Madonna’s assembled a girl gang.
Is Madonna, 56, trying to start a girl-fight with 25-year-old Taylor Swift?
That’s what the posters promoting her new single Bitch I’m Madonna (yeah, um, we know who you are. You’ve been around for a really long time) seem to indicate.
They’re in the same style as Swift’s Bad Blood promotional posters, which featured a whole load of her mates including Selena Gomez, Karlie Kloss, Hailee Steinfeld, Cara Delevingne and Lena Dunham.
Madonna’s own poster features Nicki Minaj, Beyonce, Rita Ora and of course, Swift’s alleged nemesis and the rumoured subject of her song, wicked witch Katy Perry, looking tough yet sexy.
At a time when the proverbial glass ceiling is starting to break in the popular music industry, is this kind of high-school bitch-fight what we really need?
In 2014, Forbes named Beyonce as the second top earning artist of the year, raking in $115 million from a tour, a surprise album and various endorsements.
Watch a teaser for the video, below. Post continues after clip…
Taylor Swift wasn’t far behind, and let’s not forget Rihanna, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, Miley Cyrus, Florence and the Machine, etc.
In late 2013, for the first time in the history of the Billboard charts, solo female artists held down the top five positions on the chart for six consecutive weeks in the US.
Universal Music Publishing Group president of North America Evan Lamberg said it was an indication of something big: “When this happens en masse, it’s not just a song or two. There’s something going on culturally.”
So why, when there’s more than enough room for female artists in the charts, is the original Material Girl trying to start beef with America’s sweetheart?
Oh, I have an idea. And it’s got nothing to do with sexism, a brewing pop-star war or Madonna’s increasingly desperate attempts to stay relevant (well actually, it does have a little to do with that last one).
It’s money.
Watch Bad Blood, below. Post continues after video…
https://youtu.be/QcIy9NiNbmo
You see, Taylor Swift is the biggest thing in pop music right now, and her Bad Blood video broke the Vevo record with 20.1 million views in 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Madonna, along with some of the world’s biggest pop stars, invested in a music streaming site called Tidal, owned by Jay-Z. These artists will have their content released exclusively on the platform.
However, Tidal, which launched with a self-conscious and ill-judged presentation to the media that’s been mercilessly mocked, has failed to take off.
The bottom line is that at $20 a month, Tidal is significantly more expensive than market leader Spotify.
Unsurprisingly, for all the high-falutin talk of an artistic revolution at the Tidal launch, having multimillionaire musicians Beyonce, Madonna, Kanye West, Alicia Keys and Chris Martin talking about being paid properly for their “art” didn’t strike a chord with consumers.
Cue: Madonna and her Tidal cohorts desperately trying to thrust themselves (literally, the video is a thrust-fest) into the world’s consciousness and convince us, the consumers, to subscribe for more incredible, thrusty music and videos.
Piggybacking on Swift’s (NOT a Tidal artist) massively successful Bad Blood, which Swift teased with promotional posters on her Instagram account for two weeks before its release, probably seemed like a smooth marketing move.
The problem with releasing your music exclusively to a music-streaming site no one’s signed up for, though, is that no one sees it.
And those few people who have signed up for Tidal and tried to see the video had to wait, because the site had technical difficulties.
All round, I’m Madonna Bitch was a less than successful launch.
Swift, who incredibly has managed to avoid being pashed by Madonna, enlisted her friends and collaborators for Bad Blood.
Bitch I’m Madonna seems like a bunch of celebrities in blink-and-you’ll-miss-them cameos who invested or signed with Tidal and are trying to recoup their losses.
The actual video also bears no resemblance to Swift’s grindhouse/noir/apocalyptic clip at all.
It begins with three little girls mouthing “cos I’m a bad bitch.” Ooooh Madonna’s so edgy, won’t someone think of the children, clutching-my-pearls, etc.
Then Madonna’s off, dancing through the halls of a hotel, kissing a man who did not recoil in horror (Drake must’ve been busy) and singing lyrics such as: “The bass is pumping/Make me wanna screw the top off/Yeah, we’ll be drinking and nobody gonna stop us/And we’ll be kissing anybody that’s around us.”
There’s Miley Cyrus sticking her tongue out, a shot of Beyonce vogueing and miming, “bitch I’m Madonna” (even though she patently IS NOT).
Other superstar appearances (Kanye, Katy Perry, Rita Ora, Alexander Wang, Diplo, Chris Rock) are so brief Madonna’s been accused by fans of click-baiting.
Two of Madonna’s children, Rocco and David Banda, who presumably are fully aware of who Madonna is, also appear.
The whole effect is fine. It’s a fine music video to a predictably dull and overproduced song.
It’s probably not enough to save Tidal. Or make Taylor Swift quake in her boots.
More on the dirrty world of pop?
Stop what you’re doing, watch Katy Perry sing on a giant golden lion.
Taylor Swift debuts “Bad Blood”, starring about a bazillion of her friends.
Top Comments
This article is reading easy too much into this. Being offended by the song title bitches I'm Madonna? I think it might be better a joke...
This definitely had nothing to do with Taylor Swift. It was inspired by her, maybe. But I doubt it. Madonna loves Taylor Swift and has said so very recently.
I agree the song and video are both a bore, and the tiny celebrity cameos are for the benefit of Tidal. But it really isn't at all a response, or dig, at Taylor swift.