The Importance of "Erotica"
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| Figure #1: The front side album artwork for Erotica. |
Her wide 14-album discography vehemently speaks to her efforts in the industry. While I am overtly appreciative of all her works, one album of hers is truly unforgettable, especially when considering the time period it was released in. In 1992, nobody was discussing the issues of female sexuality, female sexual desire, romance from a woman's perspective, female and male homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS. All these conversations were hushed up; nobody dared to discuss such radical ideas (at the time). However, Madonna did.
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Figure #2: The back side of the album
artwork for Erotica.
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Using her grand platform, she released an album that literally SHOOK the world to its core: Erotica. Shattering all barriers that constrained women and radical points of discussion in 1992, Madonna catapulted these conversations to the forefront of people's minds. Using her massive success in the late-1980s and early-1990s, Madonna's unprecedented fame launched these societal issues into mainstream discussion.
Erotica has an overall old school hip-hop, pop, dance, and jazz sound to it. The performance of the album is also radically different than her prior four albums. Madonna delivers more raspy and spoken vocals than the normality of singing throughout the album. To give this album honorable justice, I find it crucial to discuss each track individually. Each track has its own subject-matter; each track is representative of how Madonna conveys her Erotica message.
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Figure #3: Madonna as Mistress Dita
in the "Erotica" music video.
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| Figure #4: Madonna dancing with her backup dancers to "Fever" during her fourth world tour: The Girlie Show World Tour. |
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| Figure 5: The single cover art for "Bye Bye Baby". |
As the third track of the album, "Bye Bye Baby" begins with a very blunt lyric: "This is not a love song." The purpose of this track is to say goodbye to who could have been a decent lover to Madonna, or Mistress Dita (if you will). Madonna's vocals are distanced from the production as they are mixed and mastered to resemble singing through a telephone, which enhances the effect of this track. She is unbothered about this lost individual. Madonna is ready to part ways and is not afraid to make it known that she doesn't care. The lyrics are very forthright in Madonna saying goodbye to someone who is just no longer significant: "You can forget about it baby / Bye bye baby bye bye / You can forget about it baby / Cause it's the first time and the last time / You'll ever see me cry."
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| Figure #6: The single cover art for "Deeper and Deeper". |
The fourth track of the album, "Deeper and Deeper," is a deepened innuendo for sexual desire. With Madonna singing about falling "deeper and deeper the further I go," any listener of this track may understand Madonna deeply falling in love for someone while yearning for sexual pleasure: "I can't help falling in love / I fall deeper and deeper the further I go / Kisses sent from heaven above / They get sweeter and sweeter the more than I know." However, the construction of lyrics has potential to offer a different understanding. Through the lyrics of the track, the song may actually be the story of a young man comprehending and coming to terms with his homosexuality. This can be proven lyrically: "This feeling inside / I can't explain / But my love is alive / And I'm never gonna hide it again." No longer being ashamed of how he may feel, disregarding what society is telling him about his homosexuality, this young man is "never gonna hide it again / ... / Never gonna have to pretend."
As a sultry fifth track to the album, in "Where Life Begins," Madonna promises her lover to learn "a different kind of kiss" with a different pair of lips. There is no hiding what Madonna is singing about. She is blunt in her spoken vocal delivery about desiring oral sex. The land "where life begins" is unmistakably her vagina. She is asking for her lover to to reach this land because "Colonel Sanders says it best / 'Finger lickin' good'." For a woman to bluntly ask for oral sex was unheard of in 1992. Madonna flat out says: "I know this is not a dining room conversation." She knows she is being risky with releasing this content but she is not perturbed. Madonna continued/s to push against the boundaries that suffocate women's sexual expression: "Where it's warm inside, go down / Where I cannot hide, go down / Where all life begins, go down / That's where my love is / That's where my love is / Come inside, that's where all life begins / It's warm inside."
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| Figure #7: The single cover art for "Bad Girl". |
The seventh track of the album "Waiting" is a spoken word ballad about unrequited love and rejection. While Madonna is speaking that she is waiting for someone, she is noting that this potential lover may very well reject her: "Waiting for you / I'm waiting / Can't you see I'm waiting for you / Don't break my heart." No matter, as Madonna does, she is fed up with being led on and toyed with. At the end of the ballad, Madonna is no longer worried and fully analyzes the situation she is in: "Uh, next time you want pussy, huh / Just look in the mirror baby."
The eighth track of the album "Thief of Hearts" is a strikingly dark song. The song opens with the sound of breaking glass and Madonna shouting: "Bitch!" As Madonna uses coarse language to threaten a rival for her lover's attention/love, the purpose of the song is crucial to the structure of the album. Madonna is not content with someone else coming out of nowhere and being a thief to the person that she cares about/loves. This is the first track where Madonna is verbally angry at another women attempting to claim what she is already claiming as hers. The vocal delivery and lyrical content of the track adds support to this coarse song: "You're a thief of hearts and now you'll have to pay / How many licks does it take? / You're thief of hearts and now you'll have to pay / Which leg do you want me to break? / Stop bitch! / Now sit your ass down."
The ninth track of the album "Words" is an icy foil to the previous track. Madonna is being vocal in wanting society to stop being so cruel and unjustified in their words. It is true: words hurt. Words can forever be lodged in people's minds, no matter how much they attempt to forget their puncture: "You think you're so smart / You try to manipulate me / You try to humiliate with your words." Continuing this conversation of destructive words, the chorus of the song is forthright in its discussion of how bad words can be: "Words, they cut like a knife / Cut into my life / I don't want to hear your words / They always attack / Please take them all back / If they're yours I don't want anymore."
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| Figure #8: Madonna feeling the 'rain' falling down onto her in the music video for "Rain". |
A severely suggestive tenth track to the album, "Rain," is open to countless interpretations. Lyrically, this track likens actual rain to how empowering love can be: "Rain is what this thunder brings / For the first time I can hear my heart sing / Call me a fool but I know I'm not." However, considering the deepened sexual images within Erotica, it is impossible to dismiss what else the rain can be a euphemism for: semen, as shown in Figure #8. Creating the image of someone who waits for the money shot, male ejaculation, Madonna is paralleling rain falling to this classic image nearing the end of sexual intercourse: "I feel it / It's coming / Your love's coming down like / Rain / I'll stand out on the mountain top / Until I hear you call / My name / Rain."
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| Figure #9: Madonna performing "Why's It So Hard" during the The Girlie Show World Tour. |
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| Figure #10: Madonna performing "In This Life" during The Girlie Show World Tour. |
As powerful twelfth track to the album "In This Life," Madonna recounts the story of how she lost two of her closest friends to the AIDS epidemic. In 1992, the topic of HIV/AIDS was hushed. Nobody in society dared to discuss this issue in any significant way. Nobody in mainstream media dared to discuss this silenced subject for fear of being ridiculed and slaughtered. People ignored that HIV/AIDS was killing other humans. Madonna is forceful in singing: "ignorance is not bliss." Using her massive platform, Madonna creates a track that pleads to society (in 1992) to quit ignoring this issue. She pleads with society to recognize that we cannot stand and twiddle our thumbs when our fellow humans are dying: "They'd rather turn the other way (what for) / And wait for this thing to go away (what for) / Why do we have to pretend (what for) / Some day I pray it will end / I hope it's in this life / I hope it's in this life time."
An omitted track on the (to loosely use) clean edition of Erotica, the thirteenth track of the album "Did You Do It?" is a reconstruction of "Waiting." While having two rappers, Mark Goodman and Dave Murphy, rap over the beat of the ladder track, the track discusses whether the rappers did it (the deed) with Madonna. As the rap tells a sexual story of a sexual encounter that may or may not have happened, the rappers continue to ask whether or not it happened: "You know I did it / (Did you do it?) You know I did it / (Did you do it?) You know I did it / I let the seat recline and I hit it."
The fourteenth and final track to the album is rightfully titled "Secret Garden." As a euphemism for Madonna's vagina, her "secret garden" is something that has a lot of magic: "A petal that isn't torn / A heart that will not harden / A place that I can be born / In my secret garden / A rose without a thorn / A lover without a scorn." As the closing track to the experience of Erotica, Madonna ends this experience with images of how magical her secretive space is.
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| Figure #11: The extended image of the front side album artwork of Erotica. |
Not a singular individual could have predicted that this was where Madonna's career was heading in 1992. Society was quick to dismiss this album as disgusting pornography; society claimed that this was the work of the devil; society did not dare to recognize that we all (as humans on this planet) experience what Madonna is speaking and singing about.
Interestingly, the album does not have the word "pornographic" anywhere inside or around it. Erotica and pornography may be similar in nature, but they are drastically different. While anything pornographic appeals to our carnal senses as humans, we all experience sexual desire to some extent; erotica is a more tasteful. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, erotica is defined as "literary or artistic works having an erotic [devoted to arousing sexual desire] theme or quality." By contrast, pornography is defined as "the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction." Erotica engages human aesthetic senses and depicts images that are worth more than a few seconds at a time; erotica depicts the human condition, it causes the viewer to pay attention and appreciate it; erotica is designed to be viewed with patience. Pornography is not. Erotica is not just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. Erotica is worth appraisal. Erotica is designed to be awed, like paintings in any museum.
I am honored to have experienced this album. Despite listening to it 28 years after its release, the entire album remains current to our society.
I hope you all are enticed to give this timeless album a listen.
Always & forever,
Jose Gamboa
Work Cited:
"Erotica." Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/erotica.
"Pornography." Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography.
Figure #1 - https://www.discogs.com/Madonna-Erotica/master/34414
Figure #2 - https://www.amazon.com/Erotica-MADONNA/dp/B000UOGHKS
Figure #3 - https://giphy.com/gifs/rihanna-s-gdhFcU7h4RtT2
Figure #4 - https://gfycat.com/unnaturalviciousafricangoldencat-girlie-show-madonna-fever
Figure #5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bye_Bye_Baby_(Madonna_song)
Figure #6 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deeper_and_Deeper
Figure #7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Girl_(Madonna_song)
Figure #8 - https://giphy.com/gifs/madonna-rain-2vs6Fzlx1EepGAj4Tp
Figure #9 - https://gfycat.com/obviousdiligentaldabratortoise
Figure #10 - https://www.mad-eyes.net/music/erotica/in-this-life.htm
Figure #11 - https://madonna.fandom.com/wiki/Erotica_(album)
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