Madonna Vogue in the Music Industry - Essay Example

Artist Analysis (Madonna - Vogue) Introduction Music is a universal language having no boundaries and restrictions. The most popular and followed genres of music in the 20th and 21st centuries are Jazz, Blues, Hip-hop, Pop, Rock and Roll, Salsa, Ragtime, Barbershop, Techno, Experimental, Dance, and Boogaloo. In the United States, the music is formed by the influence of multi-ethnic groups living in the country. Therefore, different genres of music have been formed. The famous regional styles of American music include slack-key, zydeco, and klezmer. In the 20th century, the music industry in America introduced a new genre of music by combining the elements of Blues music with the folk music. The result is in the form of Jazz, Rock and R&B music. Some new styles were also introduced in the 1960s and 70s such as Heavy metal, soul, hip-hop and punk (Tschmuck 32). Due to experimentation in music in the 20th century the music industry became much innovative and experimented in the 21st century. Classical music is rooted deep in the 18th century. In the 20th century, different types of classical music were introduced including expressionism, neo-classicism and impressionism and Minimalism. In the 21st century, different composers used the event grade techniques for experimenting with the classical genre of music (Moss 40). Jazz is another form of most popular music in 20th and 21st centuries. New Orleans is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the US. Jazz is a style of music originated from New Orleans by the influence of Latin American Music, European music like Opera and Blues. The American African musicians introduced jazz, but the first recorded piece of jazz music was by the white Americans of Dixie Land Jass Band. Till the Second World War variety of jazz music, was heard including Hard Bop, Fusion, Bebop and Cool Jazz (Moss 61). Rock N’ Roll, another famous genre of music formed by the fusion of different music styles including rhythm, blues, classic blues and country music (Moss 40). Rock N’ Roll was introduced in the 20th century in 1954. Initially, the music was targeted to the white young generation. The famous Rock N’ Roll Musicians include Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis Presley. In the 1960s, Rock N’ Roll disseminated to Europe especially England. In the 21st century, a range of sub-categories of Rock N’ Roll was introduced originated from the original creations of Chuck Berry (Tschmuck 116). Madonna has sung a variety of music genre in her successful career. Her famous songs are found in the genre of Pop music, dance, and pop rock, Electronic, Gospel, R&B, Techno, Jack Swing and Disco. Madonna has a significant contribution in the success of popular music. She modified the music from rock to dance and R&B. After Madonna, a huge number of female singers also appeared in the music industry. Madonna’s contribution in music is highlighted by her creative approaches of mixing and blending different music genres and developing something new and extraordinary (Taraborrelli 10). The way she has reinvented dance, R&B and hip-hop music, a large number of brave, creative attempts have been observed in the music industry. Madonna is very influential causing many of the artists to follow her and recreate her established form of music. Madonna started to work in the music industry when men ruled it. She made her distinct position and proved herself with innovation in music particularly in dance music and R&B (OBrien 54). The contribution of Madonna in the music industry particularly to Dance music and Pop music is mainly characterized by her reinventions and productive ideas. She is known as a legend in creating masterpieces by mixing and blending different music forms and developing innovative tunes. She has given a number of hit albums to the music industry such as True Blue (1986), You Can Dance (1987), Whos that Girl (1987), and Like a Prayer (1989), and I’m Breathless (1990). Madonna is not merely a musician or artist, but she is a trendsetter. She was the first woman in the music industry to be recognized internationally due to her diverse knowledge and experimentation with different forms of music. The variety of music forms found today is a result of experiments done by legendary musicians like Madonna. Her music provoked feminism and introduced to the world that women can produce high-quality music and can also handle all the fame and eminence. He musical tunes have been used and followed by all the young musicians till today which indicates the quality of music she produced over the years that has been inspiring listeners and musicians since decades. The song selected for analysis in this paper is ‘Vogue’ by Madonna. The song was released in 1990 as a part of her album I’m Breathless. Vogue belongs to the genre of upbeat dance music, the identity of Madonna. Its composition is highly influenced by disco music of 1970s. The song follows the theme of escapism. The song is declared as one of the most successful music pieces in her career. Vogue is a renowned dance-pop and house music song influence by disco music. The song has dominant deep house music groove with a throbbing beat. Taraborreli (2001) has named the song as a pulsating dance track (Taraborrelli 123). The song has a tempo of 116 beats per minute, and the vocal range of Madonna ranged from C4 to E♭5. The song also contains a ‘rap’ section where Madonna named a number of historically known performers and Hollywood celebrities. This rap section contains the name of 16 top stars from 1920 to 1950s era. The main theme of the music was based on pop-dance however the blend of disco music in it is obtained from different songs like baseline from "Love Is the Message" by MFSB. The horns and strings used in the song were inspired from "Ooh, I Love It (Love Break)" by the Salsoul Orchestra (Taraborrelli 79). There are four versions of the song available including the single version, Bettle Davis Dub, Strike-A-Pose Dub and the12 versions. The single version begins with the beat of drums and then the song continues whereas in the album version the song starts after a brief introduction. The 12-version is longer than the rest with same music and lyrics. In the Bettle Davis Dub, the song is followed by an album introduction and the chorus and rap section is only instrumental (Promis 5). The sonic qualities of the song Vogue in terms of accuracy, enjoyability, and intelligibility are found amazing. The song is composed based on inspiration from ‘Dance form Vogue’; the idea is unique and explicit. Madonna used dynamic range compression to obtain a fine piece of music by mixing rap, pop and dance music together in the form of vogue. Source: (1) Madonna was interested in projecting the stronger image of a woman therefore; her performances and music also reveal the same courage and diversity. She also publically acclaimed that she wanted to show the society that a woman could be powerful, resourceful, intelligent and sexy. Feminism and liberalism were the main themes of Madonna’s contributions. Madonna challenges the belief that women must be sexual, but should remain silent. There were several controversial topics also associated with the career of Madonna as she was found raising the concerns about homosexuality, sex, pornography and very controversial performances with respect to religious notions, as well as her physical appearance. The social influence of the song was also found significant because of using the gay driven dance form as the main source of inspiration (OBrien 167). Sire Records released the song Vogue in 1990. The song was composed as an inspiration from choreographers Luis Xtravaganza and Jose from the Harlem "House Ball" community. The song was then also included in the greatest hits by Madonna in albums The Immaculate Collection (1990) and Celebration (2009). The basics of the song were taken from the vogue dance performed in an underground gay scene. The dance is characterized by using different postures and gestures using hands to imitate the legendary Hollywood stars. The dance was based on the theme of irony, rivalry and gender play. The song was then also incorporated in the move ‘Dick Tracy’ and became a major hit. Most of the critics appreciated the song and new idea Madonna tried to convey. Critic Erlewine declared is like Madonna’s instantly memorable melody (Coleman 43). After the release of the song the underground ‘vogueing’ dance, became the part of mainstream culture. Before Madonna introduced vogueing in her song, the dance was only performed in the bars and discos of New York City in gay scenes. Lucy O’ Brien in her book also mentioned the impact of the song by stating that Vogue became a number one hit played in clubs all across the world from NYC to London and Bali. It introduced the new form of dance in the culture and also the blend of house music and techno genres to the music industry. She said ‘Vogue’ reflected positivity, hedonism, upbeat and totally inclusive (OBrien 45). The song brought house music into the mainstream popular music and revived 1970’s disco music after it has been commercially forgotten. Erick Henderson from Slant Magazine explained the characteristics of the song and its influence on different genres of music as well on popular music culture by stating that vogues provoked the disco music revival through its instrumentation and musical creativity. It allowed the denigrated gay genre of music to appear once again as house music. The composition of vogue appeared very significant in the re-emergence of disco music. Disco music was very popular in the 1970s but gradually after a decade its popularity faded and is taken over by hip hop and rock (Henderson 88). The song vogue introduced disco music with a new touch that makes the listeners enjoy the beauty of dance music. Thus, Vogue gave a second life to the dying dance music. Similar the house music was not so popular and only played in bars and clubs locally. The blend of house music and disco music in vogue also pushed house music into the mainstream (Romano 20). The impact of the song is found dominant in both genres of music as well as in the introduction of new dance form ‘vogueing’ that was only performed underground previously. The song remained on the top of the charts for years because of its diverse sonic qualities, innovation in the music genres and profound impact on the dance culture (Coleman 62). Coleman in the album review of I’m Breathless asserted that if anyone could dare to use the series of improvised model striking to the deafening sound of house music, it could only be Madonna (Coleman 168). The contribution of Madonna and particularly the song Vogue has been found considerable in revitalizing the dance music and house music genres in the popular music culture. Conclusion By analysing the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, it is found that the most famous and popular genres of music in that era were Jazz, Blues, Hip-hop, Pop, Rock and Roll, Salsa, Ragtime, Barbershop, Techno, Experimental, Dance, and Boogaloo. Madonna is not only considered as an artist but a legendary musician who created masterpieces of music in the history. She is known as a music icon and has been followed by the new musicians since decades. Madonna used the following genres of music in her compositions commonly including Pop music, dance, pop rock, Electronica and Gospel, R&B, Techno, Jack Swing and Disco. Her song vogue was released in 1990 as a single and later in her album I’m Breathless. The song is a beautiful music composition inspired from the Vogue dance by the underground choreographers in gay scenes. It is composed on the tunes of disco music and house music along with rap and pop music. Madonna is given the credit of reinventing a blend of house music and disco music. It was the time when disco music had lost its charm, and house music was only locally played. Madonna’s Vogue brought the disco music and house music into the mainstream popular music culture in America. Vogue also introduced the dance form to the masses internationally through its video. Works Cited Coleman, Mark. Im Breathless Madonna. 14 June 1990. 8 January 2015 . Henderson, Erick. Madonna Celebration. 23 September 2009. 8 January 2015 . Madonna Vogue. 8 January 2015 . Moss, Stuart. The Entertainment Industry: An Introduction. London: CABI, 2010. Print. OBrien, Lucy. Madonna: Like an Icon. New York: It Books, 2008. Print. Promis, Jose F. Madonna Vogue. 2014. 9 January 2015 . Romano, Tricia. Love Is the Message. 23 September 2003. 8 January 2015 . Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Madonna: An Intimate Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001. Print. Tschmuck, Peter. Creativity and Innovation in the Music Industry. New York: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. Print. . Read More