's sexy and it's only $59.90," Jennifer showed us. For those of you who want to splurge, the Madonna-inspired leather trench coat sells for a cool $298. "It's the hottest thing this season; it's fitted at the waist and it's really feminine and fun," Jennifer said. (source: ExtraTV) Watch the video here. 05 March - Flapper gril Madonna and Village People cop Guy It seems as if the long arm of the law has finally caught up with Madonna - possibly for offences including impersonation of a 1920s flapper. But believe or not, she is actually out celebrating a religious festival. The distinctly camp cop who has her under arrest is none other than her husband Guy Ritchie, and the couple are in fancy dress while attending an event run by the mystical Jewish sect Kabbalah at its centre in Los Angeles. Madonna, a leading supporter of Kabbalah, was the star guest at the festival of Purim, which celebrates the foiling of an ancient plot to kill Jews in Persia. While the 48-year-old singer had her hair bobbed, wore a feather boa and carried a cigarette holder, 38-year-old Ritchie appeared as a 1970s Village People-style police officer complete with sunglasses and big moustache. Madonna, nicknamed Madge by her husband, recently donated £1.5 million to set up a Kabbalah centre in Malawi, the country from where she adopted baby David Banda last year. Ritchie is reported to have become increasingly critical of her devotion to the sect, which has been criticised for promising happiness to wealthy donors. (source: Daily Mail) Click here for more pix. 03 March - The Confessions Tour sales update The Confessions Tour CD/DVD is still doing quite well around the world: in the US it has already sold more than 72,000 copies, almost matching the total of I'm Going To Tell You A Secret. On the United World Chart, it has sold 89,000 copies this week, with total sales of 517,000 copies so far, which is a huge success for a live album! 03 March - Madonna's British fashion snub Madonna has no interest in British fashion. The singer, whose fashion line M by Madonna hits H+M stores next month, admits she pays no attention to what everyday women are wearing. Madonna told Britain's Elle magazine: "I don't pay much attention to British women's style. I just run around in my tracksuit with my sunglasses on." The 48-year-old also revealed she hates shopping for new outfits and prefers clothes to be brought to her. Madonna moaned: "I have never liked shopping. I don't like going into a store and going through racks. So I'm happy to have girls to do it for me. "What's wrong with me? I don't like to shop and I don't like to shop!" (source: AskMen) 03 March - Madonna's secret costume museum Pop superstar Madonna has a secret museum housing all her favourite stage and screen outfits. The Material Girl has kept hold of thousands of costumes which she keeps hidden away at an undisclosed location in California. She reveals, "I have an archive museum in a warehouse which houses all the costumes I've worn on stage and in videos - one-of-a-kind pieces made for me and special pieces I've always loved." (source: WENN via Yahoo) 03 March - Madonna at #2 on Billboard Moneymakers of 2006 Madonna ranks at #2 on the annual Billboard Magazine Moneymakers list: 01. The Rolling Stones: $234.065 million 02. Madonna: $175.144 million 03. Bon Jovi: $103.247 million 04. Tim McGraw: $102.633 million 05. U2: $94.508 million 06. Rascall Flatts: $87.103 million 07. Faith Hill: $83.061 million 08. Kenny Chesney: $75.887 million 09. Celine Dion: $69.951 million 10. Cirque Du Soleil's 'Delirium': $69.907 million 11. Barbra Streisand: $67.217 million 12. Nickelback: $60.128 million 13. Billy Joel: $58.835 million 14. Aerosmith: $53.98 million 15. Elton John: $49.383 million 16. Dave Matthews Band: $48.417 million 17. Johnny Cash: $47.933 million 18. Dixie Chicks: $46.921 million 19. Red Hot Chili Peppers: $46.034 million 20. Andrea Bocelli: $42.078 million MADONNA $175,143,644.85 Madonna delivered her 10th studio album, the Grammy Award-winning Confessions On a Dance Floor, in late 2005. The disc debuted in the pole position of The Billboard 200 and went on to spend 30 weeks on the chart in 2006. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Confessions has sold 1.6 million units. In May 2006, Madonna kicked off the Confessions Tour, which was the second top-grossing trek of 2006 - and the top-grossing tour ever by a female artist. The trek grossed slightly less than $195 million, according to Billboard Boxscore. Shortly after the tour commenced, Madonna became the worldwide spokesmodel for global retailer H&M. Her own women's clothing line, M by Madonna, debuts March 22 in all H&M stores that carry women's clothing. (thanx to thebigham and HolidayGuy at MadonnaNation) 02 March - Revisiting Erotica As the 15th anniversary of the Erotica album approaches, Slant Magazine posted a nice and objective review, with "looking back the music behind the hype": My relationship to Madonna's Erotica has been an ever-evolving one. Being just 13 years old at the time of its release, I was too young to relate to most of the music's sexual politics. But I played the album incessantly, maybe because I recognized something innately human beneath its icy surface, and, even if I couldn't articulate it, there was an honest rage behind Madonna's rebellious public persona - Erotica and its accompanying Sex book seemed to be a part of the most audacious public temper tantrum I'd ever seen. At the very least, I knew a good flamenco guitar solo when I heard one. It wasn't until years later, as an adult, that I started to grasp the socio-sexual commentary implicit in the album's songs, and then only recently that I started to discover some of the more subversive, fringe ideas emerging in my own private life. The emotional states that lie beneath certain aspects of sexuality are universal - even if handcuffs and harnesses are not. Deeply flawed, hugely under-appreciated, and pounded into submission by the hype and controversy surrounding Sex, Erotica is the album Kurt Loder likened to an iceberg. Madonna, under the guise of her then-muse, '30s actress Dita Parlo, presides over the proceedings with whip in hand and tongue planted firmly in cheek. If Madonna's image seemed aggressive up until this point, her music was warm, inviting, and accessible (it was pop by definition - hell, she defined pop music in the '80s), which made her next-generation version of feminism a lot easier to swallow - or, to some, tolerable - in the era of AIDS and Reagan. By 1992, Madonna was an icon - untouchable, literally and figuratively - and Erotica was the first time the artist's music took on a decidedly combative, even threatening, tone, and most people didn't want to hear it. Of all Madonna's musical output, Erotica most resembled her acting: stiff, aloof, and seemingly contrived. Ironically, this came at a time when her films (Dick Tracy, Truth Or Dare, A League Of Their Own) were actually making money for the first time since Desperately Seeking Susan. Madonna's characters in films like Body of Evidence and Dangerous Game, both released on the steel-toed dominatrix heels of Erotica, were far cries from the defiant but likeable Susan, and though Erotica was a full-on dance album, Madonna seemed more interested in getting off than getting into the groove. Emphasis should be placed on seemed since few of the songs on the album are actually about sex. The ballads are all direct results of sex (the promiscuity hymn Bad Girl, the AIDS dirge In This Life, and some might even view Rain as an extended cum metaphor, though I don't subscribe to that knee-jerk interpretation), but most of the album is about romance and the loss of it. That is, especially the loss of it. "This is not a love song," Madonna insists at the start of Bye Bye Baby, but that's wishful thinking: one particularly vengeful line from the song, "I'd like to hurt you," takes on new meaning following the title track's "I only hurt the ones I love." The filter on her voice gives the effect of an answering machine message, the bleep that censors her final barb ("You fucked it up") doubling as the machine's end-of-message beep. A few tracks later, Waiting, a veritable sequel to the steely, in-your-face spoken-word of Justify My Love, addresses rejection and unrequited love in a more brutally honest fashion: "Don't go breaking my heart like you said you would," she sings despondently yet sincerely. Here's a woman who entered into a relationship after the man she loves told her he wouldn't be able to love her back. And yet she still took the risk, which is exactly what Erotica is about. Forget the whips and chains of the brilliant, otherworldly ode to S&M that is Erotica - Waiting is the ultimate masochism, one that is entered into with full knowledge of what the emotional consequences will be. The very first lyric, "Well, I know from experience that if you have to ask for something more than once or twice, it wasn't yours in the first place," which she utters with the same amount of interest a star of her stature might apply to buying a new pair of shoes, also happens to be one of the best opening lines to a pop song since "I guess I should have known by the way you parked your car sideways that it wouldn't last." Speaking of little red corvettes, Madonna waxes erotic on the perks and pleasures of oral sex on Where Life Begins, the album's most overtly sexual track but also the only one to reference safe sex: "I'm glad you brought your raincoat/I think it's beginning to rain." Both Where Life Begins and Waiting draw heavily from Motown and were produced by Andre Betts, who cut his teeth as associate producer of Justify My Love. But Erotica's chief producer was Shep Pettibone, who remixed Madonna's singles for half a decade before graduating to legit collaborator with the seminal dance hit Vogue in 1990. Deeper And Deeper, with its juxtaposition of swirling disco synths, of-the-moment Chicago house beats, and the aforementioned flamenco guitar (insisted upon by Madonna, according to Pettibone, who objected), is both a product of its time and a timeless Madge classic. (The track even borrows a lyric from Vogue, as if she'd come anywhere close to running out of ideas by 1992.) Madonna's rarely acknowledged harmonies glide atop the frosty beats, thunder-claps of percussion, and skyward drone of the sonorous Rain, and, of course, there's the inventive and sleek Words. Madonna could have more successfully achieved the gritty, raw sound she wanted had she completely handed the reigns over to Betts; time hasn't been kind to Pettibone's often-suffocating productions, while Betts's jazzy piano parts and hip-hop beats still sound fresh. Regardless of the producer, however, the album is sonically seamless, and almost every song is about a minute too long - an orgy that seemingly never ends, or maybe just the product of CD technology. And then there's Did You Do It?, which, aside from the supremely over-the-top but ridiculously fun Thief Of Hearts, is the pockmark on Madonna's otherwise flawless, 35-year-old posterior. It's the houseguest who stayed the night and who looks much less desirable in the light of day. She could burn her sheets and sanitize the bedroom, she could write it out of her memory, issuing a "clean" version of the whole story without a parental advisory sticker (and she did, because Madonna wanting to get her pussy eaten isn't as offensive as a rapper talking about actually having done it). But the stink remains anyway. "Did you do it?" She knows she did, but she really just wants to get wifed and have a baby, feminism be damned. Which brings us to, perhaps, Erotica's most personal, revealing moment, the unexpected jazz-house closer Secret Garden, another Betts production. Most critics and fans are split between two camps: those who think Like A Prayer is Madonna's greatest album and those who believe Ray Of Light is. (I happen to belong to the former.) And then there are those who claim Erotica is her best effort. Had Betts produced more tracks like Secret Garden, it may very well have been. Way ahead of its time, the track sets Madonna's yen for a child to shuffling drum n' bass, atmospheric synths, and a distant saxophone beckoning like an alley cat. Ever the control freak, and with motherhood still a few years away, she tries to dismiss her ticking biological desire: "I just wish I knew the color of my hair." It's unexpectedly the album's sexist song. Erotica's irrefutable unsexiness probably says more about the sex=death mentality of the early '90s than any other musical statement of its time. This is not Madonna at her creative zenith. This is Madonna at her most important, at her most relevant. Pettibone's beats might be time-stamped with the sound of a genre that ruled a decade of one-hitters before being replaced by commercialized hip-hop, and Madonna's voice might sound nasal and remote, but no one else in the mainstream at that time dared to talk about sex, love, and death with such frankness and fearlessness, and, intentional or not (probably not), the fact that she sounds like she has a cold only adds to the claustrophobic stuffiness of the record. The drums of In This Life tick away like Stephen Hawking's Doomsday Clock, which, coupled with tension-building keyboard intervals inspired by Gershwin's blues lullaby "Prelude No. 2," creates a sense of dis-ease rarely found in a pop ballad. Whatever words one chooses to label the album with - cold, artificial, self-absorbed, anonymous - Madonna embraces those qualities and makes it part of the message. "Why's it so hard to love one another?" she asks on the reggae-hued Why's It So Hard?, knowing the answer lies within the dark fact that a society that won't even allow two people to love each other freely can't possibly be expected to love and care for perfect strangers unconditionally. Sexually liberated, for sure, but Madonna is a liberal in every other sense of the word too, and you didn't have to hear her shout, "Vote for Clinton!" as she was being whisked past MTV News's cameras to know that. It could be argued that Madonna lost her rebel relevance right around the time Reagan's regime ended - the waning of her popularity certainly coincided with the arrival of Bill Clinton's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. But looking back from the vantage point of an administration far more sinister than Reagan's, it's clear that Madonna, her messages, and her music are more relevant now than ever. [4 out of 5 stars] 02 March - Madonna can finally dress us up in her love On March 22, the first capsule collection of clothes composed by the iconic trendsetter hits the shelves at H&M outposts around the world - including 10 New York area stores. In an exclusive first peek at the highly anticipated "M by Madonna" line, we fell for key pieces including a range of slick belted trench coats ($99.90-$298), a vampy black jersey evening dress ($59.90) and the super-skinny black pants ($59.90) that are one of Madonna's signature looks. And that, says H&M's design chief Margareta van den Bosch, isn't a coincidence. The Material Girl and van den Bosch spent days combing through the superstar's well-appointed closets, selecting the strongest staples to use as inspiration for the 30-piece collection. "Madonna has a remarkable feel for fashion and trends," says van den Bosch. "She was involved in even the smallest details of the design." Prices range from $12.90 for a turban to $298 for a leather coat. Other hot picks - which are bound to create the kind of frenzy H&M witnessed last November when Viktor & Rolf's capsule collection turned into a stiletto-riot as shoppers clamored for limited-edition goodies - include a slimming pencil skirt ($49.90), sexy satin shirts ($49.90), movie-star shades ($34.90), a satin bomber jacket ($59.90) and a super assortment of dresses ($34.90-$59.90). M by Madonna is the latest of several recent collaborations for H&M. Karl Lagerfeld created an exclusive collection for the stores in 2004 and Stella McCartney followed suit a year later. But Madonna's the first celeb - with no designing experience - to infiltrate the superstore's shelves. That, predicts Ashley Baker, a style editor at Glamour magazine, shouldn't be a problem. The collection will be "a slam-dunk business venture for Madonna and the clothing company," Baker explains. "For Madonna, it expands her portfolio of things that she can do successfully. And for H&M, it's a way to get customers into their store that maybe have never been to their store before. They have a presence in the United States certainly, but right now they're really concentrated on the coasts. This Madonna collaboration, I think much more so than Viktor & Rolf, is going to interest people in the fly-over states." Madonna's a kind of fashion everywoman, after all, alternating costly couture with street-worthy sweats. "When she shows up at events, she's wearing expensive designer clothes," says Baker. "But when you see her on the street, you'll see her often in an Adidas track suit and a pair of sneakers. I think she's trying to take that street sensibility and bring it to a mass audience." M by Madonna goes on sale Thursday, March 22. Doors open at 10 a.m. but be warned, the long lines will start forming as early as the night before. (source: NY Daily News) 02 March - Madonna keeps wedding gear for Lourdes Madonna wants her daughter Lourdes to wear her wedding dress when she gets married. The singer is keeping her ivory Stella McCartney designer gown for her 10-year-old daughter's special day, after Lourdes begged her mother to let her wear it. Madonna confessed to Elle magazine: "The only thing Lourdes has requested to have when she grows up is my wedding dress, to wear for her own wedding." While Madonna and Lourdes agree on wedding attire, they don't always agree on fashion. The 48-year-old pop superstar, famed for her outrageous stage outfits, admits she disapproves of her daughter's clothes choices. Madonna said: "My daughter is going through the phase of wearing jeans so tight she can't bend her knees in them. I have a go at her and say, 'Can't you wear something else? And can you please wear a belt because I don't want to see your butt crack when you bend over'." (source: Tonight)

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