The triple-play cover of her new single. (PR NEWSWIRE)
When Madonna takes the stage tonight in Indianapolis at Super Bowl XLVI, the original Material Girl will be delivering what may end up being the most important 12 minutes and 40 seconds of her career. On a stage that has recently showcased U2, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones, she’ll be vying for the one thing that has eluded her over the past decade — relevance.
At a time when Lady Gaga, “American Idol” and “Glee” have captured the imagination of the broad pop audience, Madonna’s making the one move few people expected of her. She’s playing it safe.
At the age of 53, fitter and sexier than many women decades younger, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, the best-selling female artist of all time, who’s made a career of enraging traditional old white men the world over, will be playing to a stadium filled with exactly that.
And if she can’t persuade the gridiron crowd, she’s not going to miss a chance to remind the rest of us that she’s here to claw back to her rightful place in the spotlight. Look at the last few weeks — it’s been nothing but an unrelenting onslaught of pure Madonna.
“If I’m still just like a virgin, Ricky, then why don’t you come over here and do something about it?” Madonna quipped at the Golden Globes last month after her win for Best Original Song. “I haven’t kissed a girl in a few years — on TV.”
It was the opening salvo in a months-long campaign to hype her new movie, “W.E.,” a retro biopic she directed and financed about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and her 12th studio album, “MDNA,” featuring new material for the first time in four years. The movie arrived in theaters Friday. The record is due March 26.
On Thursday, she unveiled the video for her new single, “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” on “American Idol.” And tomorrow she’s likely to announce tour dates for her next world jaunt, part of the $40 million recording and touring deal she signed with Interscope and Live Nation in December.
There’s also her new clothing line (Material Girl), fragrance (Truth or Dare), YouTube channel (Madonna), charity work in Malawi (Raising Malawi) and 24-year-old muscular French boyfriend (Brahim Zaibat).
And the biggest commercial she’ll ever make — expected to reach some 100 million viewers — to sell all of these things will air some time in the 8 o’clock hour tonight.
With the assistance of rappers M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, pop duo LMFAO and Cirque du Soleil, she’ll play a set heavy with past hits such as “Vogue” and “Ray of Light.”
It’s going to be huge. But don’t expect wardrobe malfunctions or burning crosses — because the NFL is calling most of the shots.
“Madonna’s a performance artist, always has been,” says her business partner, Guy Oseary. “She’s known for being quite detail-oriented, all the way from the sparkles on someone’s shoes to the way someone’s hair looks in the background. She doesn’t miss a beat. It’s not in Madonna’s DNA to be limited. But like everything, she likes a challenge. This is definitely not a Madonna show. It’s the Super Bowl.”
Playing on the borderline of propriety is a notoriously Madonna-esque trait. Case in point, her seductive stage crawl in a wedding dress and crucifix at the 1984 MTV Video Awards. But in the post-Janet Jackson era, the NFL has no interest in making any kind of historic statement. It’s clear that every move she makes tonight will have been vetted, despite Oseary’s sarcastic take on the situation.
“We decided to go all in the nude,” he jokes. “Everyone. Even management. It’s a deal we all made with the NFL. They’re quite up for that this year.”
But when pressed, he says that in truth, the performance will showcase why Madonna deserves to be back on top after being out of the public eye while Gaga and a new generation of stars dominated headlines.
“Gaga’s meteoric rise has helped fuel the return of the original, as Madonna enters a sort of Streisand ‘Yentl’-meets-Cher ‘Believe’ phase,” says Village Voice columnist Michael Musto. “Her Super Bowl appearance might actually move some product.”
Gaga, of course, owes a huge debt to Madonna, and has acknowledged it. But the elder diva seemed to slap at her younger rival last month when she called “Born This Way” a “reductive” version of her classic 1989 hit “Express Yourself.”
When asked about the catty comment, Oseary drolly replies, “I’ve never heard the word. I’ll have to look it up.”
In other words, Madonna knew exactly what would happen when she said that. And it worked, turning into news across the world.
“If you’re Madonna, you’ve got to be thrilled . . . to be in a somewhat fictional war with Lady Gaga,” says her brother Christopher Ciccone, who wrote “Life With My Sister Madonna” in 2008. “It’s kind of funny and probably more of a compliment than anything else.”
The same thing happened after her win at the Golden Globes, when Elton John’s partner slammed her after she beat out John for the best song prize.
“Madonna winning best original song truly shows how these awards have nothing to do with merit,” David Furnish wrote on his Facebook page. “Her acceptance speech was embarrassing in it’s narcissism. And her criticism of Gaga shows how desperate she really is.”
Madonna couldn’t have asked for a better sound bite if she’d paid for it. The public feud lasted about a week. Madonna didn’t respond, and Furnish ultimately wound up wishing her luck.
“A feud is when two people are feuding — she’s not feuding with anyone,” Oseary says. “She wasn’t even privy to a lot of the stuff that was going on until I told her. She’s not even thinking about any of that. We don’t bother her with it unless it gets really out of control.”
If there is one thing that’s changed in Madonna’s quest for domination, it’s who she listens to. Her newest advisor is so close to the singer that they live together.
Indeed, two weeks ago her 15-year-old consultant, daughter Lourdes, a k a Lola, actually chided her mom before the New York premiere of “W.E.” She told Madonna that a respectable film director wouldn’t wear a corset.
Madonna’s reaction? She changed into something more conservative.
No surprise there, says Oseary: “I’m afraid to wear certain things around Lola. It’s like she takes literally five seconds to have checked you fully out. She’ll just tell me, ‘That’s not cool’ all the time.”
Her counsel extends beyond clothes, too. Producer Martin Solveig, who co-wrote “Give Me All Your
Luvin’,” says the iPods of Lola and her two siblings influence their mother’s creative vision.
“You’re very sharp with music when you’re at that age, and you say things with no compromise,” Solveig says.
So how does a mother of four who has avoided drugs and drink for most of her life wind up naming her album after a non-family-friendly club drug, MDMA, also called ecstasy?
“We were having a lot of fun with the initials,” Solveig says. “M.I.A. said, ‘You should call your album ‘MDNA’ because it would be a good abbreviation and spelling of your name.’ Then we realized that there were actually many different possibilities of understanding for those initials — the most important being the DNA of Madonna. There is of course no intention of making the promotion of drugs. Except for the harmless and pure exciting drugs: like music.”
If there’s any controversy generated by the title, there’s little doubt Madonna will embrace it. Movie producer Harvey Weinstein says that’s even one of the themes of “W.E.” Madge apparently identifies with her main character, Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American socialite whose marriage to King Edward VIII upended the
British monarchy.
“Her new movie is autobiographical in spirit,” Weinstein says. “It talks about a hounded person who’s just a good person but it gets all blown out of proportion because she’s playing such a high-stakes game.”