What a Lovely Way to Burn...

It’s truly amazing how much an artist as a person can change in just a couple short years. But really, this is something Madonna has always been famous for – being able to vastly change her music and image in just the few short years in between her latest albums. She’s build her career around going from disco, to pop, rock, dance, R&B, some hip hop, opera!, techno, and finally to folk. But actually, in case of 1992’s Erotica, Madonna’s fifth (or sixth, or seventh, depending) studio album, her ability to change her persona is probably one of the reasons why this album in particular is one of her most underrated (along side Bedtime Stories and True Blue) and least-selling albums.

In 1989, Madonna had, at that point in her musical career, released the first of her two truly amazing albums in the smash Like a Prayer. The earliest three albums - Madonna, Like a Virgin and True Blue - were mostly just fluffy ear-pop with a risque lyric or two, although True Blue did foreshadow Madonna’s shift to real artistry. But Prayer had very personal and intelligent lyrics, pretty good vocals (this is Madonna remember), many different styles, and was full of pop/rock hooks that were a big splash with listeners. Like a Prayer put out no less than six successful singles worldwide. She quickly followed up with another mega-smash hit single ”Vogue”, her highest selling to date at 5.7 million units.

Maybe Madge thought that with Like a Prayer, she had graduated from dance/pop baby girl to big mature adult musician. Of course, once someone becomes an adult they like to do “adultly” things for no particular reason other than that they now can. So Madonna caused some overexposed sexual controversies with her single ”Justify My Love” from her greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection. She also wrote and released her pictorial book “SEX” and from what I can recall, probably went and starred in some bad overtly sexual movie. But what can I say, bad Madonna movies were always the norm.

Now, I’ve noticed something. Madonna is a smart business woman. She knows how to get listeners to buy her product. Maybe she felt unsure on whether the music on Erotica was truly able to gain commercial success and did what I felt she did for 2003’s American Life (only that she failed horribly this time). That is, Madonna specifically planned out some controversial things to get people talking about her, and then to get curious and buy her album. And it did work, because Erotica went multi-platinum while American Life… was dead on arrival. So sad.

However, my comparisons between Erotica and American Life don’t end just there. I sort of look at them as sister albums, only a decade apart, similarly to the way I view Like a Prayer and Ray of Light but as polar opposites from those two. Erotica and American Life both relied on shock value to sell, and although one did and one didn’t, I personally enjoy both albums for the most part and find them to not be as truly as horrible as both casual and hardcore Madonna fans find them to be. However, while American Life is some bizarre pop, folk, rock, techno hybrid, Erotica recalls the early 1990’s and all it’s dance-style music.

Yeah, so it’s an example of early 90’s dance pop. Synthesizer overkill, moderate to heavy beats, and nice stuff to listen to when you’re feeling brain dead or just want to dance. True Blue and Like a Prayer found Madonna trying to start some sh!t with her lyrics but the lyrics of Erotica are fairly underrated; only a couple songs actually deal with the dreaded sex of all it while others deal with important issues like love in general, bad lifestyles, bad relationships, homosexuality, and death. At this point in Madonna’s career, these were some songs that dealt with more than feeling like a virgin or wanting to take a holiday.

Also underrated is the vocal work. I think Madonna, as a whole, is a fairly underrated singer. Okay, so maybe on her first three albums, her vocals weren’t that great as they were rough and underdeveloped, but that’s why it’s fun to listen to her greatest hits albums; you can actually SEE her progression as a vocalist. Before hitting her vocal peak on Bedtime Stories, a lot of Erotica consists of low singing, talking, and the occasional high notes just to piss people off as well. In my eyes, she can take on all three aspects fairly well, at least on this album - sometimes she’s just not that great at doing that “high notes” thing. ;)

With all of that said (I’m already rambling…), Erotica starts out with ”Erotica” the song which tries to be an edgier redux of ”Justify My Love”. Truthfully, I enjoy ”Erotica” more than it’s predecessor. Madonna takes on her famous dominatrix role Dita and sexy-talks and moans her way through a song full of sexual overkill, in particular S&M, but let’s not delve any more into that than we need to. Oh, and Madonna is apparently edgy because she can tease at rhyming “f*ck*,” aren’t you proud? Musically, the song sounds refreshingly dark and could make one want to pounce the nearest person thanks in part to the killer bass line, and that whole “wild jungle” horn thing she includes which just sounds cool. The chorus (with Madonna doing the high notes thing – careful now, hold in your urge to kill) is easy to get stuck in one’s head. Just don’t sing it out loud and scare any small children near you, okay?

Hot off the heels of the title track, Erotica jumps right into another single. This time, the song in question is ”Fever”, a remake of the Peggy Lee song, complete with uniquely bizarre video of Madonna paved in gold. She performed ”Fever” on SNL in what looked like a laid back, cool performance. Compared to ”Erotica, this is an accurate description of ”Fever.” The song is a laid back rant about how a lover gives her “fever” (duh), even reusing Romeo and Juliet from ”Cherish”. Madonna’s vocals are great here; laid back, airy, slow and sexy. She takes the high notes well here. The synthesizers are split up well into three groups; one group sorta blares out during the vocals, which makes for a cool effect. The other two are more underlying. A steady dance beat during the verses, mixed with xylophones during the chorus. To add to the feeling, there’s that whole finger snapping deal throughout. Definitely the type of song you could kick back in a chair and relax to at midnight.

”Bye Bye Baby” is musically, very similar to ”Fever”, right down the sound effects. There’s some generic voice going “yeah, whoo, yeah, whoo!” (hello Early 90s, pleased to meet you), but that’s all that really distinguishes it. In comparison to ”Fever”, the music is a more upbeat, but Madonna’s vocals aren’t as great. It’s like she mirrors this weird way she sings on I’m Breathless’ Cry Baby. She sings in a hiiigh, kiddy voice - it sounds okay on the choruses, but weird as she yaks away on the verses. The lyrics aren’t too original either. However, I like how she turns around bye bye baby from making her seem dependent to making her the strong one as she dismisses her man. Still, this song isn’t too offensive and/or filler. I can find myself getting lost easily in the actual music when I’m just spazzing out or something. The best part, at the very end, is seemingly needless though. Madonna comes out of nowhere, changing back her regular voice, only to snap “You fucked it up.” Well, needless language is good I suppose. The bleeping noise intrigues me.

”Deeper and Deeper” continues the dance/pop vein the rest of the album has created at this point, however ”Deeper and Deeper” is a bit more “house” style and commercial sounding than the previous songs. And if you’re not paying attention you might miss the true meaning of the lyrics which are about a newly outted gay dude professing his love to another, recalling parental advice and saying how he’ll basically never lie to himself again and insightful crap like that. :D ”Vogue” was a song inspired by gay men, so it only seems kinda suitable that Madonna inserts a little lyrical blip of it toward the end here. ”Deeper and Deeper” is danceable in the same way that ”Vogue” is with a lot of keyboards, only it relies a little more on horns, a lot less on synth, and has more of a latin flavor, complete with ever clichéful acoustic guitar and castanets. Vocally, Madonna does mostly high notes, but she meshes in well with her background singers and the music, so it works.


”Where Life Begins” is the only other time Erotica thankfully ever lives up to its title. Like ”Erotica”, this song tries to be overtly sexual in lyrics (this time it’s about oral sex, but you didn’t hear this from a random 15 year old hooligan) but Madonna just ends up making me laugh with some of the stuff she says. ”Colonel Sanders says it best; finger lickin’ good!” The music is a bit more of a generic mid-tempo dance tune, nothing particularly exciting or notable except the nice jazzy style underlying the synth beats. That’s one of the problems with Erotica in case you haven’t caught on; there’s three ballads, and all of the other songs are mid-tempo dance numbers that tend to sound a bit similar after a while. What’s funny is that vocally, Madonna somewhat succeeds in sounding innocent, at least on the chorus, when she’s really talking pretty graphically about sex. It’s one of the many reasons that song cracks me up the occasional times I do listen to it. For some reason, I feel uncomfortable when Madonna and only Madonna is talking about sex (maybe it’s because she’s 523985 years old now) – what kind of teenager am I?

”Bad Girl” is most definitely one of Madonna’s best ballads. For some reason, it was deprived from appearing on 1995’s Something to Remember, her greatest ballads collection, giving us a huge hunch that Madge wasn’t crazy about her music from the Erotica period. Still, the lyrics on ”Bad Girl” are actually universal to anyone; we all have habits we don’t like and want to amend. In Madonna’s case, she gets drunk, smokes too many cigarettes, sleeps around with other men and ends up hurting those she loves. Realizing it, and the fact that she’s really not happy with her life this way, she wants to change - but can’t. The song sounds very operatic in a way (hey, operas are the cool thing in music lately – ask Aerocat and Kristina). Madonna’s high notes actually do very well on this song, her voice is soulful and she’s able to shift from high vocals on the verses to lower vocals on the choruses effectively. The actual music adds the mood of the somber, reflective feeling and sounds in style similar to some other early 90s R&B-type ballads; heavy on synths, underlying xylophone, chimes, piano, that type of thing. Definitely an underrated song.

”Waiting” could quite possibly be my favorite song on the album. To other people, it could just come off sounding similar to other songs on the disc. But to me, the song is quite catchy. The snazzy horns are huge fun, the piano and the saxophone are very nice, the music is infectious and the ticking of the clock toward the end is a nice touch. In the lyrics, Madonna speaks to a lover that she knows is no good and expects will hurt her. The cool thing is Madonna’s attitude in this song; she flips around the waiting for love cliché into waiting for pain at the hands of this slime ball. This is another song where Madonna transitions from high to low vocals, but it works extremely well. One of the biggest reasons I like the song is Madonna’s vocal rhythm as rattles off the chorus; “Don’t go breaking my heart like I knew you would / Baby, you’re no good and you hurt me like no other lover ever should.” The entire line just flows like hell and I can’t even describe how cool it sounds when she sings it. Then she bursts into the chorus, backed up the funky horns. And I still always get a laugh from “The next time you want pussy, hah – just look in the mirror, baby. Here kitty, kitty, kitty…” blurb at the end.

If you’ve been paying attention, you could tell that one of the things that amuses me most about Erotica is the amount of times Madonna cusses for no real reason other than some lame attempt to be shocking. ”Thief of Hearts” is a great example of such. It starts with the sound of glass shattering and Madonna roaring out a ”Bitch! and ends with ”Stop bitch! Now sit yo’ ass down!” I don’t know, is this supposed to be Dita being all controversial or something again? The song is mainly another dance tune, but it is quite amusing to listen to. It’s kinda cool that with all the synthesizers choking Erotica into a coma, Madonna can still find some nifty, different effects to sprinkle around the songs. Still, typical dance beats to be found. Some slightly amusing lyrics like “How many licks does it take? Which leg do you want me to break? (BITCH!)” also to be found though. The song’s about a woman after Maddie’s man, so Madonna retaliates lamely with some threats, insults and general cursing. This song actually reminds me of Tori Amos’ Waitress from Under the Pink; both dark in style, almost lyrically morbid, and both bitchy and homicidal to token nearby flirty girl. What more do you want?

”Words” is one of the couple tracks that are okay in their own right, but ultimately end up just blending into the majority of the album without notice. There’s nothing very new on this song; lyrically, Maddie talks about how words can hurt, and tells the dude in question to take them back and not to talk to her anymore. Musically, there are more funky synthesizer effects, almost horn-style instruments and big dance beats, acting like a hybrid of ”Thief of Hearts” and ”Deeper and Deeper”. Vocally, the song is also nothing too different - Madonna sings lower on the verses and squeaks up in her high voice on the choruses. She speaks on the bridge, because she seems to be out to parody everything she does on this album at some point. Still, like ”Bye Bye Baby”, this song is not too offensive or too obviously filler. The same way that I can just spazz out during ”Bye Bye Baby” and focus on the music also applies for ”Words”. And since I’m always amused by well placed sound effects, the typewriter rattling away at the end is actually cool. Yes, I’m aware that I find such lame things cool. Leave me alone.

Words cannot express how much I enjoy ”Rain”. In fact, the general public agrees with me; Erotica was getting slaughtered on the charts from lack of a big hit single. ”Rain” was released as the final single and quickly re-injected life into the album as well as becoming a favorite among many Madonna fans (why the hell wasn’t it on GHV2, Madge?!) I look at ”Rain” the video as the start of softening Madonna’s aura after the hormones sex hormones XXX hormones period she went through. Her look was very basic and toned down and the song was relaxed and pleasurable. The music is vastly different compared to the majority of Erotica; first of all, it isa ballad. This distinguishes it from nearly 80% of the album alone. Musically, there’s no big synth or dance beat overkill here. But there are light, almost aquatic synthes and thundering drum-like beats that make for a nice effect. Madonna takes almost the entire song on in “high note” mode, and does it well, even! She does make a brief pause to stop and talk on the bridge – but that’s my favorite part. I can literally picture Madonna up in a mountain, arms flung up, water pouring down on her and singing this song during the bridge. The lyrics finally throw all the sex stuff out the window and are just a pure announcement of her love, missing her man after he leaves.

”Why’s it So Hard?” would be Madonna’s “hippie” song if she wrote it 30 years earlier (well, she’d be about four years old then, so why not?). More or less, Madonna wonders why it’s so difficult to love those different for ourselves and preaches to love all of your sisters and brothers. It gets kinda of repetitive because she does something that Alanis Morissette is occasionally famous for; fill in the blank lyrics. Meaning, she repeats the same lyrics over and over with maybe a word or two changed for each line. Musically, the song kind of reminds me of a distant cousin to ”Express Yourself”. Very funky and danceable in sound, and the chorus is quite catchy like ”Waiting”. The same musical elements can be found as those other two songs as well – keyboards, synthes, some flutey noises, etc. Madonna sings most of the song in her high voice and it doesn’t come of as well compared to the rest of the album, but it’s still okay. However, once again, the song is decent in it’s own right, but has a problem standing out because all of the songs use typically the same elements found here.

”In This Life” is a very sad song. In it, Madonna addresses many people she knew and loved who unfortunately had died at an early age. The song does deal with the unfair fact of early death, trying to deal with losing a loved one, and not being able to say goodbye in time, but it also brushes with how gay people were viewed during this time period. “Why should he be treated differently? / It shouldn’t matter who you choose to love.” The music is reflective of the somber lyrics. There’s dreary piano notes, almost-string pieces, and depressing, monotone synthes. Madonna doesn’t knock you off your feet vocally (she does the nasal twang bit, ho hum), but you honestly notice the pain and sadness in her voice as she reflects on how those who have died have taught her so much about life. She then interrupts her singing to speak out one of her more powerful messages; ”Have you ever watched your best friend die? Have you ever watched a grown man cry? Some say that life isn’t fair. I think that people just don’t care. They’d rather turn the other way. Wait for this “thing” to go away. Why do we have to pretend? Some day I pray that it will end. I hope it’s in this lifetime.”

I can honestly say that ”Did You Do It?” is one of my least favorite “Madonna” songs, mainly because it really isn’t. Some generic male rapper takes the music from ”Waiting”, and gibbers on needlessly graphic lyrics about how he and “Mo” (the “I’m-a-wannabe-thug” nickname for Madonna) have sex and then he backs out. Of course, when asked “Did you do it?” by friends, he lies. I hate the cliches of a typical male, and being all macho about sex annoys me to no end (I’m not bitter…). To make matters worse, the friends sound like your typical ghetto-mainstream hip-hop thugs and then the main guy slips into some awful reggae thing that sounds like the hell child of the guy on Britney Spears’ ”Soda Pop” and Sean Paul. Two voices I cannot stand in any way, shape or form. The dude can’t even rap regularly, and I’m not the biggest fan of rap to begin with, so this ‘song’ is just irritable. However, the saving grace to this otherwise trash “song” is that the chorus from ”Waiting” is recycled here and sung by Madonna. This is actually kind of effective in the context of this song, morphing the waiting for pain part from the original to waiting for sex. But alas, this was just a horrible way to gut a song that rocked so much to me by itself.

”Secret Garden” is a slightly yawn conclusion to an otherwise high energy album. Madonna simply wants the find the lover hidden away in her secret garden, her rose without thorns, and no sex or anything like that involved. ”Secret Garden” is actually an extremely sharp contrast to the blaring opening beats of ”Erotica”. Hell, it’s jazzy even! There’s a cute piano bouncing around the song, and while the music is slightly repetitive, it’s pretty funky in the sound and beat, without being over-the-top sounding like some of the other songs. Madonna sings low notes in an airy, sexy tone similar to ”Fever” and also talks a bit, but the effervescent music meshes well with her voice. The song fades out almost classically with the beats repeating, some added saxophone, and the ivory keys of the piano being tickled. All of the sudden, Madonna doesn’t seem like such a horny bitchy sex mistress anymore. What will the next album bring? Well - Bedtime Stories. Slightly risque title aside, ”Secret Garden” does serve as a good transition from the sexed up dance of Erotica to the R&B styling of Stories if you listen to Madonna’s music in chronological order.

Track listing with personal preference:
Erotica - *****
Fever - *****
Bye Bye Baby - ****
Deeper and Deeper - *****
Where Life Begins - ***.5
Bad Girl - *****
Waiting - *****
Thief of Hearts - ****
Words - ***.5
Rain - *****
Why's it So Hard? - ***.5
In This Life - *****
Did You Do It? - **.5
Secret Garden - ****
Overall - 4.29/5.00 = 4 Stars!

-Final Thoughts-
Overall, I personally find Erotica to be one of Madonna’s more underrated albums. For the first time, she was vocally on the top of her game and she continued her legacy as a pretty good songwriter that True Blue and Like a Prayer had started. While some of Erotica suffers from some early 90’s dance pop sameness, there are some overlooked gems to be found on here as well. I think the main reason this album is so neglected is because of hype; people bought Erotica expecting to hear ”SEX” ala audio version which they didn’t get and felt let down. At the same time, ”Justify My Love”, ”Erotica”, the ”SEX” book and ”Body of Evidence” also alienated casual fans, thinking it really was porn on audio. Yeah, there’s a graphic song or two but other than that - Erotica is nothing more than a fairly solid early 1990’s dance album by the Mother of Reinvention. Let the rumors end there.

-Madonna after Erotica-
Departing slightly from her sexual dance style on Erotica, in 1994 Madonna went ahead and molded herself a sexual R&P style on Bedtime Stories. Then, in 1996, she went Broadway with her role as Eva Peron in Evita. After having her first child, Madonna returned to full-force pop/techno to huge fanfare in early 1998 with Ray of Light. Music followed as an immediate hit in late 2000, and American Life came out to little success in April of this year.

Great Music to Play While: Pretending to be a omnisexual whore of a dominatrix named after a Russian actress.

See Also: Madonna - The Immaculate Collection (1990)

c 2003 ptparatroopa