MADONNA | Erotica

[Merci]

I was listening to this album earlier, I agree that it needs time, still not fully into it but way more than when I first heard it!

what's up with "Did You Do It?" though! so out of place! but the guy kinda sounds hot.

[Mikerocha]

This is my second favorite Madonna album... It is really unusual, so yeah it is hard to get used to. But songs like 'Rain', 'Words', 'Deeper And Deeper', 'Bad Girl' or 'In This Life' are so magical and unique.

'Did You Do it' is really crazy

[AutomaticBR]

Favorite M album EVER

[menime123]

It sounds horribly dated now though. I never really loved Erotica, but I agree it has some standout tracks.

I only got into Madonna in the Noughties so obviously wasn't a fan when this came out (and who can blame me, I was 4!) but I think if you were a fan at the time it means a hell of a lot more to you than it possibly should.

I think her SEX book is an amazing piece of work, and ultimately this a great companion to the book - its just a shame the book over shadowed it.

Erotica, Deeper and Deeper and Rain are the best of the bunch. Bad Girl is good, and I really hope she performs it on tour one day in the future.

Bye Bye Baby is a great **** you song, Waiting is lyrically brilliant.

But, it's her most dated album and it shows. It's not a personal favourite - I think Bedtime Story is a much better album - but every artist has to have a 'flop' compared to their previous work at some point, and this was Madonnas.

Still an amazing 'flop' at 5 Million though

[Merci]

Stupid Q the way she says waiting on "Waiting" is very similar to "Justify My Love" is it supposed to be like a sample/reference?!

[Mikerocha]

Stupid Q the way she says waiting on "Waiting" is very similar to "Justify My Love" is it supposed to be like a sample/reference?!

I think it is supposed to be has sexy/naughty as Justify My Love And keep the theme going one

[crazycool]

I'm so addicted to this album again, and I still think it's her best album to date.

I'd much prefer listening to Erotica (As well as Bedtime Stories) than the bigger "blockbuster" albums like Confessions + Ray Of Light

[mattsky]

I still think it's her best album to date.

I'd much prefer listening to Erotica (As well as Bedtime Stories) than the bigger "blockbuster" albums like Confessions + Ray Of Light

I totally agree!

[TiagoRodrigues]

Everyone who says Madonna never did anything that was different, fresh, not commercial, need to listen to this album

People always say she never takes risks on her music...but this album proves otherwise...just like some others

[crazycool]

People always say she never takes risks on her music

Really? I've never heard anyone even suggest that.

[TiagoRodrigues]

People always say she never takes risks on her music

Really? I've never heard anyone even suggest that.

People who don't know her say she always follows what's current and what's on fire...

The funny thing is: Like a Prayer was nothing like the music out there at the moment...Erotica is one of the most experimental pop albums of all time (IMO), Ray Of Light was considered as the album that brought electronica to the mainstream music (Rolling Stone magazine agrees with me), Beautiful Stranger sounded nothing like anything at the market at the time...half of the Music album was experimental (Impressive Instant, Paradise, Nobody's Perfect), American Life was a mix...but songs like AL, Holywood were different then what was out at the moment and if songs like Nobody Knows Me, I'm So Stupid, Mother And Father were commercial then i must be out of my mind thinking otherwise)...COADF came out in a time when all this dance fever was still very far away...

Basically the only times she was following trends were her first 3 albums, Bedtime Stories and Hard Candy...hardly her entire career...

[Grybop]

Surely Madonna has recorded some songs over the years that you wouldn't expect from any superstar of her calibre , but why do you consider Erotica experimental? Is it because the title track is about S&M? Or because Maddie collaborated with a rapper on one of the songs - which by the way is based on a sample from another song on the album? Or maybe because she covered a standard on it?

Perhaps it was a bold move to release Erotica as a single or sing about sex so openly, but that is hardly experimental. I'd even say Madge was so high up on her horse (pun intended) that she must have thought her audience would buy anything she'd release at that point. Well, she was wrong, hence her return to the safe, vanilla routes of Bedtime Stories.

To conclude, Erotica is a pop record that was meant to sell by the buckets. In the meantime, thousands of experimental pop artists struggle to sell 1/1000 of Erotica's copies. I'm a huge Madonna fan, Erotica is indeed one of my fave albums by her, but... experimental? No.

[NothingFails]

^ Well I do think at the time Erotica was totally different than expected from a pop superstar like Madonna. While Like A Prayer had been a change of pace, it was still ripe with hit singles. "I'm Breathless" had the 1930's/1940's vibe to it but it was mostly seen as a detour album and something to promote Dick Tracy, the Blond Ambition tour and a home for "Vogue" so it wasn't seen in the same light. Erotica was very edgy for what people expected from Madonna in 1992, as she was still largely seen as a safe pop star. In the post-ROL days, it was a tame album but there was almost no way possible it was going to be a bigger seller than it was because it was very musically different than what was on the map in 1992.

[Grybop]

Are we talking about the same album here? Yeah, it may have been different by Madonna's standards, but all the singles, possibly bar Erotica, didn't sound out of place at all on contemporary radio back then, so I don't get where that "very musically different" comes from?

[NothingFails]

Are we talking about the same album here? Yeah, it may have been different by Madonna's standards, but all the singles, possibly bar Erotica, didn't sound out of place at all on contemporary radio back then, so I don't get where that "very musically different" comes from?

Where Life Begins, Secret Garden, Waiting, Bad Girl (which actually was her lowest charting single in ten years when released) all come to mind as totally unlike anything people expected to hear from Madonna before that album.

[TiagoRodrigues]

Are we talking about the same album here? Yeah, it may have been different by Madonna's standards, but all the singles, possibly bar Erotica, didn't sound out of place at all on contemporary radio back then, so I don't get where that "very musically different" comes from?

When you say singles i can think of Deeper And Deeper and Rain as commercial songs...Erotica, Fever, Bye Bye Baby, Bad Girl don't have really that commercial sound...it's never gonna be the kind of songs to be played 24 hours per day on radiostations...

Let's not even start talking about the album tracks...if songs like Where Life Begins, Secret Garden, plus the above songs i mentioned are not risky, then i give up

[Grybop]

Erotica, Fever, Bye Bye Baby, Bad Girl don't have really that commercial sound...

Hmmm, yeah , OK. That says it all. I get the feeling you've never heard non-commercial music, so there's no point in this.

[grooveboy]

I think Rain sounded totally different from the music those days. The whole album might sound dated to some, but Rain still sounds fresh after all these years

[TiagoRodrigues]

Erotica, Fever, Bye Bye Baby, Bad Girl don't have really that commercial sound...

Hmmm, yeah , OK. That says it all. I get the feeling you've never heard non-commercial music, so there's no point in this.

Jesus! Madonna was the most known pop-star before releasing Erotica...she always released songs that anyone would like...this album compared with everything else she released was NOT commercial at the time, and surely nothing her fanbase wanted to hear!

If that's not taking risks then i don't know what is!

[NothingFails]

Erotica, Fever, Bye Bye Baby, Bad Girl don't have really that commercial sound...

Hmmm, yeah , OK. That says it all. I get the feeling you've never heard non-commercial music, so there's no point in this.

Jesus! Madonna was the most known pop-star before releasing Erotica...she always released songs that anyone would like...this album compared with everything else she released was NOT commercial at the time, and surely nothing her fanbase wanted to hear!

If that's not taking risks then i don't know what is!

I agree. You're viewing Madonna from a post-ROL perspective where she's done a lot of "different" things. There is nothing off Erotica that has had any sort of enduring airplay power. Rain might get played once in a blue moon but besides that, have you heard Erotica, Deeper And Deeper (mainstream but it is largely forgotten in the sea of her hits) or Bad Girl on the radio anytime past 1993-1994? At a time where Whitney Houston was doing The Bodyguard, Erotica could've been pig Latin compared to most of what was on US radio in 1992-1993. Up until the release of Erotica, Madonna was one of the most dependent artists in terms of being able to score massive hit singles. She might've had the occasional chart misstep (Oh Father breaking her top 5 streak for example) but for the most part she would always rebound with the next single. Erotica was the first time where a Madonna album wasn't guaranteed to spawn four or five blockbuster singles that would dominate radio. Rain being the only song on the album that has managed any sort of recurrent airplay (and then it's very tiny when compared to the recurrent airplay many of her 80's hits get to this day) once the initial chart runs of the singles were over.

Also consider that Erotica came at a time where two of Madonna's 1980's contemporaries that emerged around the same time as her, Whitney and Janet, were scoring some of the biggest success in their career, and here Madonna was selling the lowest numbers of her career (to that point) and having some of the least successful singles of her career to date at the same time.

[TiagoRodrigues]

yeah...in 1992 who would've thought she would still be relevante in 2010?

Seriously...how many times people already killed her career? 1992? 1994? 2003?

I didn't include 2008 because Hard Candy was still the 10th best selling album of the year...that's not bad in any way

[NothingFails]

yeah...in 1992 who would've thought she would still be relevante in 2010?

Seriously...how many times people already killed her career? 1992? 1994? 2003?

I didn't include 2008 because Hard Candy was still the 10th best selling album of the year...that's not bad in any way

If Madonna's career ended the first time someone predicted she'd be over soon, she would've fallen off the charts by 1986-1987. I saw a Billboard review from one of her Virgin Tour performances (April/May 1985) that said her career would be on the outs within six months and that Cyndi Lauper would completely leave her in the dust.

[Mikerocha]

yeah...in 1992 who would've thought she would still be relevante in 2010?

Seriously...how many times people already killed her career? 1992? 1994? 2003?

I didn't include 2008 because Hard Candy was still the 10th best selling album of the year...that's not bad in any way

If Madonna's career ended the first time someone predicted she'd be over soon, she would've fallen off the charts by 1986-1987. I saw a Billboard review from one of her Virgin Tour performances (April/May 1985) that said her career would be on the outs within six months and that Cyndi Lauper would completely leave her in the dust.

I posted that on my Facebook a few days ago and all my 'Madonnian friends' were commenting and laughing at that: 'Cyndi will be here for a long time, Madonna won't even make the next six months' and this was in 1985 when Madonna was just starting... then in 1986 she released True Blue that sold near 30 million copies worldwide and Cyndi released 'True Colors' which was dissapointing...

[NothingFails]

I always loved Cyndi and still do (I'm looking forward to her blues album coming out next month), but I think even back then it was evident that Madonna was going to be bigger and last longer. Cyndi's image in the 1980's was very novelty driven and she was slow to adapt and change (think how Boy George's career faded fairly fast because he was slow to change while Annie Lennox was initially expected to be a flash in the pan but she was smart and changed her image and sound fairly quick and still has a career). Cyndi did change her sound and look but sadly the mainstream had quit caring by the time of A Night To Remember, Madonna worked overtime to make sure people knew she was planning to be around for the long haul.

[Mikerocha]

I always loved Cyndi and still do (I'm looking forward to her blues album coming out next month), but I think even back then it was evident that Madonna was going to be bigger and last longer. Cyndi's image in the 1980's was very novelty driven and she was slow to adapt and change (think how Boy George's career faded fairly fast because he was slow to change while Annie Lennox was initially expected to be a flash in the pan but she was smart and changed her image and sound fairly quick and still has a career). Cyndi did change her sound and look but sadly the mainstream had quit caring by the time of A Night To Remember, Madonna worked overtime to make sure people knew she was planning to be around for the long haul.

I love Cyndi as well I may be a bigger Madonna fan, but the first song I learned to sing and made a performance of it when i was 4 was Cyndi's 'Money Chances Everything'. and you're right: Cyndi always tried the same formula of 'She's So Unusual' on her upcoming albums and that was a negative fact for her, while Madonna always brought something fresh and new and totally different from the previous work (I'm also looking foward to Cyndi's blues album although the first previews are not that teasin' in my opinion)