New Madonna Video: Cause For 'Celebration'?

Madonna's new video is surprisingly unexceptional. As Madonna evolved in the '80s-'90s from straightforward dance music (complemented by straightforward, low-budget music videos), she used her platform to introduce music videos that challenged the world to accept a black Jesus ("Like a Prayer"), a flamboyant inner-city dance culture ("Vogue"), right-to-life decisions ("Papa Don't Preach").

The came the Music album, which paved the way for Madonna's new era of writing music about, well, music and writhing in her videos without much else going on.

Not a lot is going on in "Celebration." It's virtually the same as "Hung Up"--Madonna showing she's still nimble at age 50--but, fortunately for us, with a much easier-to-look-at outfit. This time Madonna's pelvis is not the fulcrum at the center of this video. But what is is equally disturbing...and interesting. The center of this video is none other than Jesus himself!

We mean Jesus Luz, of course, Madonna's controversial plaything. Midway through the "Celebration" video, after a couple of minutes of Madonna et al. twisting to the beat, comes Jesus in his lead debut as a DJ. After a couple minutes of making lascivious faces (which would be absolutely disgusting on a man of a certain age) and sexually suggestive movements, Madonna cozies up to the "DJ" and removes his clothes, piece by piece. Like us, Jesus looks vaguely disgusted.

Artistically, "Celebration" may be somewhat of a low for Madonna. Besides looking fresh as a genetically modified daisy in an Andy Warhol wig, Madonna is giving us more message than art. What's the message? It's an interesting one.

Madonna always has been defiant--so much so that this entire statement is a waste of words. But this defiance is a bit less obvious, more subversive. Madonna always has pushed the limit as a feminist working under the guise of a totally independent mind. Let's be honest: Madonna is downright creepy in "Celebration." If she were a fifty-year-old man making faces at a 20-something hottie, and then slowly removing her clothes while she makes uncomfortable faces, there would be a riot. Sure, rock stars are different, but even Steven Tyler has known since the '80s that to keep his fans liking him, he needs to feature hotties in vignettes within his video, not getting nasty with him. That would be nasty.

It's pretty nasty when Madonna does it, too--even if you are a fan of her brand-new face (which we are!). But here Madonna takes feminism to its next level. In "Celebration," Madonna is not on an equal playing field with her male rock-n-roll counterparts: She is above them. There is no such thing as a FILF, only a MILF, and Madonna's creepily meta-video shows who's boss. Madonna is a predator, and her fans would accept nothing less.

As for the song, she phoned it in.

Madonna's New 'Celebration' Video Debut

Madonna's new "Celebration" video is about to debut, and boy is her team making a big deal of it! The video will "have its exclusive world premiere on the iTunes store" free beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, September 1, and then will be available for sale on iTunes (and no doubt all over YouTube free).

The "Celebration" video is directed by Jonas Akerlund, who directed the “Ray of Light” video. "Celebration" was filmed recently in Milan, Italy and features dancers from Madonna's “Sticky & Sweet” Tour. The video also includes cameo appearances by Madonna’s daughter, Lola Leon and her favorite Jesus (Luz), with whom we all know she has done quite unholy things.

Here's the much-hyped non-preview of the video:



Hey, as long as she's not wearing a unitard and thrusting her fault lines in our face, we're happy!

Madonna Tour Program Photos!

Save yourself a few thousand dollars and see the tour program pics here...we wonder what they looked like before the retouching!

Madonna's New Face(lift)

If New York magazine were a living, breathing human being, it would be the out-and-proud and gloriously vicious megabitch that Anderson Cooper shows he has the potential to be.

And that is why New York is the best magazine ever!!

This week's issue features a close-up shot of Madonna's face--the face of "The New New Face."

What's the New New Face, you ask? Check out the pictures below. The mauled and mangled lips of former natural(?) beauties Melanie Griffith and Meg Ryan, and the drag queenish mugs of Cher and Faye Dunaway that we've come to love, represent the Old New Face. In other words, scary shit.



The New New Face, you see, is the face of Demi Moore (pristine!) and Michelle Pfeiffer (perfect!). What's that, you say? Demi's freshness isn't due to boinking an idiotic 20-something? Nope. It's thirty thousand dollars worth of slicing and dicing and injecting and zapping. And it's totally worth it if those are the results. Natural? Hardly. But as the article says, while these ladies don't look exactly just a few years younger, they at least "bear striking resemblances to themselves."



The big question: Will this work for guys? We'll just have to wait a few years and see how Ryan Seacrest and the Coopster look with puffy, peaked cheekbones and supple lips.

NYmag

Best Recent Dance Albums

After a too-long dearth of dance-influenced music, we're elated with the recent wave of great new dance music--often by not-new artists.

In honor of this trend, we've decided to list our favorite recent dance albums.

1. Blackout by Britney Spears

In the sadly ironic tradition of the music industry, Britney Spear's first legitimately good--nay, great!--album hardly hit the public "radar" because of the star's tragic fall from...what, grace? Well, whatever she fell from, it was a big loss, not only because Brit the human being has fallen apart before age 30, but also because her latest album, Blackout, is almost flawless. From her perfectly engineered, half-human vocals to Danja's awesome beats, we encourage anyone who didn't pick up this album to give it a chance.

Best tracks: Break the Ice (also worst video), Get Naked, Freakshow, Piece of Me



2. Hard Candy by Madonna

Even though Madonna takes a back seat to her producers on this album, it highlights Madonna doing what she does best: barely singing inane, fun lyrics that are either some of the dumbest ever written, or ingenious in that they can be understood universally by English and non-English speakers, 40-year-olds and four-year-olds. More importantly, this album makes you want to stop thinking, get up and dance no matter what you're doing.

Best tracks: Heartbeat, Beat Goes On, Dance 2 Night, Give It 2 Me



3. Robyn by Robyn

Where the hell did this come from?? We barely remembered Robyn as a one-hit-wonder (She was the 15-year-old in the mid-90s who sang "Show Me Love") until she showed up with this wide-ranging, self-produced, alternately lovely, sweet and cutthroat album. Since this album is technically a couple of years old already, we're looking forward to more from her soon!

Best tracks: Konichiwa Bitches, Crash and Burn Girl, Who's That Girl, With Every Heartbeat, Cobrastyle



4. Shoot From The Hip and Trip the Light Fantastic by Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Technically, these albums aren't new, but they were just made available in the U.S. and it's worth checking out, if only to see what we Americans have been missing. Bextor is one of today's best dance music stars, and if you only know her for "Murder on the Dancefloor," you should take the time to hunt down her catalog.

Best tracks: Catch You, Today the Sun's on Us, If I Can't Dance, China Heart (in which a friend of ours insists Bextor is actually singing "vagina heart")



5. E=MC2 by Mariah Carey

We know, we know, we know, this album is NOT a dance album by almost any measure...but it does bring some uptempo beats back to Mariah's work, and a couple of tracks, including "Migrate," "I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time," and "I'm That Chick" are highly danceable--or at least could be with excellent remixes. We really dig this album. We wish she'd release something fun and un-skanky, and that does NOT mean "Touch My Body" or the uber-snore "Bye Bye."

Best tracks: I'm That Chick, Migrate, O.O.C., I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time



6. Bring Ya To The Brink by Cyndi Lauper

We love to see Cyndi return with new upbeat music, and we love that she and Madonna are back in competition against one another just like in the '80s--and just like in the '80s, it's not really a fair comparison. Lauper's music operates on another level than Madonna's; Madonna is pure pop confection, while Lauper's has something else. That je ne sais quoi sometimes holds back the hooks, making the music a bit less catchy, and her voice is a bit more raw, as she's not as given over to having her voice totally reworked by computers. This keeps Cyndi a bit underground, a little edgy, where Madonna has been completely commercial at least for the last 10 years. Apples and Oranges, Madonna and Cyndi, and that's the way we like 'em!



7. X by Kylie Minogue

We don't worship Kylie the way we're supposed to. We love love love some of her music ("Can't Get You Out of My Head," "Fever," "Slow"), but mostly we just like her sometimes and can't stand her at others. Still, X has some great gems like "Speakerphone," but suffers from an excess of oddly placed "woo!"s in songs like "Sensitized." We hate hate hate the woo! Anyway, some good stuff here, so give it a chance and just delete the crappy ones. :-) And yes, we're prepared to get flamed for this review.

Best tracks: Speakerphone, In My Arms, Like a Drug

MySpace Friend Of The Week: Bejamin Bradley, The Artist

Our MySpace Friend Of The Week this week is Benjamin Bradley, who has reinvented himself several times already in his young life, from twinkie Falcon porn star to Ginch Gonch underwear spokesboy (which, by the way, raised Ginch Gonch's sales 300%) to artist.

No wonder this talented and gorgeous guy did an awesome caricature of Madonna--could she be his inspiration, baiting us with unearthly sex appeal before revealing himself as a true talent?

See more of Ben on his MySpace page.

And don't forget to be our MySpace friend! You might be our next Friend of the Week!

[Caution: Small pic below is NSFW.]

Madonna: Give It To Me! (Video)

Damn! Madonna is almost 50! Madonna wants you to give it to her! Yeah! No one's gonna stop her now! Give it to her! Yeah!

She don't even need to catch her breath!

Still a great dancer! Still an, er, capable singer!

Seriously, don't miss this video. It so takes us back to mid-'90s rave scenes.

Brad and Angelina, Justin Timberlake, Madonna + More by Steven Klein

Just because the other picture is so hot, here's some more Steven Klein. You must check out the new photos on his site!

Our favorite is fashion designer Tom Ford buffing a hot male model's ass in some kind of sleek torture contraption! What's yours?