Fast and Loosies #4

Stray 'Confessions II' thoughts, I interviewed Courtney Love, onion dip, and more

Happy Madonna day to all who celebrate. It’s absolute we are so back hours. Confessions II is an incredible work of art, rapturously good, a rare late-career achievement, a re-apex if you will¹. It turns out when Madonna goes back to working the way she works best, one-on-one with a trusted producer, the magic returns. 13 of these tracks are credited to her and Stuart Price (some with a credit for the featured artist) and it’s that synergy and deep mutual understanding that yielded her best work in decades.

I was sad when Bandsplain’s Madonna month was over but then I realized it’s kind of always Madonna month if you choose to be about that life (though I am still recovering from the fact that Garren laid his holy eyes upon a social clip in which I had my worst hair day in months).

Back to Confessions II - I cried more than once while listening to it today, moved not only by the incredibly personal, reflective lyrics, but also by the accomplishment of proving the relentless doubters wrong at an age where most women are barely allowed to publicly exist (the pink pussy hat is ON babe).

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I think my favorite track right now is “School” but I’m losing it at so many others - “One Step Away”, “Love Without Words”, "The Test (ft. Lourdes Leon)” (when she calls Lourdes “Little Star”!!!²), and of course, her Lou Reed moment,“L.E.S. Girl”.³ I keep hearing new things on each listen through and will be spending a lot more time with it this weekend, contemplating whilst throwing ass (as we do).

Patrik Sandberg and I are toying with the idea of maybe “going live” on Instagram on Sunday to discuss our thoughts on the album, will try to provide a reasonable heads up but also will maybe throw it up as a video, here or on IG. In the meantime, Shaad D’Souza’s review for Pitchfork is excellent.

Other fun Madonna stuff: Library180, a free (by appt only) vintage magazine reference library (aka heaven?) has recently acquired a massive collection of Madonna media and Liana Satenstein went to rifle through it and report back over at Neverworns, this oral history of Danceteria in Vanity Fair (ft. musings from Debi Mazar, Marc Almond of Soft Cell, Fab 5 Freddy, and more), and these gorgeous little images Willy Chavarria creative director Jess Cuevas made to celebrate the launch of the new album.

In other “women who shaped my life and entire personality” news, I interviewed Courtney Love about her film career for the Criterion Channel⁴⁵, who currently has a curation of six of her movies available to stream on the site. It’s a great interview if I may say so myself: she speaks about her friendship with Joe Strummer, pushing for Paul Rudd to be cast in 200 Cigarettes, and the iconic music biopic role she turned down. Here are a few of my favorite bits that didn’t make it into the piece, on The Pogues, Peckinpaw, Kevin Bacon, the Atkins diet, and more.