Madonna at 60

In June this year, Madonna released a new album. The 60-year-old pop icon managed something quite spectacular – it went to number one on the Billboard Charts.The only woman who has more chart-topping albums is BarbaraStreisand, but overall Madonna remains the “highest-charting female musician in history as well as the world's highest-grossing female touring musician. Madonna is a phenomenon – so much more than a pop star. She’s a cultural force: she has moulded pop culture in her own image for four decades.Her new album, Madam X, is her14th studio album.

But the inevitable question is: why, then, does she feel the need to carry on? What could another album possibly add to her already legendary status? People have asked the same of the likes of the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. Even Paul McCartney raised some eyebrows with his collaboration with Kanye West and Rihanna some years back. But ageing rock musicians are starting to seem like the norm. A bit like country and blues musicians, old rockers are no longer unusual or remarkable. Pop, however, seems to insist on youthfulness. Is pop music not synonymous with youth culture? And, why would a grownup – indeed, a 60-year-old – be interested in dominating the field? And of course, the big difference is that Madonna is a woman, and the world is notoriously sexist in its harsher judgments of aging woman than men.

Is her insistence on releasing new albums and continuing to perform – the album coincides with a tour – a brave, feminist statement? Is it a radical way of breaking down pop music’s barriers – something Madonna has always done? Or is it just a byproduct of relentless egotism and an undignified and childish need to be at the centre of attention… an addiction to the fame machine?

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“People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough, and now it’s that I’m not young enough,” she told British Vogue. “So they just keep trying to find a hook to hang their beef about me being alive on. Now I’m fighting ageism; now I’m being punished for turning 60.”

In another interview, this time with the New York Times, she said, “It’s almost like a crime,” in reference to turning 60. “We are a marginalised group, women. And just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you stop fighting against it or defying it or refusing to be pigeonholed or put in a box or labelled or told you can and can’t do things.”

So, what might a global chart topping pop star look like at 60? It’s a shock to consider that the two other pop giants of Madonna’s generation – Michael Jackson and Prince – are no longer with us, so it’s hard to know how her male counterparts might have dealt with the dilemmas of turning 60.

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Madonna certainly hasn’t dialled down the provocative sexuality of her image. In fact, when you consider her image for the album that helped her surmount the same dilemma facing 40-year-old pop stars, Ray of Light, she’s dialled it up! Then, she embraced a sort of earth-mother persona – a Kabbala inflected spiritualism. Her new persona, Madam X, is “a secret agent traveling around the world. Changing identities. Bringing light to dark places. ... A dancer. A professor. A head of state. An equestrian. A prisoner. A student. A mother. A child. A teacher. A nun. A singer. A saint. A whore. And a spy in the house of love.”

The music on the album is by all accounts more sophisticated and challenging than her other recent work – more risky and daring in the musical sense. Stylistically, it gives the pop treatment to a combination of influences, including dancehall, classical strings, reggaeton, Portuguese fado, hip-hop, Latin pop, Brazilian funk, and more. (Madonna recently moved to Portugal to allow her son, David Banda, to take a position at a football academy there, which explains the Latin influence.)

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But it has never just been about the music for Madonna. She rose to fame in the early 80s – the age when video killed the radio star. Pop icons have always been just that – icons – but the power of the pop-star’s image was revolutionised by the advent of the music video. Image became part of the pop phenomenon on a new level in the 80s. And performance became as much about the visual spectacle of the star as the songs themselves.

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What Madonna did – which perhaps cemented her status as the greatest artist of her generation – was to embrace the artificiality of it. She constantly changed her image, reinventing herself over and over again. She played provocatively with our idea of who a person was – what makes a person a person – in the age of pop. Every time she reappeared, she was someone different, and yet alwaysMadonna. She exploded the myth of authenticity.

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Part of the cultural importance of what she did was the feminist slant she put on her over-the-top performances of self. She used her own sexuality as a way to empower herself – taking control back from patriarchy. Many feminists didn’t agree with her way of flaunting female sexuality – her exaggerated sexiness. At 60, she’s still embracing it – not afraid to show it and flaunt it.

Madonna performs at the MGM Grand Garden Arena 8 November 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Madonna's Sticky & Sweet Tour was in support of her album, Hard Candy.

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The seed of doubt that seems to creep in has to do with another aspect of Madonna’s performance of self.The younger Madonna was putting herself out there.Or at least part of the thrill of her personas was the sense that part of her real self was disguised in her performances. Or, to put it yet another way, Madonna’s work, because it plays so much with her own image, was always aboutMadonna first, as a prism for talking about other things. She needs to be in it to give it vitality.Her creativity is all about herself – self-definition through creativity; the choice to be who you want to be.

2011

People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another

Madam X seems more defensive and distant. Of course, over the years Madonna has grown suspicious of the media – the endless attention from the paparazzi, the internet and social media abuse, and so on. And various commentators have noted that there seems to be less of Madonna personally in this album than in her previous work. Or is there?

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Perhaps the great affirmation in thisalbum is simply the spectacleof Madonna making anotheralbum. At 60, she is stilldefiantly creative – inspiredand inspiring. She still hasfaith in art, music, fashion andcreativity. She insists on the ideathat a 60-year-old woman can bevital, creative and provocative.

Why carry on? Because it is vitally important to show the world that at 60, you can.

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