Madonna: The Erotica Album

Introduction

From 1992-1993, the singer-songwriter Madonna presented herself as a figure of a sex-obsessed woman in America, then in transition from a conservative, right-winged society. In those two years Madge released a majority of sex-themed things, including a book entitled Sex (which depicted -- in photographs and text -- her sexual fantasies), three movies, one of them being an erotic thriller (Body of Evidence), a worldwide tour (The Girlie Show), and finally, her challenging and eye-opening 1992 album Erotica.

Erotica was her first album to wear a Parental Advisory tag for Explicit Lyrics. It explored S&M themes, the depths of her anger at the time, gay culture, traditional love songs and a tribute to two of her friends who had passed away from complications of AIDS.

This album was a long one (over 70 minutes) but contained fourteen tracks on the Explicit version and thirteen on the Clean version, omitting the song Did You Do It?

Her lowest-selling album at the time, it is now regarded by many fans as a masterpiece and is a certainty in many "Best of the 90s" type of lists, including The 100 Best Albums of the 1990s by Slant Magazine and one of the most revolutionary albums of all time by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the charts for over a year, this album was certified 2x platinum. It received mainly positive reviews, but her whorish image during this time made some fans believe she had "gone too far."

On this fourteen-track masterpiece, we will examine the seven most controversial, beautifully written, explosive songs on the album: Erotica, Deeper and Deeper, Bad Girl, Thief of Hearts, Rain, Why's It So Hard and In This Life.

Erotica

This song was released in the autumn of 1992. It (and its accompanying music video) explores the erotic nature of the S&M scene. In this opening track, the Queen of Pop speaks (and does not sing) in a raspy, detached voice that her name is Dita and that "I'll be your mistress tonight."

It deals with Madonna's obsessive need for control - in this case, over her current lover - as is clear in these lyrics: "Give it up, do as I say/Give it up and let me have my way"; "I'll give you love/I'll hit you like a truck/I'll give you love/I'll teach you how to..." (She refrains from saying the f-bomb).

Madonna is very cool on this track, wanting sex and wanting her lover to give his body over, but not wanting her soul or feelings to get involved with the act of sex. Detached, unemotional, and vacant, the singer does not seem to understand the concept of love during sex with this song and abandons everything of the romantic nature.

Pain during sex is a biggie on this raspy and rape-y five-minute song. The singer speaks: "Only the one who hurts you can make you feel better." Complete with a whip, blindfold, and a dangerously sexy hand puppet in the music video, this song is very much the image of Madonna in the early '90s: Sick, sadistic, wanting to inflict pain, and above all, careless and without a heart. It makes for an interesting album opener and instantly draws the listener into the depths of the record.

Deeper and Deeper

The fourth track on the record, Deeper and Deeper, couldn't be further away -- lyrically and musically -- from the opener. It has got depth (very appropriate, eh?), emotion, and the confusion of being a homosexual almost thirty years ago.

With the song's upbeat tempo and Disco sound, it instantly makes the tune a standout on the album. It's easy to see (or hear) the 1970s nightclub scene that Madonna often haunted in her coming-of-age years.

The lyrics: "When you know the notes to sing/You can sing most anything" and "Think with your heart not with your head" suggests to just "Let your body move to the music" (these last lyrics also a reference to her 1990 hit song Vogue) and let yourself move to the natural thing within your body and heart, whether it be homosexuality, bisexuality, heterosexuality, or somewhere in between.

The song is a dance track that Madonna performed on many of her tours since the megahit tapped into the airwaves of radios in the winter of 1992. Hitting smackdab at the top of the charts in the US, Italy and Canada, it remains a Madonna classic among her long list of successes.

Bad Girl

Released around Valentine's Day 1993, this track is Madonna during one of her most depressed, saddened, and brilliant states-of-mind. Critically-acclaimed, a favorite by many fans, and only performed live once (on Saturday Night Live), this is one of those songs that is an easy one to love but also very much out of reach by her impoverished emotional state.

It's about a woman who has just come out of a relationship and is in a self-destructive mode. Engaging in sex with married men, a collection of one-night stands, smoking too much and drinking too much, this is the third single off the Erotica record, and is as heartbreaking as it is haunting. Very much jazzy and slow-moving, it is gut-wrenching to listen to. "Bad girl, drunk by six/Kissing some kind stranger's lips/Smoked too many cigarettes today/I'm not happy/I'm not happy" can be found within the core of the song.

The twin music video depicts a woman who is struggling within her personal life and professional life because of the traumatic break-up. With continuous sexual affairs so that it brings her days away from home, Christopher Walken is also featured in this video as the singer's guardian angel. And, at the end, they watch a Louise Oriole (Madonna's character in this video) look-a-like hauled away by paramedics, dead with a white sheet stretched over her body.

Thief of Hearts

Though this was not a single on the Erotica album, it is nonetheless a great track -- and boy, is the Queen of Pop pissed on this one!

This talks about how Madonna is extremely upset and angry about a woman who she believes has stolen her boyfriend from her -- though, with Madge's intensity and obsessive nature, it is most likely she has driven the man away rather than him being taken away.

Spoken more than sung, this is a gem in the singer's catalogue. At the start and finish of the song, she says to the other woman: "Which leg do you want me to break?" Caught up in her own jealous rage, Madonna does not examine herself as the culprit of her own fate, but rather blames this woman for what was not Madonna's in the first place.

Though with a great dance and pop beat, the lyrics are incredibly immature and explosive, blaming the other woman for her stolen lover, as if he was property. The most murderous and violent track on the album, the singer explodes with: "No one ever takes what's mine" and "You're a thief of hearts/And now you'll have to pay."

This song (most likely found in anger management classes), is a far cry from the aforementioned track, Bad Girl. While Bad Girl is sad and impotent, Thief of Hearts is devastating in a most fiery, aggressive way.

Rumored to be about her break-up with Warren Beatty (and when he went after Annette Bening, eventually marrying her), this song is childish, egotistical, illogical, pathetic and above all, a manipulative maneuver to try to get somebody or something to bend to her will. Even with all that said, it is a highlight on the album and remains today as the anthem for the angry and jilted female.

Rain

A more conventional love song on this album, Madonna yearns to share with her lover her feelings, emotions, and words. And most of all, she wants him to share these things with her. A beautiful ballad, she also sings that she is willing to share her most unconventional way of thinking to make this man pay attention to what she has to say. It also is a song that seeks to ensure to her lover that she is absolutely devoted to him and the way he makes her feel: "Rain is what this thunder brings/For the first time I can hear my heart sing."

Even Madonna's biggest detractors, I believe, will like this song. It's tender and compassionate...You might say it's a few miles down the block from the pain/pleasure elements of Erotica and Thief of Hearts.

This song charted all around the world, and though it did not reach #1, it was of great critical acclaim, and took some of the edge off the rest of the album's grainy nature.

The music video to this song depicts the singer wanting to be rained on by his love -- waiting for the validation of the rain, while other people simply pop up their umbrellas to keep dry. A famous still from the video contains Madonna's mouth open and face being rained upon, which is a poorly disguised shot of a woman getting a facial.

Why's It So Hard

No, this does not have to do with a woman discovering a male's erection. It is simply a song about the inconclusive nature of love and appreciation, the singer questioning: "Why's it so hard to love one another?"

This song really questions about what we are doing in a loveless and hostile world (both then and now). The winds outside are cold and vicious, but Madonna sings -- very much in confrontation with Erotica and Thief of Hearts -- that we should "Love your brother now/Show your sister how" and "Sing your love/Bring your love/Wear your love/Share your love".

Though the sounds of this track are very funky with rock elements, the lyrics are retro/1960s, going back to a time when everyone wore a flower in their hair, loved another, and aimed for peace and harmony -- and at the same time acknowledging it's so damn hard to love one another because of the complications and unpredictable nature of the human species.

Not a single off the Erotica album, it's a genuine and heartfelt funk-ballad that really makes us look at our inability to love one another, now, more than ever.

In This Life

Like Why's It So Hard, this track can be condensed into one question: What the hell are we doing?

Madonna wrote this song in memory of two gay friends of hers who had passed away of AIDS. Starting with the simple start of a keyboard, the subject matter (obviously) is not so simple. She sings: "Shouldn't matter who you choose to love/In this life/I loved you most of all/What for?" And the devastation of the AIDS epidemic hits like a ton of bricks: For what in God's name was this terrible disease put on this planet for? "People pass by and I wonder who's next/Who determines, who knows best."

A jab at the conservative "leadership" in America when the time the epidemic hit in the Reagan years, she sings: "Ignorance is not bliss" and questioning the whole damn rotten system: "They'd rather turn the other way/While we wait for this thing to go away."

This is one of the most profound songs on the album. When I listen to this song, I have to question the intentions of God, the government and most importantly the government's neglect during the AIDS crisis. Madonna makes us question all of this during this beautifully written and beautifully sung ballad.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this is one hell of an album: Eclectic, different, and quite an eye-popping experience at certain times.

Only in her mid-thirties at the time it was released, this solidified her position as more than a mere pop singer: It ingrained in the minds of the public that she wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, and by god that's what she got.

Out of all her albums since her debut in 1983, this is a diamond in the rough. It blasts with fury, cries with desperation and sadness, and makes us question ourselves and the people around us.

Though not very appreciated at the time of its release, it has become an obscure classic: Known by few but loved by her fans. With killer music videos to match, a woman with a very set goal in mind, and a sex-obsessed culture and superstar, this is an album that will go on entertaining the masses for years to come.