This album has a sexual, sensual feel to it...a very different album to any other that Maddy has ever made. A very controversial album, it is a contemporary of Madonna's infamous pornographic book "SEX", and it represents a brave attempt by Madonna to forge a new style for herself to move on from her Eighties sound.
Songs
- Erotica*
- Fever*
- Bye Bye Baby*
- Deeper and Deeper*
- Where Life Begins
- Bad Girl*
- Waiting
- Thief Of Hearts
- Words
- Rain*
- Why It's So Hard
- In This Life
- Secret Garden
The title track, Erotica is, not surprisingly, one of the stronger songs on the album. Maddy plays the part of a kinky dominatrix and she goes about seducing you, the listener. The song opens with a crackling sound of vinyl - an indication of how the 'dirty' analogue sound of this album is sexy whereas crisp digital sound is cold and uncool - and a low two-note bass riff. The arrangement is similarly sparse as 'Justify My Love' but more upbeat and there is also a jumpy funk guitar riff and the swirl of synth strings. Over this, Madonna does a low growly rap about the pleasures of S&M. Nice touches include the use of simultaneous spoken and sung phrases and the slowed down "I'm not going to hurt you". The mood is definitely spicey with a Middle Eastern air, heady and almost orgasmic at times, taking on a subversive power. The groove is hypnotic, and the attention to detail is fantastic throughout the song - including a sample from Kool and The Gang's 'Jungle Boogie'. You might be interested to look at the manuscript below (click to enlarge) - it's Madonna's own handwriting showing her thought processing while she was writing the lyrics. As you can see, the original song was much less dark and subversive and more about love than sex but she re-wrote the lyrics to the version we know today (this is confirmed by producer Shep Pettibone in "The Erotica Diaries").
Fever is a famous song, covered many times and most famously sung by Peggy Lee in 1958. There is something wrong with this song, it's meant to be equally sexy as the preceding song, though in a different way. However it ends up sounding sterile and supremely unsexy, due to the dance drum rhythm using beatbox, strings and marimba. Madonna's voice also sounds too detached and emotionless. Actually, the remixed version released to the video is yet more dancey and much more effective.
Bye Bye Baby is an 'angry' song, where Maddy says "bye bye" to her lover after he is unfaithful and treats her badly ("bye bye baby, bye bye, it's your turn to cry, this time we have to say goodbye, so say goodbye" and "does it make you feel good to see me cry? I think it does, that's why it's time to say bye bye"). A strange voice-alteration (the voice is attenuated by equalisation to sound much thinner and trebly) is used in this song making her sound as if her voice is squeezed through a megaphone, and it makes her seem distant and 'cruel'. This is "not a love song" but it is certainly a dance song, opening with strong drum and following with a low bass pulsing against a high-pitched Sixties keyboard. There are occasional flickers of guitar and sampled shouts. Madonna twists a quotation from 'Erotica' with "I'd like to hurt you" in a dramatic section of the song, ending with an explosion and "you fucked it up" with the expletive bleeped out.
Deeper and Deeper is a more jaunty song, right in the middle of the Ninties disco sound, describing how Madonna falls headlong in love after forgetting that she could. Stabbing portentous piano, a skipping syncopated drum machine, synth bass and touches of string form the basis of the melody, boasting a thicker arrangement than anything else on the album. The lyrics describe how Madonna's parents taught her how to love, but that she had forgotten how to and that her new lover had taught her how to love again: "someone said that romance was dead and I believed it instead of remembering what my Mama told me, let my father mould, when you try to hold me you remind me what they said". This is followed by an instrumental section with three spanish guitar, one solo and castanets - possibly the most interesting part of the music. A very powerful and moving track if only you listen to the lyrics.
Where Life Begins is another very sexual song, full of inuendo and suggestion. A quiet beginning leads into a relaxed groove that could be Barry White (without the tonnage). In the background, there are long sustained strings with a little funk wah-wah guitar. The drums and bass carry the verse. Lyrically, this is an invitation to oral sex, with Madonna throwing in lots of kitchen/food metaphor, even getting a reference to Colonel Sanders and his famous Kentucky Fried Chicken! A reasonably strong chrous has staccato on-the-beat chords from the strings, and the track as a whole features some slinky piano. A real teaser, managing to be smoochy and driven at the same time - however it does end up sounding like a B-grade, albeit more stylish, 'Erotica'. The more sensitive listeners may also find this incredibly vulgur, though it has no explicit language - the innuendo is pretty unsubtle!
Bad Girl is a classic, describing the way the character abuses herself, referring to cigarettes and kissing strangers - then talking to her lover, she explains that she doesn't want to hurt him but can't help doing so. The music starts off quite slow, with a swing piano and wind-chimes spread across the stereo field, and very quickly establishes itself as the having the most interesting chord sequence of anything on the album so far. Madonna occasionally slips into falsetto to get some of the higher notes, but the delivery is emotionally driven, if a little high. The chorus is lifted by vocal harmony and is more of a pop style than any other on the album. A very stylish and dramatic song, which is perhaps a trifle too long if listened to without the cinematic (and excellent) video.
Waiting is a song about dissatisfaction with a relationship. As it is partially spoken rather than sung, it doesn't have classic catchiness, but it has a rhythm of its own and some of the wording is clever, and it is addictive in its own way. The music starts with more scratchy vinyl before a sliding bass note. The lyrics are spoken over a sparse accompaniment dominated by a minor bass line that is in the style of Motown genius James Jamerson. The rhythm section with a tambourine has a very Sixties feel, possibly owing something to Marvin Gaye's 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. The chorus is backed by spoken voices, and the overall feel of the song is of soul like the British singer Gabrielle practices. A classy song.
Thief of Hearts Ah! The velvet glove that hides the iron fist. Sustained strings are interrupted by glass, Madonna 'Bitch!' and audibly chewing gum. This song takes us back to Nineties disco rhythms, with the strings held for each bar. The chorus is pure pop despite the dance scuffling snare drum fills, and the track also features police sirens amidst the groove. Lyrically it's about wreaking revenge on a boyfriend-stealing woman, sometimes violently: "which leg do you want me to break?". A thoroughly melodramatic and misogynistic track and satisfyingly so! It ends with more broken glass and Madonna saying "Stop, Bitch! Now sit your ass down". Ouch!
Words starts off with an atmospheric minor chord before the drum machine kicks in as well as a repeating middle eastern keyboard sequence. The subject matter is...words! Specifically how someone call fall in love with someone else's words and that the actions may not match up to those words. In addition, words can turn nasty as we all know, and the song deals with how words can be used to hurt. There is a nice intermediate section which has a warm feeling to it, which contrasts with the rest of the song which is coldly angry "you think you're so sly, I caught you at your game". Though the song has a few too many cliches ("cuts like a knife" and "actions speak louder than words") it's still an effective track, calling in the end for plain speech and self-expression, and ending with typewriter sounds.
Rain is a real beauty, yet another gem of this album, chock-full of clever sound tricks, right from the beautiful intro. Romantic rather than sexual (though it deals with sex as part of love), it shows Madonna's vocal range well as most of the song is sung in a deeper pitch, with a higher pitch version overlaid in pleasing self-harmony. A strong drumbeat is nonetheless placed firmly behind Madonna's vocals to provide a good base for the song, as is the strong chords of a synth organ. Quieter percussion in the form of the twittering of the high-hat also augments this. Lyrically, there is a nod to the Beatles with the line "here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I say, never go away", which is lifted almost word-for-word from their single 'Here Comes The Sun' (Abbey Road album) and which is preceded by a crescendo of deep synth sound that sound likes an alien spaceship taking off! Following this there is a clever spoken breakdown where Madonna whispers and speaks phrases almost but not quite simultaneously from both channels, the effect through the different speakers being bewildering and quite powerful. Near the end, the song shifts up in pitch, a trick used only infrequently Madonna, before a beautifully sung last few vocals come in, fading into the sound of distant thunder and rainfall. Exhilarating and healing in equal measure, this is one of Madonna's best songs, gorgeously performed, melding voice and music in a way which we had not heard in Madonna's music until this point.
Why It's So Hard is a strange song. It was written by Madonna about universal love. It's about how intolerant people can be, and yet it has a jauntiness and music that reminds me of 'Crocodile Dundee' (am I the only one who thinks this?) - maybe not a co-incidence as the 'Girlie Show' tour visited Australia just after the album was released and the VHS and DVD recordings of the tour were filmed here. This song has a very strong dance rhythm with a very low bass, piano and sustained strings, with a guitar producing wah-wah sounds. The chorus calls for unity between brothers and sisters (in the broader populist sense) and challenging system. Male backing vocals are provided by Tony Shimkin, making this sound a bit like a Seal song. It has some nice touches (a nice echoed piano break and the part where Madonna repeatedly sings "before it's too late") and it is good when performed live, as evidenced by the 'Girlie Show' performance.
In this Life also has a message apparently inspired by two friends of Madonna's who died young from AIDS, and it is about how people shun a sufferer and cause him much pain. This man was a father figure for her and she didn't get to say goodbye. It is a real tear-jerker, and it has a haunting quality to it. A strong message about the dangers of AIDS, safe sex and discrimination related to AIDS makes this a morally as well as musically powerful song ("is there a lesson I'm supposed to learn in this case? Ignorance is not bliss" and "shouldn't matter who you choose to love"). About the latter, the song is a slow trach with a three note keyboard motif that ticks away like a sinister clock (signifying possibly time running out) juxtaposed against the piano phrases. The track is very orchestral, giving it an almost cinematic feel. Lyrically the chorus is reminiscent of the Beatles 'In My Life'. A very sombre but very effective song, packed full of regret and successful because it avoids the obvious path of the big ballad.
Secret Garden is a very strange song - I suppose every album has one. It is sung/spoken softly and actually grows on you, but you have to hear it several times. James 'Sleepy Keys' Preston opens with some jazzy piano, before another scratchy drum track with a bass line comes in. The verse is spoken while the chorus is sung over a chromatic descending bass line. The lyric plays around with some images of flowers, roses and thorns, lovers, rainbows: almost like a stoned free-association! It's kind of a sleepy version of Erotica, not really grabbing attention but not really meant to. The dreamy atmosphere is very entrancing. Not an unworthy last song for the album.
RatingIn the peak of her popularity, and the nadir of her self-obsessed egomania, Madonna released the pornographic SEX book and incurred the world wrath. Madonna's backlash ahd finally begun proper and the media plotted her demise. The only reason Madonna is still here, alive and breathing (and prospering) is the fact that 'Erotica' is really a rather good album, recognised now for what it is. If even her 'worst album' can scatter forth singles of such quality as the title track, 'Rain', 'Deeper And Deeper' and 'Bad Girl' then the woman is surely too talented to just disappear despite a stone-throwing world's media. In fact, it could be argued that by forcing Madonna to lie low for a while, the backlash saved Madonna's career by preventing her from becoming overexposed in the media after the rampant success of the 1989-1990 period.
Madonna's 'first' concept album covers the concept of sex. Not just bonking but sex as it translates into different peoples lives. There is the sex of the seedy underworld of S&M (the title track, a brilliantly realised progressive dance track which strikes you like her dominatrix whip...), the sex that is meaningless and self-destructive (Bad Girl), sex used as a weapon ('Thief Of Hearts'), sex as a part of love ('Rain'), and the concept goes on ...
Erotica is a tour de force of great and innovative songwriting encased in a package that sees Madonna back where she is most at home - current dance - with good examples of truly original work. Dare to be different! 8/10.
� Josh Deb Barman, Topman, Rikky Rooksby 2000
