the Madonna effect
An interesting effect with the “in the background” “Madonna Mania” which is blowing through the town on the eve of the first concert she’s had in this city since the 1980s…
And which the city hasn’t been in the grips of Madonna Mania since she filmed a bad move here in the early 1990s…
I have no strong opinion of Madonna — there are worse things that could filter in as occasional background music and noise — and I suppose I wish I had gone ahead and taped that damned Letterman appearance of hers circa 1994 …
But the thing here is that as I read the free alt weeklies coverage of Madonna, and sit in a laundromat with a radio ad for a station I’d never listen to on my own with an ad promoting the concert — breathlessly the voice intones “Iconic. Legendary”– I find that I have any number of Madonna songs shuffle into my head. And understand, it’s sort of having the Madonna’s Greatest Hits on shuffle … completely random and arbitrary in terms of what’s playing… music I’ve never sat and listened to …
Oh for a one hit wonder to make the musical selection down to one song.