Madonna: How I’ve Changed As My 50th Birthday Approaches
She was a teenage tearaway who ran away from home to become a pop star and shocked the world with her saucy stage antics and controversial book, Sex.
But now Madonna is nearing 50, she reckons she is more likely to be described as a disciplinarian parent than a rebel. As she prepares to launch her eagerly-awaited new album Hard Candy, the Queen of Pop reveals she’s a strict mum who limits the amount of TV her kids watch and is adamant they do their homework.
She also forces them to tidy their own bedrooms to prepare them for when they flee the nest. This domesticated routine is the norm for the singer when she is at home with husband Guy Ritchie and raising daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, 11, son Rocco John Ritchie, seven, and adopted son David Banda Mwale.
“I’d fall into the category of disciplinarian,” Madonna said. “I make my kids pick up the clothes in their bedrooms. I don’t like them to watch too much television. I make sure they do their homework.” Lourdes, fathered by fitness trainer Carlos Leon, is already showing a flair for fashion just like her mother and is set on becoming an actress. Madonna said: “My daughter has a very strong opinion on clothes and fashion and she’s got incredible taste actually.
“She’s very self-possessed. She has a strong personality so that will be a challenge for me, but it will also serve her well when she grows older. She says she wants to be an actress, which I don’t mind.”
Hard Candy, Madonna’s 11th album, is released next month. It completes her contract with Warner Brothers, the label that signed her to its subsidiary, Sire, in 1982. For the latest batch of songs, she has teamed up with Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Pharrell Williams, who was the most impressed with Madonna’s incredible work-rate.
“That work ethic still exists,” she said. “I don’t think it was a surprise to Justin and Timbaland but Pharrell just kept referring to me as a work horse. He complained a little bit about my relentless inability to sit still for very long, but he got over it eventually.”
Among the tracks fans will hear on this next outing is She’s Not Me, which Madonna describes as “the ultimate jilted lover song” and Spanish Lessons, which was inspired by the Latino dance craze, The Percolator.
Of the song Incredible, she said: “That’s not about my career, that’s about a relationship. It’s not even necessarily about me, but it’s the idea that often at times we take people for granted and we lose our sense of appreciation for them. Then something goes wrong and all you can think about it is how you want to get it back to the way it was, because it was incredible. So sometimes you almost have to lose something before you can appreciate it.”
Meanwhile, Madonna will be inducted by Justin Timberlake into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame on Monday, but she will not be performing at the event. She said: “At first when I heard about the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, I felt ambivalent. Is that where they put musical dinosaurs?
“After people explained that it’s an acknowledgement of singers and songwriters who’ve made a contribution in the world of music for 25 years, I came around to the idea that it was flattering.”
The award recognises a career that began with debut album Madonna in 1983. It delivered hits such as Holiday and Lucky Star before Like AVirgin turned her into a superstar the following year. She said:”Now when I hear Like A Virgin it’s like a statement about the sounds everybody was making in music of the early Eighties. There’s a simplicity about it. There’s innocence about it. And when I look at the video I also see a girl who’s innocent, wide-eyed and really excited about life and the beginning of a career.”
Known for startling changes of direction in both her sense of style and her musical direction, she admits she is still determined to enjoy hits and surprise her fans. “I’m still trying to make those hits I was making in my 20s,” she said. “Everybody wants to make music that people want to listen to, that people want to hear on the radio. “I never ever made a record where I didn’t care if people heard it or not. As I have evolved as a human being, my music has reflected that. I wrote about simple, straightforward, good time songs when I first started out and then as I grew as a person my music has been a reflection of that. But that doesn’t mean I can just write a song about getting up and dancing and feeling good, but my songs now have a sense of irony or contradiction in them. I like to think they are more complex. My music is a reflection of how I’ve changed and experienced the world and other people.”
Madonna, who will turn 50 in August, admits there is a sense of urgency in her music now but insists she isn’t worried about facing yet another milestone. In fact, she’s already planning a huge bash to celebrate hitting the half century. She said: “Everybody else keeps mentioning it but I see it as an excuse to have another birthday party. I don’t think my age has anything to do with my sense of urgency. I would say the world has to do with it. I’ve had this sense of urgency for quite a while. I just haven’t voiced it in my music before.
But you’re right to pick up on that. I do feel like we’re living on borrowed time and most people are coming to that understanding. It’s impossible for that not to be reflected in pop culture.”
She says there is no secret behind her ability to stay at the top of her game as both a mum and an artist. “A big part of it is the recognition that I’m not the owner of my talent, I’m just the manager of it,” she said. “And that I know I have been blessed with many gifts. As soon as you think you own what you have, it will go away. I also have a great sense of curiosity about the world and I’m always trying to learn new things and put myself in the position where I’m working with people who know more than I do. So if I constantly put myself in the position where I’m learning something, then I have new things to express. I put myself in challenging environments. I have a great desire to learn and with that comes evolution and discovery. And with discovery comes the desire to express what you have learned.”
Source: www.dailyrecord.co.uk