'Rock On': Women, Ageing and Popular Music

Abigail Gardner, Ros Jennings

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317189091
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Rock Music

For female pop stars, whose star bodies and star performances are undisputedly the objects of a sexualized external gaze, the process of ageing in public poses particular challenges. Taking a broadly feminist perspective, 'Rock On': women, ageing and popular music shifts popular music studies in a new direction. Focussing on British, American and Latina women performers and ageing, the collection investigates the cultural work performed by artists such as Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark, Madonna, Celia Cruz, Grace Jones and Courtney Love. The study crosses generations of performers and audiences enabling an examination of changing socio-historical contexts and an exploration of the relationships at play between performance strategies, star persona and the popular music press. For instance, the strategies employed by Madonna and Grace Jones to engage with the processes and issues related to public ageing are not the same as those employed by Courtney Love or Celia Cruz. The essays in this insightful collection reflect on the ways that artists and fans destabilise both the linear trajectories and the compelling weight of expectations regarding ageing by employing different modalities of resistance through persona re-invention, nostalgia, postmodern intertextuality and even early death as the ultimate denial of age.

PART I
‘Renewal, Recycling and Renegotiation’

Chapter 1
Madonna: Like a Crone

Lucy O’Brien

Reaching 50 in 2008 was a watershed year not just for Madonna, but also for her millions of fans. She is a vital figure for women across generations: through her performances she has popularized feminist politics and debate, and promoted a message of sexual empowerment.

Much of her career has hinged on this concept of self-liberation and sexual expressiveness. As a young star she was powerfully seductive – one of the first female performers in the pop mainstream to capitalize on video as a marketing tool, and to make that nexus between sex, pop and commerce so explicit. She also challenged notions of the male/female gaze with her book, Sex, and videos like ‘Justify My Love’. Much of her allure was centred on her visual image, and her ability to combine an inclusive sexuality with compelling costume changes and personae. Female stars in her wake, from Britney Spears to Lady Gaga, have been clearly influenced by her ideas on performance and sexuality.

However, becoming a mature woman and a mother has presented her with a dilemma. She is fiercely competitive and it is a matter of personal pride to ‘stay on top’ in the singles market. But in having to compete with younger women, she is subject to the same pressures to look young, slim and beautiful. As a result, she has to continually sculpt and resculpt her body through rigorous workouts and diet regimes.

The sculpted body first emerged when she shed the voluptuous ‘Toy Boy’ look of her early career for her ‘Open Your Heart’ video. Then it became part of her iconic image with the pink John-Paul Gaultier corset and conical breasts of her 1990 Blond Ambition tour.

As fashion historian Sarah Cheang noted: ‘When she pulled on that JPG corset and showed the world her newly sculpted muscles, her combination of body-toning and body-taming combined all senses of the notion of discipline. She was presenting a body that had been subjected to a rigorous regime of self-discipline – an active body produced by exercise, but also a passive body that was contained, controlled and disciplined by the pink corset’ (O’Brien 2007).

Since then Madonna has kept to a rigorous daily exercise regime, reinforcing the idea that the female body at the heart of the pop mainstream is one that has to be controlled. Ageing and its effects need to be defied. Madonna’s messages have often been contradictory, but this is one of her most problematic. She challenges the notion of ‘growing old gracefully’, but in so doing teeters on the edge of pastiche. As posited in my book, Madonna: Like An Icon, will this previous sexual crusader end up becoming a parody of her former self, a Joan Collins/Marlene Dietrich-style figure going on stage at the age of 80 warbling ‘Like A Virgin’? In this essay I will explore how ageing has impacted on Madonna’s performance strategies, and how this has affected her star persona.

This Pretty Face …

‘I need something more/This pretty face don’t work no more’ – Scottish artist Amy MacDonald sang in 2010. Her song, ‘This Pretty Face’, accurately summed up the pernicious impact of ageing and celebrity pop culture. In the video, paparazzi chase a beautiful pop star, but after a while another younger and prettier starlet walks by. They immediately lose interest in the first woman, who begs them to come back.

In the pop industry youth and attraction are pivotal, and female stars have different strategies for dealing with this issue. The same summer that MacDonald released ‘This Pretty Face’, experimental pop artist Laurie Anderson launched her seventh studio album, Homeland. At the age of 63, Anderson showed a humorous disregard for the ‘image question’. She appeared on her CD cover dressed in drag, sporting large eyebrows and a moustache. Anderson could afford to take that route because she has long established her identity as an alternative performance artist – she once enjoyed pop chart success (notably with her 1981 hit ‘O Superman’), but she is not trying to slot herself into the fluctuations of pop marketing. She is recognized for her ideas and therefore has what Bourdieu (1984) defines as ‘cultural capital’. Shuker sums up this concept, saying: ‘In the case of allegiance to non-mainstream genres/performers, cultural capital serves to assert an oppositional stance …’ (Shuker 2005:64). Singer/songwriter Tori Amos reflected this notion of cultural cachet when in 2007, after she had been in the music business for over 20 years, she said:

Now in my early forties I feel that, by staying true, I’ve never had better treatment. If you’re gonna fall, it’ll be in your thirties. In your twenties you’re the new car. But in your thirties you’re the new car from five years ago, and there’s nothing good about that. If you can make it to your forties, you become a classic car. You’re that sexy Jag that nobody can get anymore. You have a story to tell. (O’Brien 2007)

This may be true for women in genres like rock or folk (where artists such as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris can ‘grow old gracefully’ and still sell records), but the pop world that Madonna inhabits is much less flexible. As Helen Reddington notes in her book The Lost Women of Rock Music, ‘The professional life span of a female artist in the UK roughly corresponds to (passing for) the ages 17–23. After the five-year shelf-life, the business wants a new gimmick; in this case, new technology and new “women” …’ (Reddington 2007:185).

It has not always been thus. When rock n’ roll emerged in the 1950s, young women were still expected to be a facsimile of their mothers; groomed, graceful understudies for the parent culture. This was mirrored in the female stars of the day, women like Lita Roza, Alma Cogan, Ruby Murray and Connie Francis, who started out as big band vocalists singing jazz and novelty songs. Before she became one of the British ‘beat girls’, Dusty Springfield sang in Light Entertainment vocal trio, The Lana Sisters, and had an image that was slightly frumpy: then, young artists were trying to look older than their years – maturity and experience were valued over simplicity and amateurism.

By the early 1960s, however, with the massive post-war rise in the teenage demographic, modern pop music arrived; and pop’s particularly teenage image of youth and beauty was cemented during the girl group era with acts like The Ronettes, the Supremes and The Shangri Las. As Jacqueline Warwick observes in her book Girl Groups, Girl Culture: ‘girl group songs are at once conservative and radical, creating a forum for discourse about girls’ issues and experiences’ (Warwick 2007). Or, as pop star Billy Joel described it: ‘The Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” oozed sex … Ronnie’s voice – it sounds almost lubricated. It’s got that smell to it, like sweat and garlic’ (Spector 1991:xiii).

Although the emphasis on a sexy commercial image was disrupted by punk rock in the 1970s, by the early 1980s the ‘youth/beauty’ template that had been set during the girl group era was firmly established. The rise of MTV meant that video was now an intrinsic part of record company promotion. During the 1980s record labels fine-tuned their strategies for marketing the newly emerging corporate global star. Along with Michael Jackson and Prince, Madonna spearheaded this new generation – she used provocative sexual videos as inspired marketing, and ironically 30 years later is trapped by the very concept she created and popularized.

Mother: Life (and Credibility) Begins at 40

Throughout her career Madonna has played with the imagery of female archetypes – from virgin to cowgirl, geisha and whore. She has dipped into art, religion and history for inspiration, and has appeared as a modern incarnation of an ancient icon. Writer Camille Paglia, for instance, argues that she ‘has rejoined and healed the split halves of women: Mary, the Blessed Virgin and holy mother, and Mary Magdalene, the harlot’ (Paglia 1992:11). Because of the range of Madonna’s appeal and the fact she has been referred to as a modern pop goddess, it seems apposite to divide her career into three mythological phases: the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone.

Madonna started out as a modern Aphrodite, enchanting her global audience with the ‘Boy Toy’ role. As she approached 40, Madonna became a mother and left behind the blonde seductress of her ‘maiden’ years. According to metaphysical writer DJ Conway: ‘The Mother aspect of the Goddess is summer, the ripening of all things … (she) is associated with adulthood and parenthood … Adulthood means the accepting of responsibilities, particularly those brought about by our own actions or commitments’ (Conway 1997:45). After the birth of her daughter Lourdes in 1996, Madonna went through a period of reappraisal and drastically altered her style.

She had already left behind the sexual dominatrix of the Sex era, adopting ‘age appropriate’ clothes with her classic 1950s Hollywood look for Evita. She became interested in spiritual development, practicing yoga and reading about Kabbalah. Musically she went into a more experimental direction with her 1998 album Ray of Light. Madonna described her mood for the album as ‘retrospective and intrigued by the mystical aspects of life’ (O’Brien 2007:243). Encouraged by her (then) underground club producer William Orbit, Madonna went on a psychological journey. With the track ‘Mer Girl’, for instance, she focused on her mother who died of cancer when she was a child. In the song Madonna runs through a threatening dreamscape, until the ground opens up and she is buried alive with her dead mother. This was a far cry from the boy-meets-girl pop of her True Blue era.

Ray of Light was released in March 1998 to widespread critical acclaim. It won four Grammy Awards and attracted ‘serious’ music buyers, the so-called discerning music paper demographic of 20–35 year old men. With Ray of Light Madonna achieved that elusive artistic credibility (and cultural capital) that she had craved for so long. ‘I’ve been in the music business sixteen years and this is my first Grammy’, Madonna said, blinking furiously during her acceptance speech at the 1998 Awards Show. ‘It was worth the wait.’ This album was a kind of resurrection. Approaching 40 years old she had ditched the arch, glittering blonde of 1992’s Erotica album to re-emerge with subtle make-up and flowing pre-Raphaelite hair. At this stage in her career, the emphasis was on the organic, ‘natural’ process of ageing – covering up rather than wearing revealing clothes, denouncing the former antics of her Sex book era and being taken seriously as an ‘artist’. She fully explored this phase with an album trilogy that still stands as her best work: Ray of Light (1998), Music (2000) and American Life (2001).

Recorded with leftfield Parisian producer Mirwais, the Music album moved from fractured electronic funk to acoustic folk and brought out a new side to Madonna’s creativity. ‘“Everybody knows her as a chameleon, or a businesswoman. I wanted to show her potential as a musician,” said Mirwais’ (O’Brien 2007:252). Shortly before the release of Music, she gave birth to Rocco, her son with film director Guy Ritchie. ‘I feel complete’, Madonna said with quiet satisfaction. That emotional stability enabled her to make bold creative decisions with music that was more textured than ever before. Psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques describes this kind of mid-life inspiration as ‘the process of forming and fashioning the external product, by means of working and reworking the externalized material’. He distinguishes between ‘the precipitate creativity of early adulthood and the sculpted creativity of mature adulthood’ (Jaques 2006:5).

Madonna developed this further in 2001’s Drowned World tour. A cross between Comedia del Arte and high-end Las Vegas spectacle, Drowned World was a deliberate challenge to concert-goers. It featured dark cyberpunk and a Geisha section, where Madonna appeared on stage wearing a black wig, kimono and 40-foot arms. This section had the terrifying intensity of Japanese horror films like Ringu, and puzzled some of her fans. According to the tour director Jamie King, ‘Her music for that moment was introspective and dark so the tour had to reflect that. It was important that Madonna didn’t sell out and just do the hits, but she did really cover her new material because that was who she had evolved into’ (O’Brien 2007:267).

The Madonna we see in videos is very different from the flesh-and-blood live performer. Usually she does the same complicated moves as her dancers, but as a 40-something mother she began to change her performance style. At a warm-up promotional gig at London Brixton Academy in 2000, for instance, she was breathless, slightly chubby and found it hard to keep up with her dancers. Considering the fact she had given birth to Rocco just three months earlier, this wasn’t surprising. For her Drowned World tour the following year, her dancing was less strenuous than usual. ‘Madonna had Rocco, he was very young. She hadn’t performed for eight years and needed to get back into shape’, said her choreographer Alex Magno. ‘She didn’t want to dance so much, she wanted to sing live and sound good’ (O’Brien 2007:269). Drowned World was Madonna’s most daring, avant garde show, with the emphasis on ideas and concepts rather than song-and-dance routines.

This questioning mood was compounded by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. Her next album American Life reflected the new social and political landscape with confusion, disorientation and anger seeping into most of the songs. She was 44 years old and experiencing what amounted to a mid-life crisis. American Life was her psychoanalysis. She name-checked Sigmund Freud in her lyrics, and threw out countless questions: Who am I? Where am I going? What does it all mean? Much of the album is suffused with sarcasm: from the disaffected ennui of the title track to the smooth yet sceptical song, ‘Hollywood’. ‘“I’ve had 20 years of fame and fortune, and I feel that I have a right to an opinion on what it is and what it isn’t. All everyone is obsessed about at the moment is being a celebrity. I’m saying that’s bullshit and who knows better than me?” she declared’ (Rees 2003).

She was re-evaluating not just her celebrity status, but the nature of performance itself.

X-Static Process, for instance, is one of Madonna’s most fascinating projects. In a series of photographs shot in 2002 with Stephen Klein, Madonna deconstructed her own myth to devastating effect. Their exhibit and accompanying art book focused on: ‘a performer in her rehearsal space where she creates and brings her ideas to life or death’ (O’Brien 2007:292).

A pristine white wedding dress, like the one in her ‘Like A Virgin’ video, sits on a tailor’s dummy. In a series of 40 images the dress is gradually devoured by flames until there is nothing left but charred pieces of lace. Like an inverted image of the Like A Virgin album cover, Madonna poses on a bare bed in a grimy leotard with laddered tights and bandaged knees, her hair pulled back with plain brown hairgrips. In another picture she wears a jewelled animal mask, dark red damask, and an ornate headdress, looking like a decrepit Elizabethan queen. Copyright on the entire exhibit is credited to Boy Toy Inc., a tongue-in-cheek reference to the 1980’s persona that she cheerfully destroyed. She was systematically dismantling images that no longer served her – the virgin/whore tease, the fame-hungry star, the Blond Ambition virago. ‘I’m not a pop star, I’m a performance artist’, she said.

Madonna also adopted a challenging stance in her ‘American Life’ video, playing a gun-toting resistance fighter who throws a grenade at a President Bush look-alike. She described the video as an anti-war statement, but after the US invasion of Iraq she was faced with public condemnation. Madonna toned down her message and withdrew the video, saying: ‘I do not believe it is appropriate to air it at this time’ (Warner Bros 2003).

Sales suffered. Even though it has become a cult favourite among fans, American Life posted the lowest sales of any Madonna album to date. Madonna was shaken. She compared her producer Mirwais to Jean Paul Sartre, saying (slightly disparagingly): ‘We both got sucked into the French existentialist vortex. We both decided we were against the war, and we both smoked Gauloises and wore berets, and we were against everything … I was very upset with George Bush’ (Garfield 2005).

Madonna breezily dismantled her own pop images when she was in control of the process, but the very real prospect of her career evaporating engendered panic. After American Life Madonna retreated into a more conservative role, portraying a traditional image of motherhood. She wrote a series of children’s books, and wore spectacles and a demure flowery dress to the launch party of her first literary offering, The English Roses. The underlying message of Madonna’s children’s stories was one of retreat, nostalgia and old-fashioned family values, and this was strikingly expressed in her Lady of the Manor persona. She was photographed for American Vogue on her Wiltshire estate wearing twin-set and pearls, embracing the upper crust hobbies of her husband Guy Ritchie. ‘“I see England as my home. I now know how to ride. I know how to shoot. I know how to fish,” she announced’ (Bowles 2005).

In 2005 she was listed tenth in Country Life magazine’s ‘Power 100 of the Countryside’. At a time when the Countryside Alliance was fighting the Parliament anti-hunting bill, Madonna was feted as one of the most powerful figures in rural Britain. This was a perplexing incarnation for Madonna fans, particularly British ones. ‘Madonna has little to add and nowhere to go as a cultural radical. She could genuinely embrace oppositional politics to mark herself as definitively radical in the early twenty-first century, but has instead embraced the trappings of an English aristocratic lifestyle’, wrote Sean Albiez (Albiez 2004:130).

Then on her 47th birthday she had a serious riding accident, suffering three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and a broken hand. The traumatic fall provoked an extreme reaction. After three months of enforced recuperation, she propelled herself back into the limelight with a new album and a defiantly sexual image. She emerged, her PR Liz Rosenberg said, ‘like a bullet from a gun’ (O’Brien 2007:319).

Like a Crone

The third phase of Madonna’s career began as she approached 50. After experiencing ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• General Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Women, Ageing and Popular Music
• PART I ‘RENEWAL, RECYCLING AND RENEGOTIATION’
• PART II ‘IT’S NOT OVER…’
• Bibliography
• Index