Screen grab/Instagram TV
Madonna.
Madonna is just trying to express herself ... or something.
As with many artists who were on the road when the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic struck, the Queen of Pop was forced to cancel the remaining two dates of her heavily political Madame X world tour — which didn't offer a Detroit performance, by the way. Since launching in October 2019, the tour has been riddled with cancellations, late-starts, injuries, and disappointment. The Bay City native was even booed during a recent performance in Las Vegas for taking the stage at midnight — an hour and a half later than her scheduled start time which, at 10:30 p.m. was moved last minute from its original 8:30 p.m. start time.
One writer says the Madame X tour may go down as one of the most “drama-laden concert tours of her career.” Another site called the outing her “worst offering” to date — and that might include 2002's cinematic disaster Swept Away and anything she did/said with her British accent. To be fair, the 61-year-old icon performed through a knee injury during the majority of the tour, as Kitty Empire of The Guardian noted a glowing and empathetic review of Madonna's London residency titled “chutzpah, spy chic and revolutionary zeal.”
Anyway, Madonna, like many homebound celebs, are, well, kind of coming undone. Look no further than Wonder Woman Gal Gadot attempting to unite her high-profile friends in a collaborative rendition of John Lennon's “Imagine” that literally no one asked for.
In her latest series of Instagram videos and IG TV streams, Madge has done the following: Spewed meandering quarantine thoughts on a typewriter; Endured a high-tech, sci-fi physical therapy treatment; repurposed her hit song “Vogue” to accommodate lyrics about eating fried fish for some damn reason; and claiming “there's no more pasta” in a vocally strained 3 a.m. improvisational bathroom clip which prompted frequent Madonna spoofer Weird Al Yankovic to throw a playful jab on Twitter: “See? Not so easy, is it?”
See? Not so easy, is it? https://t.co/LY9Qha35RK
— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) March 21, 2020
But of all of her recent social media contributions, it's her prolific and nude COVID-19 observations that are the most, uh, inspiring?
“It doesn’t care about how rich you are, how famous you are, how funny you are, how smart you are, where you live, how old you are, what amazing stories you can tell,” she says while naked, in a bathtub, surrounded by flower petals, gripping the bath nozzles. “It’s the great equalizer, and what’s terrible about it is what’s great about it. What’s terrible about it is it’s made us all equal in many ways — and what’s wonderful about it is it’s made us all equal in many ways.”
If by “equal” she means we are all at home losing our minds, then she's not wrong ... clearly. But we can't help but long for simpler times when a sleepless Madonna would perform acoustic Elliott Smith covers.
Stay on top of Detroit news and views. Sign up for our weekly issue newsletter delivered each Wednesday.
