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Madonna news - June 2010
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Madonna among the world's most powerful celebrities
29 June 2010Forbes has announced their list of most powerful celebrities and Madonna just made the top 10, down from #3 in 2009. The #1 is Oprah Winfrey. For the full list, check Forbes.com.
First Look: Madonna's New "Material Girl" Clothing Line
Source: ChicagoNow - 25 June 2010More than two decades after she released the single Material Girl, Madonna will reinvent her song title as the name of her new fashion collection set to launch at Macy's this August.
Madge and her 13-year-old daughter Lourdes (nicknamed Lola) codesigned the "Material Girl" line, so don't expect racy cone-shaped bras to invade Macy's racks. The line will debut with a range of clothes, jewelry, purses and shoes with plans to foray into beauty next year. It aims to capture the latest trends at an affordable price ($12 to $40) and to incorporate Lola's fashion taste.
"I really like the way Lola dresses, and I think this line is absolutely an extension of her taste," said Madonna in a press statement.
Today, Macy's released the first three sketches from the "Material Girl" collection.
Lola might hardly be a teenager but she's displayed a penchant for fashion and counts fashion designer Stella McCartney as a mentor. Alongside her mother at the Nine premiere, Lola appeared on the red carpet in fishnets, a lace tutu miniskirt, a leather jacket, black Doc Martens, layered necklaces, black fingerless gloves, and jade green nail polish. See Lourdes' style evolution in the slideshow.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight last March, Madonna said, "We [Lourdes and I] rarely disagree when it comes to clothes, I have to say. That's why most of my closet is being raided on a regular basis."
Based on the "Material Girl" sketches, the line looks to bring together Madonna's signature styles (think hair bows, lace and studs) with Lourdes' contrasting layered look, similar to the lace tutu and combat boots that she wore to the Nine premiere.
The celebrity muse for the collection has yet to be revealed, but from the ad below, looks very Taylor Momsen to me. What do you think? To further speculate, the choice of Momsen seems like an especially wise marketing decision if she'll be wearing clothes from the collection on the next season of Gossip Girl.
An additional hint on the celebrity muse's identity? This Madonna quote about the roots of the song "Material Girl" from her Entertainment Tonight:
"The thing about 'Material Girl' is that it's not meant to be taken literally. If you're a material girl, you're a girl with a sense of humour because it was always meant in an ironic way. A material girl cares about how she looks but it doesn't run her life."
Look for the "Material Girl" collection in Macy's stores and online at Macys.com this August. And coming soon, check out macys.com/materialgirl for Lola's fashion blog.
Mad-Editorial: In today's music industry, Madonna does it better
18 June 2010"I don't have a record deal right now with anybody. I don't know how I'm going to get my music out the next time I make a record."
In such a Madonna-drought year, with those words, the Madonna fan community was left puzzled and nervous. So what was all the hype about the 360-degree Live Nation deal? Why did Madonna sign it if it doesn't cover a "record deal"?
Turns out it's a lot less, but at the same time a lot more than a lot of us imagined. Time and again, Madonna and her manager Guy Oseary called the Live Nation deal a "partnership", which is not how you describe a record deal. With a record contract, the artist is just the employee who has to channel her artistic vision into a product that the label can sell and get profit out of it. It's not to say Live Nation does not want to earn from the Madonna brand, but in this deal Madonna is her own boss too and altogether they are meant to think up the next step.
In a record deal, an artist would write and produce a number of tracks that are sold on a compact disc. If Madonna wanted this, she would have just signed again with Warner, one of the last 4 big record labels that are still functioning. Since she did not want to sign with them, most likely she's no longer thinking about the old way of writing and recording an album. That doesn't mean she's no longer going to make music, it's just that you probably won't find a CD with new Madonna songs on it, or at least not as a wide release.
Madonna signing the Live Nation contract means she was quick to realize the old formula for a pop artist doesn't work anymore. With Live Nation, she has the touring as her main moneymaking channel. In fact, she can even afford recording songs and premiering them at her shows (which recordings in good quality surface on the internet anyway) and she can cover the costs of music production from ticket sales.
Madonna made a one off deal with her old label Warner to distribute the Sticky & Sweet Tour. With this deal, Warner got less than they used to when Madonna was their own. Which means if Madonna wants to release a CD from now on, she would have to make a one off deal like this, to get the "middleman". But it's not worth for the middleman to step in, because it's less profitable than a regular record deal, and because CD sales are starting to be totally insignificant. There are no more 10 million sellers, very few albums pass 5 million, and we're talking about worldwide sales here. Madonna is one of the better selling artists worldwide but breaking down country-by-country it wouldn't pay off for the one-deal label to make any effort.
All the regular promo for music these days does not help either. It doesn't pay off to send an artist to high profile tv shows like American Idol or Oprah, only to see their CD barely passing 100,000 copies in the US in its first week. Having the artist "out there" was the classic type of promo in the last 15 years, but these days doing that won't translate into sales. That doesn't say it wouldn't happen at all, but the risk is too big to spend millions on an artist and then not get back anything.
This is why Madonna didn't promote her last few music projects as much. Everyone knew Madonna had an album out and they still sold well in those circumstances, but she was wise to quickly jump to rehearse for a tour, make her music heard on the tour. In the end she managed to sell 3.5 million CDs and tickets. Not many others can achieve this feat. She's in a safer place than most acts. So don't look back to how music promo used to be. If anyone has realized that it should be done differently and knows how, you can trust it's our M.
The Mad-Editorial wants to put some aspects of Madonna's career and the music industry into a different perspective. Note that this editorial contains opinions and predictions of the Mad-Eyes team, which give no guarantee on what Madonna will do next. Your own comments, opinions or subject suggestions for the next editorial are welcome on our Facebook page.
Meeting Madonna 'unreal' for Robyn
Source: Belfast Telegraph - 18 June 2010Robyn has revealed meeting Madonna was like "an out of body experience".
The Swedish pop star supported the Queen of Pop on the European leg of her Sticky & Sweet Tour.
"It was like an out of body experience because I've been a fan of hers since I was a kid, but also because of the big machine surrounding her - it was on a level that's just unreal to me," she told The Guardian.
"But it was very interesting and I learned a lot. (I learned) just what you have to do to maintain that level," she added.
Madonna outplayed by Edgar Bronfman Jr. in Maverick Records deal
Source: New York Daily News - 15 June 2010The theme of Madonna's life story is that she gets her way - in love, life and business. But that was until she came up against Seagram's liquor fortune heir Edgar Bronfman Jr.
In "Fortune's Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music, and An Industry of Crisis," which Simon & Schuster will begin shipping to bookstores at the end of this month, investigative journalist Fred Goodman writes that Bronfman outplayed Her Madgesty after the pop star attempted to pressure him into paying a king's ransom for her stake in Maverick Records.
Madonna had founded Maverick at the height of her success in the '90s-to which she signed such hit artists as Alanis Morissette and Prodigy-but the label had seen better days by 2003, when the Material Girl began negotiating with Time Warner, which owned 40% of Maverick, to buy out her share.
Madonna wanted $60 million, "at least twice what Time Warner said it was worth," Goodman writes. But that same week, Time Warner's board was meeting to decide whether to sell Warner Music, so, the author adds: "Placating Madonna was going to be someone else's headache."
Enter Bronfman, who, in March 2004, just three weeks after he closed the deal to buy Warner Music, got a call from Madonna's longtime attorney Allen Grubman, who told Warner Music's new owner he had 24 hours to solve the problem or Madonna was going to sue. "Allen, this is nuts," Bronfman said. "Give us some time."
"No, she's implacable," Grubman responded. Madonna's price tag had risen, too - from $60 million to $200 million. Bronfman was willing to pay only $15 million, however, and had the company's lawyers file a preemptive suit against the artist.
An angry Madonna accused Warner of "treason" and filed her own lawsuit. But, in the end, the author reports, she "sold her 30% interest in Maverick to Bronfman for $17 million - only $2 million more than he had offered in the first place and a figure that almost certainly could have been reached without any public posturing."
Three months later, Bronfman and Warner Music Group Chairman Lyor Cohen sought to mend fences with the artist by inviting her to meet with them. Bronfman greeted Madonna with a gift-wrapped box. "You've been incredibly important to this company for 20 years," Bronfman told her. Inside the box was a diamond bracelet.
"The gift," Goodman writes, "seemed to hit the right note. ‘She was like a little girl,' " Bronfman recalled. "'It broke the ice.'" Perhaps, but in 2007, Madonna announced she was leaving Warner to sign with concert promoter Live Nation in a 10-year, $120-million deal.
Madonna's spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg declined to comment on this story, telling Gatecrasher, "I was not privy to the details of any of these negotiations."
Madonna boost for Lawnfest event at Sevenoaks school
Source: BBC - 13 June 2010Madonna dropped in to a charity music event at a Kent school, organised by the daughter of Mohamed Al Fayed.
The Lawnfest fundraiser was held on Friday night in aid of The New School at West Heath, Sevenoaks.
Pop star Lemar was the headline act at the event to boost the school's bursary fund, organised by Camilla Fayed.
Madonna's appearance was to help publicise the event, which also included an art exhibition, although she did not perform.
The New School aims to rebuild young damaged lives through education.
Principal Christina Wells said: "This fundraiser will help grant a bursary for those young people whose lives have been damaged by abuse, bereavement, bullying or other trauma."
Liz Smith on Gaga: Desperately copying Madonna
Source: WoWoWow - 11 June 2010Lady Gaga's controversial new video, "Alejandro," is controversial only if you’ve never seen ... a Madonna video! (From the Big M's greatest era) S&M ... homoeroticism ... startling religious imagery, etc.
Gaga's latest effort calls to mind at least five of Madonna videos, including the black-and-white masterpiece, Vogue. I guess this is Gaga's homage to Madonna. Just as Madonna's Material Girl was an homage to Marilyn Monroe?
As for Madonna herself, she says she is "working harder than I have ever worked in my life," to put together the movie she will direct, W.E. Actually, that worries me. One of Madonna's most famous songs is Holiday, but the woman has rarely taken one in 25 years. If she’s working harder than ever now, she is going to have to be hospitalized by the time the movie is finished!
Guetta: "I was unlucky with Madonna"
Source: Digital Spy - 2 June 2010David Guetta has suggested that record label issues may prevent the release of his collaboration with Madonna.
The DJ and producer confirmed to The Guardian that he and Madonna recently wrote and recorded a track together.
Guetta said: "It's a tricky situation, because she's now out of a record deal. We don't even know what's going to happen with it. It's a huge record, so it's really frustrating.
"The track is part of the Warner deal, but it's not on the album, so why would they invest any money in it? I was really unlucky with that one."
Lady Gaga: "Madonna is wonderful"
Source: Musicrooms.net - 1 June 2010Lady Gaga has opened up about her relationship with Madonna, declaring the Material Girl is a "wonderful, wonderful person".
"She is so full of the most wonderful freedom and spirit, and is so kind. Working with her has always been very exciting and very fun," the Paparazzi singer said in an interview with Show Studio.
"We have shared some wonderful honest moments together. She comes to my shows, I've asked her questions, she gives me advice."
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