You have no idea, how quick I clicked, EROTICA IS THE ONE. It's so misunderstood, it's the ultimate celebration of love in the time of AIDS, a dark melancholy dive into loss, love, betrayal and yes sex, but it's been mischaracterised as ''the sex'' album, when it's so much more. She broke every boundary, smashed every taboo and fully embraced her sexuality in a way no popstar had before and again you see the albums fingerprints over every pop star after, their good girl gone bad era's if you will. Also the 90's house, hip-hop and R&B implemented on the album is still so fresh, truly a masterpiece.
@@BethThereseReacts Madonna often says in interviews that she's a romantic, and the interviewer will always seem shocked by this... um... did you not listen to her lyrics? Yes, her image can be sexual and outspoken, but she very clearly has a softer side that she usually only shows in her music. Erotica is a brilliant concept album about all aspects and meanings of 'love'... romantic love, betrayal, jealousy, anger, emotional abuse, self love, self hatred, brotherly love, loss, compassion, death, diversity, gender equality, and yes, sex.
The entire EROTICA ERA is a MASTERPIECE. Dita Parlo, the mistress, is guiding us through the entire era. Firstly, the EroTiCa single and album were released. Then, the incredible artistic S E X book, the highest selling coffee table book of all time. The Queen was so ahead of her time. Then, the Body of Evidence movie and of courses the grand finale to end the Era was The Girlie Show tour🎪🎭🎩🫦🎭☔️👑
“In this Life”, at the end, she’s referring to when will the AIDS crisis end, as the government was doing nothing to find a cure or truly support those suffering. Also, the two men she sings about are her ballet teacher in Detroit, who was the first gay man she met and he took her to her first gay club, told her she was beautiful and that she needed to leave and go to New York to become a professional dancer. Once she made it big, she took care of him and at the end paid all his medical expenses. The other guy was her gay friend Martin who she met before getting her first album deal, they were extremely close, he even designed one of her 12”singles covers. When he got sick, she also took care of him and all his medical and living expenses.Madonna also has a gay brother Christopher, whom she worked with for many years, so she’s been a gay advocate since her late teens.
The video for Bad Girl is a cinematic masterpiece directed by David Fincher and totally depicts that exuberant "rich atmosphere" you mention. Must see! ❤❤❤
Beth reacting to her songs without videos first is really important so you hear the song first. Her videos and live performances take the songs onto a whole new level
Whether people love all her albums or not. What I LOVE about Madonna is that anyone can find their fav Madonna album! She has covered so many styles and topics etc. 🩷👏🏽
@@BethThereseReacts I've seen lots of other people do it. I don't know much about how it works though. I do think reacting to her music videos is a must - she's such a visual artist. Her videos and live performances are just as important as the music in many ways.
@@BethThereseReactsI suggest you start with her Re-Invention Tour from 2004. Not only does she sing a good chunk from American Life (the most beautiful version of Mother and Father you can find) but also most of her essential hits. In top of that she is on top form vocally and the tour hasn’t been released officially. The leaked version is a professional filmed version, not over edited and - most importantly - the vocals have not been doctored with.
Great job, guuuuurl ❤ I’ve attended her free concert in Brazil. Believe me: listening to Rain, in the middle of a 1.6 million people, everybody singing together, it was magic 😍
Erotica is a very important piece in Madonna’s career because it’s a concept album about love, loss and romance in a dark period of life. More than an album some times it feels like an artistic mood board about what she was going through at the time.
@@thepuppetmaster7334 Actually, it's not just you. Me too. I also noticed a lot of similarities between Billie Eilish and Madonna even before Billie's Hit Me Hard And Soft!!!
@@rony1642 Very curious what Billie thinks of Madonna, if anything. It's hard to tell with some of the younger artists because they weren't alive during her heyday like some of the other artists she more obviously influenced like Beyonce, Ariana, and Gaga.
And the video for Justify My Love walked so WAP could run. And Express Yourself walked so you-know-what could run. Madonna has basically influenced almost every female artist that came after her. Madonna broke the glass ceiling for good and her impact on the entire music industry cannot be overstated.
Sooo happy we have a new reaction already! Just one sidenote, Madonna doesn’t define herself as a pop singer, but rather as a performance artist. Therefore, I totally recommend you watching her videography, which TOTALLY complements her material and gives you the complete idea of her artistry. And I’m not even gonna mention her tours. Loving your journey, thanks and love from Brazil 🇧🇷
This album was CONTROVERSIAL. It basically revolutionized the mega pop star into incorporating political and social taboo issues- aggressively to an unsuspecting global audience. This album separated her from her peers and the mainstream who only ever played it safe and propelled her celebrity to an unparalleled stratosphere. The media had a fit and was saturated with so much divisiveness that it hit infamy. With The album and book Sex, There were talk shows about it’s message, college studies, and constant general discussion as to why the biggest female pop star on the planet decided to basically push the envelope so far with blatant transparency and risk ruining her career.. but she did it. This is an important album that is the blueprint for most, if not all the albums you listen to today that have a provocative edge.
💯 but the album was a commercial failure when it was released. Even Madonna had to go back to her roots with her next album with an R&B sound to get her music career back on track. And she succeeded by scoring a #1 single Take A Bow!❤
@@petechan5985 sales wise compared to her previous albums yes, because of the backlash of the sex book. The album was still a charting success, hitting the top ten & top 5 in over 20 countries, as well as number one in over 7, like in Australia were it was number 1 for 7 weeks.
@@petechan5985But that move aged so well: it shows how fearless Madonna is. Also, because of the Erotica backlash, we got "Bedtime Stories", which has some of the best songs of her career.
Madonna touched on very sensitive issues on this album. If today it seems redundant at times, at the time it was a scandal - both the album and the promotion, with a book about fetishes and a rather scandalous tour. But this was Madonna being extremely brave, talking about AIDS at a time when American society was trying to erase these experiences and blame the victims of the disease. In addition to losing many friends to AIDS (whom she paid tribute to on her last tour), she used to visit hospitals and hug people who had been disowned by family and friends because of HIV. AIDS changed the way the LGBTQIAPN+ community relates to each other. It changed the way we love and even our self-image. She wanted to get the message across: obscenity is not in expressions of love, it is in violence and neglect of life. Regarding the production, I've read comments from the album's producer saying that Madonna wanted this dirty vibe in the sound, something underground that would convey the message that this is something done "in secret." She even chose a simpler studio, where rats would walk around while she recorded, because she wanted it to be authentic. To me, it's one of Madonna's most honest and courageous works. She wasn't just an ally to the queer community, she was one of us when she decided to take such risks to show that we too deserved respect and love. I'm looking forward to hearing your take on "Bedtime Stories, ,an album she made as a response to all the hate she got for "Erotica" - no backtracking, as she herself said "I'm not sorry, it's human nature." And I love your reactions to Mariah Carey's albums too!
So happy to see you diving into the Madonna pool... I fell in love with your AL reaction, then Music, then ROL... But those were not as quick. Happy that you chose Erotica and wasted no time. I usually say that Ray of Light is Madonna's best album, but Erotica is my Madonna's favorite album. Two different things and both are veeeery clear to me. Keep going! I will keep watching!
Erotica was the first Madonna album I purchased. I wanted to know more about her most controversial era (American Life, notwithstanding). Sonically, Deeper & Deeper, Bad Girl, Rain, In this Life, and the super jazzy, poetic Secret Garden have aged the best. From an industry perspective, song length, album sales, & the use of melisma all reached their zenith during the 90s. Songs were generally longer as pace of life was different, cd technology encouraged length exploration, and radio stations and club DJs used the longer intros & outros as transitions between segments.
Also Madonna is very much a visual artist so her videos really pushed boundaries and some were banned. I hope you do her music videoes at some point in the future too..@BethThereseReacts
This album is the first one that Madonna produced by the entertainment company "Maverick", founded by Warner Music Group and run by herself, Freddy DeMann and Veronica Dashev. The record was a massive controversial, not only because a worldwide pop star did actually dare to talk loudly about sex, identities, gender and all the types of love, but mainly because it was accused of promoting sexual habits in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Madonna clearly explained that she was trying to do exactly the opposite, promoting instead sexual education, use of condom and family discussion among parents and children. Many people said that Erotica, and all the stuff around it, was just a perfectly designed business far from sense of responsability, but the consciousness about those topics in the following years, proved that all that noise was definitely necessary. Even though Erotica is probably not her best selling album, the cultural impact (for complex topics like the ones above) it had on many people is undeniable.
This album is perfect beginning to end. The way she jeopardised her entire career to spread awareness about important subjects at the time should be studied. If we didn't have this era, we wouldn't have most music / artists today
I'm 24, this was the first album I bought on CD or digital, and I think it's my favorite because of how deep and fun it is. Each song covered a different topic and revolutionized sexuality: S&M (Erotica), sexual desire (fever), betray and heartbreak (bye bye baby), homosexuality/coming out (Deeper and deeper), oral sex (where life begins), depression, promiscuity and alcoholism (bad girl), self-respect (waiting, thief of hearts, words), love (rain, why's it so hard), AIDS (in this life), masturbation (secret garden), it is a RIDE! I don't know if you read about it but this album was accompanied by a softcore porn coffee table book that Madonna produced and that was so controversial that it stained the fate of the album forever. You should check out more about this period of her history because it is intense and interesting! ❤ Love your Madonna journey, each album is a different planet
Madonna's 3-album run in the 90s (Erotica, Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light) feel like a trilogy to me. I feel the concept and tone of each album was inspired by the last, from the reception it got to the production style. I can't imagine Bedtime Stories existing without Erotica coming before it. Ray of Light wouldn't have existed without Bedtime Stories before that.
It's exactly like that: if Madonna hadn't received the bashlack for "Erotica", her follow up album wouldn't have been a control damage album like "Bedtime Stories". Also, the "Take A Bow" video was used to promote herself for her role in "Evita", a role she desperately wanted but almost didn't get. Without "Evita" and the singing training she took for it, "Ray of Light" wouldn't have been what it is.
I’m so glad I was around when this was released. You had to be there for the surprise, the controversy, the book, the backlash, the response. It was a very interesting time in music, pop culture, and censorship. I remember being a kid in my sister’s car, hearing Erotica on the radio, and not believing it was Madonna. My sister had to convince me. It was so different.
I remember when it came out. By the time "In this life" ended I was in tears. In 1992 that song was everything, it captured beautifully everything that was happening in our community.
It still hits me in the feels to this day. Yah, it's not a 'bop' obviously. It's solidly in a minor key throughout the song and the lyrics are painful to listen to, but thank goodness someone had our backs in our darkest hour. It truly makes me sad that our younger generations have no idea how much Madonna fought for our community and by and large don't give her the reverence she's due. Even if you don't like her music, she's earned our respect as the first 'gay icon' who actually supported us socially, politically and charitably, instead of just taking our money and staying silent to what was happening to us. I appreciate all the support other artists have given us since, but M was really the first, and at a time when it was risky AF to stand by us, and when we were literally dying and very few people actually cared. In fact, the mainstream message from religious groups and politicians was that AIDS was god's judgement on sinners and we deserved death. There was no political will at all for AIDS treatment or research. The majority were all to happy to see us die. Compare the apathy to AIDS to how the world freaked out over SARS and COVID. That tells you all you need to know about why Madonna speaking out (along with a few others like Elton John, Elizabeth Taylor and Doris Day) on these issues was so incredibly vital to our community's survival.
Shep Pettibone was the first icon of remixing..he did remixes for everyone in the late 80s and early 90s.. he did remixes for Madonna, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson, Cathy Dennis, and the list goes on..he was the one who got me to start wanting to do remixes..I was like I wanna do that too..I collected 12" singles as a kid..
This album was the second Madonna album I purchased. It was a grower. It became more meaningful. It's such a pivotal album for the culture and for her career.
“Why are all these songs so catchy?” Asked about one of the greatest pop hook writers in the history of music, with the relentless hits record receipts to prove it. She almost always collaborates on writing, but ALL her collaborators have said the place she truly shines, aside from as a co-producer in general, is in writing crazily compelling hooks and bridges.
What I liked about “Did You Do It?” is that it’s like the man’s side of the song “Waiting.” He’s a guy who talks a big game, but seems easily intimidated and runs. Madonna is calling it out on “Waiting.” Also, regarding “In This Life,” yes, it was an extremely bold move. During the time of the AIDS crisis, apparently Madonna went into some wards and would lay in the beds with the patients and just hang out with them even though the doctors wouldn’t touch them (due to lack of knowledge on the virus). So, this was clearly during the earlier times of the crisis. As much as Madonna can be a bit of a mean girl sometimes, she speaks up a lot for minorities/the generally oppressed, and she always has. One more thing, lol. Your reaction to “Where Life Begins” absolutely killed me. 😂💀
Rain is my favorite song of Madonna and I am also a Ray of Light stan 😂 I totally agree with the “repetitiveness”/“cohesiveness” and I can’t listen to the album start-to-end all time, but one or two songs on a shuffle playlist are gold.
My first madonna album. Listened to it in 2022 and got hooked to madonna!! Went to her show in Paris (celebration tour) and you NEED to react to her live shows. TRUST❤ I ALWAYS LOVE YOUR REACTIONS. YOU ARE SUCH A GREAT LISTENER :)))))
You have no Idea how exited I got when I saw theres was a new Madonna reaction by you! your videos are the best reactions to Madonna! I really can't wait till you go into her live performances, cuz she creates songs almost everything thinking on the live performance and then bring the full concept a live a songs esquire much more meaning :D. thank you for this videos, definitely im gonna check other artist reactions made by you
Rain is 100% my favorite song on this album as well. And I agree with you, it has always felt like it didn't belong. Rain is in my top 10 Madonna songs of all time. I was so happy when she sang it in both shows I saw on the celebration tour. Fun fact...I have this album cover tattooed on my arm 😊
Rain was Madonna's Motown-like 'girl group' track that she usually had on most of her early albums... Shoo Be Doo on LAV, True Blue on the album of the same name, and Cherish on LAP. She definitely was influenced by her suburban Detroit 60s-70s roots.
The album really creates a mood and wraps you into its world...especially love the r&b/hip hop/ jazz feel of the Andre betts tracks aswell as sheps more house-pop vibe. The visuals of this album are also top tier.
Yeeees, let's say it: Where life begins, Waiting and Secret Garden (the Andre Betts songs), with Fever, are excellent examples of how a major popstar, experimenting the most edgy club styles at that time (house and hip hop), can incorporate piano, saxophone and lush strings patterns to create such a unique and sensual atmosphere. The Secret Garden closing piano solo has got that jam session vibe I still love so deep (I became a jazz lover growing up by the way). Erotica is sensual more than an album about sex: it's a mood, a vibe, dark, rough and lush at the same time.
It’s also important to know the time this album was written and released in. Other people have commented about the brutal levels of homophobia and queerphobia, and general anti sexual freedom stance, emboldened by the fear of AIDS, that had engulfed world culture. So when she sings “why’s it so hard” she’d not only singing about her own life (or making a sweet double entendre), she’s talking about the REAL hardship that LGBTQ people and also our allies were facing during those dark times of the 10-15 worst years of the peak AIDS crisis… and it only got better verrrrrrry slowly… even now I’m sure you’re aware that LGBTQ rights are under attack, and we are being vilified and scapegoated, yet again. In This Lif e focuses on 2 of her close friends who died of AIDS, ballet teacher Christopher Flynn, and her best friend Martin Burgoyne who was only 23 when he passed. But she had other friends who died, including the great Keith Haring and her dancer Gabriel from the Blond Ambition Tour and Truth or Dare. When she says people just want to “turn the other way and wait for this thing to go away, why do we have to pretend? Someday I pray it will end.” She’s talking primarily about the holocaust of AIDS itself, and of course by extension all the hatred, fear and death it fueled toward queer people. The level of fear, paranoia, loss, grief and cataclysmic nearly universal hatred that we queer people faced during the AIDS crisis cannot be overstated. Neither can Madonna’s courage and loyalty to face the massive backlash she went through for standing up for us during this time. And ever since. Aside from her untouchable brilliance as a culture defining artist, this courage and loyalty is why she is forever our queen 👑.
This album came out when I was 13 and I absolutely loved it. I used to play it over and over again every single day. It's such a sophisticated album, the sound is sophisticated and it also has that street vibe, her vocals are sophisticated, sexual and very clever, but what I love the most about it are the lyrics. I think it contains some of her most interesting lyrics. It is an album about sex, and of course it has explicit songs like Erotica (about sadomasochism) or Where Life Begins (about oral sex), and it was actually the first album to have the Parental Advisory label. But it also has songs about deeper stuff like loneliness or being desperate. It also has songs about the death of her friends due to the AIDS crisis (In This Life), about freeing yourself from your own demons and letting go your hopes and confronting relationships with less prejudice (Deeper and Deeper), or just about romantic relationships and all their complicated games (Bad Girl, Waiting). It's actually an album for mature audiences, not for children, it's a very serious album, about adult themes, it's sexual, dark, aggressive, depressive, and brutally honest. She was at the top of the world when this album came out, it was after Vogue and her Blond Ambition Tour, and it was a high risk that she took. She could have just released a fun pop album, play it safe, and secure her place as the biggest star in the universe as she was, but no, not Madonna, she always did the unexpected, she was never afraid to make people uncomfortable or to piss people off. This album was released along with a book called SEX that contained nude and sof-porn pictures of her, and actually the music video for Erotica was made with the footage of the making of the book. She also made a couple of erotic films like Body of Evidence (my favorite movie by Madonna) and then her Girlie Show Tour that was charged with sex and broke the mold it terms of what a pop star could do on stage. The video for Erotica was banned from TV, the book sold out, the tour was a success, but there was so much controversy and scandal that the album be overlooked. The media concentrated more on her erotic pictures and videos and the musical aspect of the album was completely overlooked and ignored. It's a shame because I think it's a musical masterpiece. The sound, the production, the melodies, the lyrics, the instrumentation. Flawless piece of work and one of her most conceptual and cohesive works. It's polished, sophisticated, and took its time to be born, to be worked on at the studio, and you can tell. And today it's a cult classic and one of her most praised albums by her fans. And it's definitely a before?after moment in pop culture. The influence this album had on pop culture, pop music, and how pop stars behave and produce can be seen in most female artists today. But of course, Madonna was punished for that, for breaking the rules like that, for exposing the hypocrisy of society towards sexuality. Madonna was punished for doing what today is almost mandatory for female artists to do if they wanna be big. But Madonna was being honest about sex, she wasn't using sex to sell, she was just showing herself as the sexual being she was. And that's a big difference.
I haven't read any of the other comments yet so forgive me if I'm repeating what's already been said! I do agree that some of the songs are a bit long. I think it's partly a sign of the times. Pop songs were much longer back in the early 90s. I'm glad you picked up on the fact that the entire album isn't about sex - part of the backlash to this album/era was due to her "Sex" photo book, which was released at the same time as the album. Also, the "Erotica" video was very explicit and was banned from MTV (like her earlier "Justify My Love" video). The album didn't do as well as her previous albums, and the media was extremely sexist and cruel to her. So a few of the songs on Bedtime Stories (and the softer tone of that album) are a direct reaction to that. The album was very ahead of its time. There were very few, if any, queer voices. For many gay people, Madonna was all we had. And her career suffered for it. "In This Life" is very hard to listen to for many who lived through that time period. It's specifically about the AIDS crisis, so when she says "I hope it's in this lifetime," she's talking about the end of all of the death and suffering. Back in the early 90s there was no effective treatment and people were dying left and right. So in a way there's a happy ending to the song because she did live to see the end of that part of the crisis. She went on to do a lot of work for AIDS in Africa, where it remained a death sentence for decades due to lack of access to education and medicine.
this album was such a backlash at the time but now erotica is praised for drawing that line between talking about sex in music and now it is complete 360 where everybody in the music industry talks about sex and going for more of that prerogative phase in their life, Madonna was the first to break the wall in the industry to express herself and become who she is in her artistic this album is truly such a timeless romantic piece of art and how she fantasizing about the light and the dark of the early 90s the light is her expressing her sexuality and be prideful for herself the darkness is aids politics and America fearing she went too far and had to just really hard for her to deal with everybody not agreeing with her values and her artistic and bedtime stories is a completely different look at everything in her life as she becomes more vulnerable raw and emotional but still having that romantic side being temper down arc it feels refreshing to hear these two back to back because they're so different. I heard someone say that erotica is the nighttime and bedtime stories is the morning after and that small connection says does draw a line between those two and the stories both tell in their own artistic ways Erotica truly paint the picture while bedtime stories reflect and think of the solution love your reaction!
I think the reason ‘In this life’ has the least streams is due to the fact that the song is jarring and heartbreaking, like the album went dark. Fun fact: The two men Madonna sings about in this song, Martin Burgoyne )her close friend and roommate) and Christopher Flynn (her former dance teacher), were the first two people to appear during her ‘Live to Tell’ performance at the Celebration Tour in which she pays tribute to AIDS victims
Erotica was well received critically, as you saw, but was at the time considered a “flop” by much of the music press, despite selling over 5 million units at the time, and many more since. Which is FAR more than most of the biggest hit albums now, as they cobble streams together to try to recreate the hype of actual album sales of the past. The “flop” perception came at the time because Madonna’s previous albums had all sold exponentially more than that worldwide. So it’s only “unsuccessful” when compared to her own epic sales. The reason the album was maligned though, was because it alienated some of her more casual (and homophobic) fans, and of course caught the rage of right wing conservatives. It was also largely overshadowed by the hype surrounding the simultaneous release of her legendary, and culture shaking, photography book entitled Sex. Still the boldest, bravest and most revolutionary expression of sexual freedom and queer representation from any mainstream artist ever. Secret Garden is a meditation on her womanhood, using the garden as a metaphor for her vagina and womb, and for her own privacy and “inner self” that she returns to as shelter from the vicissitudes of the public, in order to recharge and realign herself with true purpose.
I think Bedtime Stories might be more your vibe it’s more dreamy atmospheric soft R&B and this is more raw gritty house. But yeah all of her albums are pretty different so nothing else will sound exactly like Ray of Light except maybe Music
Hello, icon… it’s the first time that I leave a comment in one of your videos, although I’ve been watching them for a little while… but Erotica is SUCH A MOMENT, that I just couldn’t resist 😂😂… I'm no expert in Madonna's music, I've been listening to her for a little over a year and it was videos like yours that sparked my interest in her. Erotica is probably my favorite album of hers, after Ray of light. I LOVED your review, and I just wanted to add on to what you said about «In this life», which I too think it’s a beautiful song. She lost lots of friends to AIDS, that’s why she sings «people walks by and I wonder who's next». In a political climate where the president of the US refused to even speak about AIDS, let alone acknowledging it was a health problem, she was one of the few (if not the only) artists who didn’t give a damn and who spoke about it and encouraged the LGBT+ population to have safe sex. So, «In this life» is a song about the AIDS epidemic and how the political system would ignore it and didn’t care about people who had it. I have a friend who lives with HIV, and I feel fortunate that he’s still around and has access to a working treatment and is able to go about his life. Of course there’s a ton of things to fight for as a community, and it’s songs and albums like this that remind us where we come from and where we started. ❤❤❤❤
Thank you so much, I loved your reaction to this album - some songs don’t really hit the first time but they are massive growers. I’ve been begging for this reaction and I’m so glad you reacted to it and gave your thoughts ❤
This is probably her ”hardest” album to get into. Very raw and layered like you said and the era consists more than just the album essentially focusing on her sex book which ”ended” her career, in fact her image and sales did not recover until Ray of Light which was a turning point. However, Bedtime Stories is sonically little sister to Erotica and big sister to Ray of Light. Soft cloudy instrumental which gives us teaser of Ray of Light in places. Can’t wait for that reaction!
And definitely this album is a grower. At first I didnt like it sm, but then I became extremely addicted. So, I think youll love it after a few more listens...
Thank you for doing the Madonna albums, im so excited for Bedtime Stories next! Im a huge Madonna fan all my life, it's interesting watching you listening to her albums from newer to older so far. Confessions 2005, American Life 2003, Music 2000, Ray of light 1998, Erotica 1992 ❤ i am loving all your Madonna videos thank you
YES! First, your opinion of course is the only one that matters - your reaction is why we here…also cause I agree. 😂 Rain. Is. Gorgeous. Best song on the album and one of her best. Video is stunning as well. Similar to Power of Goodbye. Stunning aurally and visually. Thanks for a great video! ❤
Rain is one of my favourite Madonna songs! So underrated-even seemingly by Madonna herself as well (she weirdly left it off her second greatest hits collection, GHV2-released in 2001, the year I became a fan, btw, aaah the memories-and off of Celebration, a third collection, as well). Like, why?! I love it.
It's gotten a second life on streaming. It wasn't the biggest hit off the album at the time (that was "Deeper and Deeper") but now it's the most streamed song from the album.
@@FindingMadonna I've done 6 remixes for Deeper and Deeper..Madonna had a contest to remix Music, Deeper and Deeper and Ray of Light when GHV2 came out in 2001..I've done multiple remixes for each song over the years.. back then I was just starting out but I have a remix I did for Deeper in 2014 i still listen to alot.. and a remix i did for Music in 2005 is still one of my favorites
I loved the 'Rain moment'. It's one of my favorites by Madonna. And give 'Secret Garden' a chance. The chorus melody is sublime. As always, I love your reactions. Kisses and bye bye baby.
I’m so glad you reacted to this album. In 1992 this album played a very important part in my life and I still play this album today. This album is perfect perfection for me. I’m so glad you reacted the RAIN where you did. When I first heard that song, I cried. Great reaction.
“Why’s it so hard” was really important because it gave me strength and courage to face whatever or whoever wanted to diminish myself!!! ❤❤❤💪💪💪❤️❤️❤️❤️
First comment about this video before forgetting. The way she put Vogue in the kind of album Im Breathless is was an utterly astistic move. Hope you listen to it to, even as an "anecdotically" moment
So happy that you reacted to another album so soon. Erotica is another fan favorite, which barely doesn’t make the Top 5 for me. I wasn’t here when it was released, but I always consider it a brave album with mature themes in a time where talking about AIDS and sex was taboo. Production-wise it’s definitely a product of its time and you need to be in the right mindset to vibe with it. I agree that some songs could be shorter, but overall there are no skips for me on this album (I don’t listen to the PA Version with Did You Do It, which is trash). My favorite is Rain, it’s gorgeous, and a general public favorite probably due to being the most easy to listen to due to its more radio friendly production. My least favorite is Bye Bye Baby. You asked during the video if Goodbye to Innocence existed in another world, and it does. 4 different demos leaked online (the last one having almost the same instrumental as Fever, which confirms the information you read). The song was then reworked after the album’s release and appeared on a random compilation « Just Say Roe ». The song unfortunately isn’t on Spotify but can be found on UA-cam. At the same time, Fever was also reworked for its video release, which is a shorter, more radio-friendly mix. It can be found on Spotify as « Edit One » and is definitely the best version. Madonna probably knows as it’s the version she performed live for the tour that promoted the album. As other said on the comments, the Bad Girl and Rain videos are some of her absolute best. Bedtime Stories is closer to Ray of Light overall as it depicts a softer image for Madonna. I think you’re going to enjoy that one.
As a huge Madonna fan since I was a kid (and one whose favorite Madonna song is Deeper & Deeper*), I'm so grateful for all the reaction videos, I clicked on this one so fast when I saw it lol. The Erotica album got lost in a lot of (sexist) noise at the time, glad to see people recognizing it for its worth! Thanks for posting these and I'm glad she's gained a new fan. Can't wait for a Bedtime Stories reaction! I think once you hear it you'll kind of get a feel for how all of her 90s-2000s albums all kind of led into each other, it's some great musical evolution. *I love that she was just like, "I'm gonna sample my biggest hit in this banger of a song. Because I'm Madonna."
I hope you listen to the bedtime stories album sanctuary has a transition into bedtime story and if you aren’t looking at the songs as they change you wouldn’t really know they’re two songs
I loved this era because this was combined with the SEX book and I waited in line 2 hours to get both when they came out. This was her ultimate onslaught against puritanical America and she suffered for it (being literally called Satan), but I loved every bit of it all and I think even though people tried to resist, the cat was out of the bag and culture was dragged forward towards openness whether they were ready or not. I hope one day that everyone understands how insanely significant she has been in our culture. Few can match it -- the fact that she has met resistance at every single moment of her career exemplifies that statement. She is resisted because she is change itself.
Lyrically “Words” is so deep, please take a little moment to listen to the lyrics, specially the last part… that last part is the explanation of Linguistics Theory of Sign (linguistic sign)… believe me, Madonna is pure geniality!!!
This is my favorite Madonna album, one which I heard for the first time back in the late 90s. It's great seeing someone react to it for the first time and be as excited about it as I was when I first heard it. Welcome to the fold! Oh, and you should react to her videos next!!! That'll be fun to watch.
You were right. Rain is the best song on the album. It's a masterpiece. She sang it during her last big treck called The Celebration Tour. It was a huge highlight.
I bought this album when I was 14 and I instantly fell in love with Bad Girl and Rain. I was young and didn’t understand the others. I got to finally understand its brillance artistically and musically some years after my first listening. I hope it will become a grower for you too ✨
Hey Bestie! It’s me again. I’m so excited to see you finally experiencing and reviewing one of my most favorite Madonna albums. Alongside “Like a Prayer” and “Bedtime Stories” which I cannot wait for you to review. As per usual… you did not disappoint. I swear to you that you have so many quotes in your videos that you should just put on t-shirts and sell. The part of you being startled at the sound of the glass breaking in the beginning of “Thief of Hearts” alone should be a gif. Then splicing the picture of Madonna with her hands over her face while you innocently did the same was yet another “I hollered so loud that I scared the crap outta my dog” moment for me. Anyways… I’m so happy that you did thoroughly enjoy this body of work. I will say that I’m surprised that you didn’t like “Words” nearly as much as I thought you would. It’s a heavy album which unfortunately was overlooked because of how controversial she was at such a conservative time in America. Meanwhile…it’s an amazingly produced, vocally rich, sonically versatile, deeply romantic and cohesive body of work that truly reflected the times AND as usual reflected where she was in her personal and professional life. Friendly note…It’s usually helpful to check out some of her interviews in those specific album eras to get a better sense as to where the songs are coming from. I’ve always found Madonna to be the type of artist that releases albums that are very reflective of that particular period in her life. Something that I’ve noticed not many artists often do and just release music for the sake of just releasing work. Just like you did with Ray of Light’s “Skin” (My favorite track) you did the same for “Rain” which is also one of my most favorite songs AND music videos of hers. The funny thing is that I was going to point out that song to you in one of my previous comments but I wanted to have you experience it with little to any influence. You of course, reacted to it exactly how I knew you would. That song just does something to me. Ever since 1st hearing it as a 12 year old. At a time in life where life was just so confusing and I didn’t truly understand what it was to be gay. This album helped me out a lot. Subconsciously as a kid and consciously as an adult.
@@Merboy007 Hey merboy! Haha, this comment made me smile and laugh out loud! Thank you for appreciating my humor 🙏🏻 It’s really cool that she puts so much intention into the time periods of her work! Love that!!! 💙
Yes! Very eager to see what she thinks of Like a Prayer and Bedime Stories. For me LAP is still her greatest. Maybe not as cohesive or groundbreaking as Ray Of Light, but just as personal. And musically one of her best. Patrick Leonard is amazing.
Only discovered your channel 2 days ago and I am LIVING for your reaction videos. Can’t wait for you to listen to ‘Bedtime Stories’ - my absolute favourite Madonna album.
She used the name Dita (mentioned in the Erotica song) as her alter ego in the SEX book. Both the record and its videos, the Sex book were considered a major scandal back in the 90ies. Back then she was probably the most hated woman in the world and she suddenly became a persona non grata. She continued with Erotica what she has started in 1990 with the song and video for "Justify my Love". Her exploration of female and gay sexuality, S&M etc. frightend a lot of people and she suffered for the first time in her career from major backlash.
As soon as this was suggested on my youtube I clicked! Yasss queen! Now… Madonna’s music is great on its own, but she truly is a visual artist, u should react to her music videos, she was a master at it, her and MJ basically turned music videos into an art from of its own
Omg!!! You posted on my day off!!! Iconic!!! ❤❤ also I LOVE Rain too!! It’s my fave on this album. The rain music video tho dude… WOW. one of my fave music videos of all time. Thanks for posting!!!
You have no idea, how quick I clicked, EROTICA IS THE ONE. It's so misunderstood, it's the ultimate celebration of love in the time of AIDS, a dark melancholy dive into loss, love, betrayal and yes sex, but it's been mischaracterised as ''the sex'' album, when it's so much more. She broke every boundary, smashed every taboo and fully embraced her sexuality in a way no popstar had before and again you see the albums fingerprints over every pop star after, their good girl gone bad era's if you will. Also the 90's house, hip-hop and R&B implemented on the album is still so fresh, truly a masterpiece.
@@thomashavard-morgan8181 PERIODDD. sex is a tiny footnote in this amazing album!
@@BethThereseReacts Madonna often says in interviews that she's a romantic, and the interviewer will always seem shocked by this... um... did you not listen to her lyrics? Yes, her image can be sexual and outspoken, but she very clearly has a softer side that she usually only shows in her music. Erotica is a brilliant concept album about all aspects and meanings of 'love'... romantic love, betrayal, jealousy, anger, emotional abuse, self love, self hatred, brotherly love, loss, compassion, death, diversity, gender equality, and yes, sex.
YESSSS
The entire EROTICA ERA is a MASTERPIECE. Dita Parlo, the mistress, is guiding us through the entire era. Firstly, the EroTiCa single and album were released. Then, the incredible artistic S E X book, the highest selling coffee table book of all time. The Queen was so ahead of her time. Then, the Body of Evidence movie and of courses the grand finale to end the Era was The Girlie Show tour🎪🎭🎩🫦🎭☔️👑
You and a bottle of Pinto’ I have been a Madonna fan forever! You bring so much “joy to the music!!! I adore you! Who decorates your room!!! ???
“In this Life”, at the end, she’s referring to when will the AIDS crisis end, as the government was doing nothing to find a cure or truly support those suffering. Also, the two men she sings about are her ballet teacher in Detroit, who was the first gay man she met and he took her to her first gay club, told her she was beautiful and that she needed to leave and go to New York to become a professional dancer. Once she made it big, she took care of him and at the end paid all his medical expenses.
The other guy was her gay friend Martin who she met before getting her first album deal, they were extremely close, he even designed one of her 12”singles covers. When he got sick, she also took care of him and all his medical and living expenses.Madonna also has a gay brother Christopher, whom she worked with for many years, so she’s been a gay advocate since her late teens.
Take the children to school honey.
@@MO-ir7bt -Gotta keep it straight right? Lol
I love how you react to iconic madonna albums while everyone is reacting to new viral songs, the taste jumped
@@stefankrstev8245 Aw thank you 💙 tbh i only have ears for madonna at the moment 🤭
@@BethThereseReactsand we're loving it
The video for Bad Girl is a cinematic masterpiece directed by David Fincher and totally depicts that exuberant "rich atmosphere" you mention. Must see! ❤❤❤
@@oscardelapena7376 oooh 🤑
U read my mind darling❤ totaally agree with u 😊
@@BethThereseReacts You must watch that video!
Beth reacting to her songs without videos first is really important so you hear the song first. Her videos and live performances take the songs onto a whole new level
One of her best videos! She looks so incredibly classy and beautiful.
Whether people love all her albums or not. What I LOVE about Madonna is that anyone can find their fav Madonna album! She has covered so many styles and topics etc. 🩷👏🏽
@@ImJustinPineda Yeah, she has something for everyone!!
Hi, Justin 🤭
@@Chambreezey 😂😂😂 heyyyyy
i am living for the day you begin to cover her tours. Madonnas Tours really show why she is the queen,
@@ajacreativemedia i’d like to! might be difficult with copyright tho
@@BethThereseReacts I've seen lots of other people do it. I don't know much about how it works though. I do think reacting to her music videos is a must - she's such a visual artist. Her videos and live performances are just as important as the music in many ways.
Confessions is my favourite
@@МартинКарапачов-з2бConfessions Tour!! 🔥👍🏻🔥
@@BethThereseReactsI suggest you start with her Re-Invention Tour from 2004. Not only does she sing a good chunk from American Life (the most beautiful version of Mother and Father you can find) but also most of her essential hits. In top of that she is on top form vocally and the tour hasn’t been released officially. The leaked version is a professional filmed version, not over edited and - most importantly - the vocals have not been doctored with.
The Bad Girl video is a masterpiece, a must watch!
@@BBenjamin79 noteddd
Great job, guuuuurl ❤ I’ve attended her free concert in Brazil. Believe me: listening to Rain, in the middle of a 1.6 million people, everybody singing together, it was magic 😍
@@brunoribeiro7191 thank you! 😁💙 omg that sounds magical
Loveeeeee your madonnas reactions. There is no one like Madonna the queen
@@FranklinDeLuna-wg8vo Thank you 💙 she is an icon!
Erotica is a very important piece in Madonna’s career because it’s a concept album about love, loss and romance in a dark period of life.
More than an album some times it feels like an artistic mood board about what she was going through at the time.
@@trillano Yessss good point!
"This song walked so Lunch could run" 🌺🌸🌹🦋💯
@@butchbrewer4923 😂💙💙💙
By the way, I can see a lot of inspirations in „HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” from Madonna’s music…is it just me ?
@@thepuppetmaster7334
Actually, it's not just you. Me too. I also noticed a lot of similarities between Billie Eilish and Madonna even before Billie's Hit Me Hard And Soft!!!
@@rony1642 Very curious what Billie thinks of Madonna, if anything. It's hard to tell with some of the younger artists because they weren't alive during her heyday like some of the other artists she more obviously influenced like Beyonce, Ariana, and Gaga.
And the video for Justify My Love walked so WAP could run. And Express Yourself walked so you-know-what could run. Madonna has basically influenced almost every female artist that came after her. Madonna broke the glass ceiling for good and her impact on the entire music industry cannot be overstated.
OMG 2 Madonna reactions in literally less than 2 weeks. We love you Beth
@@anonimous9540 😁💙💙💙💙💙
@@anonimous9540 yes, Mariah. I love how Beth keeps mentioning her 💓
Sooo happy we have a new reaction already! Just one sidenote, Madonna doesn’t define herself as a pop singer, but rather as a performance artist. Therefore, I totally recommend you watching her videography, which TOTALLY complements her material and gives you the complete idea of her artistry. And I’m not even gonna mention her tours. Loving your journey, thanks and love from Brazil 🇧🇷
@@giovuolo123 me too honestly 😁🕺🏻💙 i hope to cover her videos at some point 💙
We need video reactions for each era! 😭🙏
This album was CONTROVERSIAL. It basically revolutionized the mega pop star into incorporating political and social taboo issues- aggressively to an unsuspecting global audience. This album separated her from her peers and the mainstream who only ever played it safe and propelled her celebrity to an unparalleled stratosphere. The media had a fit and was saturated with so much divisiveness that it hit infamy. With The album and book Sex, There were talk shows about it’s message, college studies, and constant general discussion as to why the biggest female pop star on the planet decided to basically push the envelope so far with blatant transparency and risk ruining her career.. but she did it. This is an important album that is the blueprint for most, if not all the albums you listen to today that have a provocative edge.
@@Dr_Madonna mmmm i see that
💯 but the album was a commercial failure when it was released. Even Madonna had to go back to her roots with her next album with an R&B sound to get her music career back on track. And she succeeded by scoring a #1 single Take A Bow!❤
@@petechan5985 sales wise compared to her previous albums yes, because of the backlash of the sex book. The album was still a charting success, hitting the top ten & top 5 in over 20 countries, as well as number one in over 7, like in Australia were it was number 1 for 7 weeks.
@@petechan5985But that move aged so well: it shows how fearless Madonna is. Also, because of the Erotica backlash, we got "Bedtime Stories", which has some of the best songs of her career.
Madonna touched on very sensitive issues on this album. If today it seems redundant at times, at the time it was a scandal - both the album and the promotion, with a book about fetishes and a rather scandalous tour.
But this was Madonna being extremely brave, talking about AIDS at a time when American society was trying to erase these experiences and blame the victims of the disease.
In addition to losing many friends to AIDS (whom she paid tribute to on her last tour), she used to visit hospitals and hug people who had been disowned by family and friends because of HIV.
AIDS changed the way the LGBTQIAPN+ community relates to each other. It changed the way we love and even our self-image.
She wanted to get the message across: obscenity is not in expressions of love, it is in violence and neglect of life.
Regarding the production, I've read comments from the album's producer saying that Madonna wanted this dirty vibe in the sound, something underground that would convey the message that this is something done "in secret." She even chose a simpler studio, where rats would walk around while she recorded, because she wanted it to be authentic.
To me, it's one of Madonna's most honest and courageous works. She wasn't just an ally to the queer community, she was one of us when she decided to take such risks to show that we too deserved respect and love.
I'm looking forward to hearing your take on "Bedtime Stories, ,an album she made as a response to all the hate she got for "Erotica" - no backtracking, as she herself said "I'm not sorry, it's human nature."
And I love your reactions to Mariah Carey's albums too!
Oh I am SEATED for this Erotica album reaction!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥
@@Xplod50ful 😁😭🕺🏻💙
So happy to see you diving into the Madonna pool... I fell in love with your AL reaction, then Music, then ROL... But those were not as quick. Happy that you chose Erotica and wasted no time. I usually say that Ray of Light is Madonna's best album, but Erotica is my Madonna's favorite album. Two different things and both are veeeery clear to me. Keep going! I will keep watching!
@@ppmvilhena 😊💙💙💙
Erotica was the first Madonna album I purchased. I wanted to know more about her most controversial era (American Life, notwithstanding). Sonically, Deeper & Deeper, Bad Girl, Rain, In this Life, and the super jazzy, poetic Secret Garden have aged the best. From an industry perspective, song length, album sales, & the use of melisma all reached their zenith during the 90s. Songs were generally longer as pace of life was different, cd technology encouraged length exploration, and radio stations and club DJs used the longer intros & outros as transitions between segments.
I enjoyed reading this. Yes, it was. I remember her and MJ being accused of really bad stuff at the same time.
This album and whole promotion,scandal and TEA when it came out is a definition of ICONIC.
@@thevilkids I imagine it was a time!
Also Madonna is very much a visual artist so her videos really pushed boundaries and some were banned. I hope you do her music videoes at some point in the future too..@BethThereseReacts
Yay! New Madonna Reaction 🎉. I like Erotica a lot, its so underrated. I'm excited to watch your reaction, it will be great for sure ❤
@@Anika82712 🕺🏻💙💙💙 hope you enjoy!
This album is the first one that Madonna produced by the entertainment company "Maverick", founded by Warner Music Group and run by herself, Freddy DeMann and Veronica Dashev. The record was a massive controversial, not only because a worldwide pop star did actually dare to talk loudly about sex, identities, gender and all the types of love, but mainly because it was accused of promoting sexual habits in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Madonna clearly explained that she was trying to do exactly the opposite, promoting instead sexual education, use of condom and family discussion among parents and children. Many people said that Erotica, and all the stuff around it, was just a perfectly designed business far from sense of responsability, but the consciousness about those topics in the following years, proved that all that noise was definitely necessary. Even though Erotica is probably not her best selling album, the cultural impact (for complex topics like the ones above) it had on many people is undeniable.
This album is perfect beginning to end. The way she jeopardised her entire career to spread awareness about important subjects at the time should be studied. If we didn't have this era, we wouldn't have most music / artists today
I'm 24, this was the first album I bought on CD or digital, and I think it's my favorite because of how deep and fun it is. Each song covered a different topic and revolutionized sexuality: S&M (Erotica), sexual desire (fever), betray and heartbreak (bye bye baby), homosexuality/coming out (Deeper and deeper), oral sex (where life begins), depression, promiscuity and alcoholism (bad girl), self-respect (waiting, thief of hearts, words), love (rain, why's it so hard), AIDS (in this life), masturbation (secret garden), it is a RIDE! I don't know if you read about it but this album was accompanied by a softcore porn coffee table book that Madonna produced and that was so controversial that it stained the fate of the album forever. You should check out more about this period of her history because it is intense and interesting! ❤ Love your Madonna journey, each album is a different planet
Madonna's 3-album run in the 90s (Erotica, Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light) feel like a trilogy to me. I feel the concept and tone of each album was inspired by the last, from the reception it got to the production style. I can't imagine Bedtime Stories existing without Erotica coming before it. Ray of Light wouldn't have existed without Bedtime Stories before that.
@@scottduncan5170 ooh interesting!
It's exactly like that: if Madonna hadn't received the bashlack for "Erotica", her follow up album wouldn't have been a control damage album like "Bedtime Stories". Also, the "Take A Bow" video was used to promote herself for her role in "Evita", a role she desperately wanted but almost didn't get. Without "Evita" and the singing training she took for it, "Ray of Light" wouldn't have been what it is.
MADONNA is the best pop female artist of all time and forever 🙌🏻
I’m so glad I was around when this was released. You had to be there for the surprise, the controversy, the book, the backlash, the response. It was a very interesting time in music, pop culture, and censorship. I remember being a kid in my sister’s car, hearing Erotica on the radio, and not believing it was Madonna. My sister had to convince me. It was so different.
I remember when it came out. By the time "In this life" ended I was in tears. In 1992 that song was everything, it captured beautifully everything that was happening in our community.
@@ppzav such a beautiful song
It still hits me in the feels to this day. Yah, it's not a 'bop' obviously. It's solidly in a minor key throughout the song and the lyrics are painful to listen to, but thank goodness someone had our backs in our darkest hour. It truly makes me sad that our younger generations have no idea how much Madonna fought for our community and by and large don't give her the reverence she's due. Even if you don't like her music, she's earned our respect as the first 'gay icon' who actually supported us socially, politically and charitably, instead of just taking our money and staying silent to what was happening to us. I appreciate all the support other artists have given us since, but M was really the first, and at a time when it was risky AF to stand by us, and when we were literally dying and very few people actually cared. In fact, the mainstream message from religious groups and politicians was that AIDS was god's judgement on sinners and we deserved death. There was no political will at all for AIDS treatment or research. The majority were all to happy to see us die. Compare the apathy to AIDS to how the world freaked out over SARS and COVID. That tells you all you need to know about why Madonna speaking out (along with a few others like Elton John, Elizabeth Taylor and Doris Day) on these issues was so incredibly vital to our community's survival.
@@graphiquejack beautifully said ❤❤❤
Shep Pettibone was the first icon of remixing..he did remixes for everyone in the late 80s and early 90s.. he did remixes for Madonna, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson, Cathy Dennis, and the list goes on..he was the one who got me to start wanting to do remixes..I was like I wanna do that too..I collected 12" singles as a kid..
@@felixmeow660 ooh cool
Me too
This album was the second Madonna album I purchased. It was a grower. It became more meaningful. It's such a pivotal album for the culture and for her career.
what was the first one?
@@c_resag bedtime stories
“Why are all these songs so catchy?” Asked about one of the greatest pop hook writers in the history of music, with the relentless hits record receipts to prove it. She almost always collaborates on writing, but ALL her collaborators have said the place she truly shines, aside from as a co-producer in general, is in writing crazily compelling hooks and bridges.
@@petersavieri haha good point, idk why i questioned it 😂💕
What I liked about “Did You Do It?” is that it’s like the man’s side of the song “Waiting.” He’s a guy who talks a big game, but seems easily intimidated and runs. Madonna is calling it out on “Waiting.”
Also, regarding “In This Life,” yes, it was an extremely bold move. During the time of the AIDS crisis, apparently Madonna went into some wards and would lay in the beds with the patients and just hang out with them even though the doctors wouldn’t touch them (due to lack of knowledge on the virus). So, this was clearly during the earlier times of the crisis.
As much as Madonna can be a bit of a mean girl sometimes, she speaks up a lot for minorities/the generally oppressed, and she always has.
One more thing, lol. Your reaction to “Where Life Begins” absolutely killed me. 😂💀
@@skylerringfield2337 i like that!! thanks for pointing that out. and wow major respect to her for that! and lolll that was a fun one 😂😭
I like to pretend that song doesn't exist. lol.
Rain is my favorite song of Madonna and I am also a Ray of Light stan 😂
I totally agree with the “repetitiveness”/“cohesiveness” and I can’t listen to the album start-to-end all time, but one or two songs on a shuffle playlist are gold.
My first madonna album. Listened to it in 2022 and got hooked to madonna!!
Went to her show in Paris (celebration tour) and you NEED to react to her live shows. TRUST❤
I ALWAYS LOVE YOUR REACTIONS. YOU ARE SUCH A GREAT LISTENER :)))))
@@agrama.4543 Love it! Thank you so much 😁
GURL WE'RE BEING SO WELL FED! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!
@@jgadadi thank YOU for being here 😍💙🕺🏻
You have no Idea how exited I got when I saw theres was a new Madonna reaction by you! your videos are the best reactions to Madonna! I really can't wait till you go into her live performances, cuz she creates songs almost everything thinking on the live performance and then bring the full concept a live a songs esquire much more meaning :D. thank you for this videos, definitely im gonna check other artist reactions made by you
thank you so much!! :)
Rain is 100% my favorite song on this album as well. And I agree with you, it has always felt like it didn't belong. Rain is in my top 10 Madonna songs of all time. I was so happy when she sang it in both shows I saw on the celebration tour. Fun fact...I have this album cover tattooed on my arm 😊
Rain was Madonna's Motown-like 'girl group' track that she usually had on most of her early albums... Shoo Be Doo on LAV, True Blue on the album of the same name, and Cherish on LAP. She definitely was influenced by her suburban Detroit 60s-70s roots.
The album really creates a mood and wraps you into its world...especially love the r&b/hip hop/ jazz feel of the Andre betts tracks aswell as sheps more house-pop vibe. The visuals of this album are also top tier.
@@bentoth6377 yesss very moody!
Yeeees, let's say it: Where life begins, Waiting and Secret Garden (the Andre Betts songs), with Fever, are excellent examples of how a major popstar, experimenting the most edgy club styles at that time (house and hip hop), can incorporate piano, saxophone and lush strings patterns to create such a unique and sensual atmosphere. The Secret Garden closing piano solo has got that jam session vibe I still love so deep (I became a jazz lover growing up by the way). Erotica is sensual more than an album about sex: it's a mood, a vibe, dark, rough and lush at the same time.
It’s also important to know the time this album was written and released in. Other people have commented about the brutal levels of homophobia and queerphobia, and general anti sexual freedom stance, emboldened by the fear of AIDS, that had engulfed world culture. So when she sings “why’s it so hard” she’d not only singing about her own life (or making a sweet double entendre), she’s talking about the REAL hardship that LGBTQ people and also our allies were facing during those dark times of the 10-15 worst years of the peak AIDS crisis… and it only got better verrrrrrry slowly… even now I’m sure you’re aware that LGBTQ rights are under attack, and we are being vilified and scapegoated, yet again.
In This Lif e focuses on 2 of her close friends who died of AIDS, ballet teacher Christopher Flynn, and her best friend Martin Burgoyne who was only 23 when he passed. But she had other friends who died, including the great Keith Haring and her dancer Gabriel from the Blond Ambition Tour and Truth or Dare. When she says people just want to “turn the other way and wait for this thing to go away, why do we have to pretend? Someday I pray it will end.” She’s talking primarily about the holocaust of AIDS itself, and of course by extension all the hatred, fear and death it fueled toward queer people. The level of fear, paranoia, loss, grief and cataclysmic nearly universal hatred that we queer people faced during the AIDS crisis cannot be overstated. Neither can Madonna’s courage and loyalty to face the massive backlash she went through for standing up for us during this time. And ever since.
Aside from her untouchable brilliance as a culture defining artist, this courage and loyalty is why she is forever our queen 👑.
This album came out when I was 13 and I absolutely loved it. I used to play it over and over again every single day. It's such a sophisticated album, the sound is sophisticated and it also has that street vibe, her vocals are sophisticated, sexual and very clever, but what I love the most about it are the lyrics. I think it contains some of her most interesting lyrics. It is an album about sex, and of course it has explicit songs like Erotica (about sadomasochism) or Where Life Begins (about oral sex), and it was actually the first album to have the Parental Advisory label. But it also has songs about deeper stuff like loneliness or being desperate. It also has songs about the death of her friends due to the AIDS crisis (In This Life), about freeing yourself from your own demons and letting go your hopes and confronting relationships with less prejudice (Deeper and Deeper), or just about romantic relationships and all their complicated games (Bad Girl, Waiting). It's actually an album for mature audiences, not for children, it's a very serious album, about adult themes, it's sexual, dark, aggressive, depressive, and brutally honest. She was at the top of the world when this album came out, it was after Vogue and her Blond Ambition Tour, and it was a high risk that she took. She could have just released a fun pop album, play it safe, and secure her place as the biggest star in the universe as she was, but no, not Madonna, she always did the unexpected, she was never afraid to make people uncomfortable or to piss people off. This album was released along with a book called SEX that contained nude and sof-porn pictures of her, and actually the music video for Erotica was made with the footage of the making of the book. She also made a couple of erotic films like Body of Evidence (my favorite movie by Madonna) and then her Girlie Show Tour that was charged with sex and broke the mold it terms of what a pop star could do on stage. The video for Erotica was banned from TV, the book sold out, the tour was a success, but there was so much controversy and scandal that the album be overlooked. The media concentrated more on her erotic pictures and videos and the musical aspect of the album was completely overlooked and ignored. It's a shame because I think it's a musical masterpiece. The sound, the production, the melodies, the lyrics, the instrumentation. Flawless piece of work and one of her most conceptual and cohesive works. It's polished, sophisticated, and took its time to be born, to be worked on at the studio, and you can tell. And today it's a cult classic and one of her most praised albums by her fans. And it's definitely a before?after moment in pop culture. The influence this album had on pop culture, pop music, and how pop stars behave and produce can be seen in most female artists today. But of course, Madonna was punished for that, for breaking the rules like that, for exposing the hypocrisy of society towards sexuality. Madonna was punished for doing what today is almost mandatory for female artists to do if they wanna be big. But Madonna was being honest about sex, she wasn't using sex to sell, she was just showing herself as the sexual being she was. And that's a big difference.
Your reaction to Rain is exactly my reaction to this song everytime I listen to it! ❤ This is the best 😍😍😍
@@francamente_hein ☺️♥️
I was legit just watching another of your videos and had the feeling in the back of my head a Madonna reaction was coming im so excited for this!! 🫶
@@jeffreybii aww 😭you read my mind lol
BAD GIRL & RAIN are two of my favorite videos!
I haven't read any of the other comments yet so forgive me if I'm repeating what's already been said! I do agree that some of the songs are a bit long. I think it's partly a sign of the times. Pop songs were much longer back in the early 90s. I'm glad you picked up on the fact that the entire album isn't about sex - part of the backlash to this album/era was due to her "Sex" photo book, which was released at the same time as the album. Also, the "Erotica" video was very explicit and was banned from MTV (like her earlier "Justify My Love" video). The album didn't do as well as her previous albums, and the media was extremely sexist and cruel to her. So a few of the songs on Bedtime Stories (and the softer tone of that album) are a direct reaction to that.
The album was very ahead of its time. There were very few, if any, queer voices. For many gay people, Madonna was all we had. And her career suffered for it. "In This Life" is very hard to listen to for many who lived through that time period. It's specifically about the AIDS crisis, so when she says "I hope it's in this lifetime," she's talking about the end of all of the death and suffering. Back in the early 90s there was no effective treatment and people were dying left and right. So in a way there's a happy ending to the song because she did live to see the end of that part of the crisis. She went on to do a lot of work for AIDS in Africa, where it remained a death sentence for decades due to lack of access to education and medicine.
this album was such a backlash at the time but now erotica is praised for drawing that line between talking about sex in music and now it is complete 360 where everybody in the music industry talks about sex and going for more of that prerogative phase in their life, Madonna was the first to break the wall in the industry to express herself and become who she is in her artistic this album is truly such a timeless romantic piece of art and how she fantasizing about the light and the dark of the early 90s the light is her expressing her sexuality and be prideful for herself the darkness is aids politics and America fearing she went too far and had to just really hard for her to deal with everybody not agreeing with her values and her artistic and bedtime stories is a completely different look at everything in her life as she becomes more vulnerable raw and emotional but still having that romantic side being temper down arc it feels refreshing to hear these two back to back because they're so different. I heard someone say that erotica is the nighttime and bedtime stories is the morning after and that small connection says does draw a line between those two and the stories both tell in their own artistic ways Erotica truly paint the picture while bedtime stories reflect and think of the solution love your reaction!
I think the reason ‘In this life’ has the least streams is due to the fact that the song is jarring and heartbreaking, like the album went dark.
Fun fact: The two men Madonna sings about in this song, Martin Burgoyne )her close friend and roommate) and Christopher Flynn (her former dance teacher), were the first two people to appear during her ‘Live to Tell’ performance at the Celebration Tour in which she pays tribute to AIDS victims
@@irkinix1 good point, it can be jarring!
i truly loved the nod to In This Life between Holiday and Live to Tell on tour
Erotica was well received critically, as you saw, but was at the time considered a “flop” by much of the music press, despite selling over 5 million units at the time, and many more since. Which is FAR more than most of the biggest hit albums now, as they cobble streams together to try to recreate the hype of actual album sales of the past. The “flop” perception came at the time because Madonna’s previous albums had all sold exponentially more than that worldwide. So it’s only “unsuccessful” when compared to her own epic sales.
The reason the album was maligned though, was because it alienated some of her more casual (and homophobic) fans, and of course caught the rage of right wing conservatives. It was also largely overshadowed by the hype surrounding the simultaneous release of her legendary, and culture shaking, photography book entitled Sex. Still the boldest, bravest and most revolutionary expression of sexual freedom and queer representation from any mainstream artist ever.
Secret Garden is a meditation on her womanhood, using the garden as a metaphor for her vagina and womb, and for her own privacy and “inner self” that she returns to as shelter from the vicissitudes of the public, in order to recharge and realign herself with true purpose.
I think Bedtime Stories might be more your vibe it’s more dreamy atmospheric soft R&B and this is more raw gritty house. But yeah all of her albums are pretty different so nothing else will sound exactly like Ray of Light except maybe Music
@@epiphany6189 i’m excited! i’ve enjoyed all her albums (even if i haven’t returned to them), so i’m sure it’ll be a good time!
Hello, icon… it’s the first time that I leave a comment in one of your videos, although I’ve been watching them for a little while… but Erotica is SUCH A MOMENT, that I just couldn’t resist 😂😂… I'm no expert in Madonna's music, I've been listening to her for a little over a year and it was videos like yours that sparked my interest in her. Erotica is probably my favorite album of hers, after Ray of light. I LOVED your review, and I just wanted to add on to what you said about «In this life», which I too think it’s a beautiful song. She lost lots of friends to AIDS, that’s why she sings «people walks by and I wonder who's next». In a political climate where the president of the US refused to even speak about AIDS, let alone acknowledging it was a health problem, she was one of the few (if not the only) artists who didn’t give a damn and who spoke about it and encouraged the LGBT+ population to have safe sex. So, «In this life» is a song about the AIDS epidemic and how the political system would ignore it and didn’t care about people who had it. I have a friend who lives with HIV, and I feel fortunate that he’s still around and has access to a working treatment and is able to go about his life. Of course there’s a ton of things to fight for as a community, and it’s songs and albums like this that remind us where we come from and where we started. ❤❤❤❤
@@EdgarRodriguez-uh6gm Aw thank you for this kind and informative comment! I appreciated it so much 💙
@@BethThereseReacts of course, we must always support our queens
Thank you so much, I loved your reaction to this album - some songs don’t really hit the first time but they are massive growers. I’ve been begging for this reaction and I’m so glad you reacted to it and gave your thoughts ❤
@@yasshhaaaa of course, i’m so glad i enjoyed it 😄💙
oh, i am SO happy i requested american life a few months ago lol!! these reactions have been my everything
@@tastiepastrie ME TOOO you are the GOAT 🐐 lol
I’m loving your Madonna reactions. You are so much fun. 😊
@@javier_govi Yay! Thank you so much ☺️💙
The Queen of Pop!
@@Dr_Madonna frrrr 👑
Her best 90’s album 💿🎭🤍
Mistress Dita was in full effect, as was that beautiful *lower register!*
never thought id see beth react to bad girl in my lifetime omggg
@@speaknowethansversion This made me laugh out loud 💀
@@BethThereseReacts The video for Bad Girl is so so good!
can’t wait your reaction to bedtime stories 😁
@@alessandrolazo2312 ☺️💙
This is probably her ”hardest” album to get into. Very raw and layered like you said and the era consists more than just the album essentially focusing on her sex book which ”ended” her career, in fact her image and sales did not recover until Ray of Light which was a turning point.
However, Bedtime Stories is sonically little sister to Erotica and big sister to Ray of Light. Soft cloudy instrumental which gives us teaser of Ray of Light in places. Can’t wait for that reaction!
@@ratchetcow7916 can’t wait! 💙
Yasssss girl. My favorite Madonna album!!! Hope you love it!
@@JaysonSan-xp1zp 😁💙
And definitely this album is a grower. At first I didnt like it sm, but then I became extremely addicted. So, I think youll love it after a few more listens...
@@ricknoreallyiam i’ve been listening a lot and enjoying it all the same! 😁
What I Love about Beths reactions is, that she takes it serious and really dive into the music and discover little Details ❤😊
@@philippwallerstein6864 thank you!
Thank you for doing the Madonna albums, im so excited for Bedtime Stories next! Im a huge Madonna fan all my life, it's interesting watching you listening to her albums from newer to older so far. Confessions 2005, American Life 2003, Music 2000, Ray of light 1998, Erotica 1992 ❤ i am loving all your Madonna videos thank you
@@adamorbanski9258 💙💙💙 thanks for being here!!
YES! First, your opinion of course is the only one that matters - your reaction is why we here…also cause I agree. 😂 Rain. Is. Gorgeous. Best song on the album and one of her best. Video is stunning as well. Similar to Power of Goodbye. Stunning aurally and visually. Thanks for a great video! ❤
@@edugator6 aww 😂☺️💙 yasss can’t wait to see the video hopefully someday! 👀
Rain is one of my favourite Madonna songs! So underrated-even seemingly by Madonna herself as well (she weirdly left it off her second greatest hits collection, GHV2-released in 2001, the year I became a fan, btw, aaah the memories-and off of Celebration, a third collection, as well). Like, why?! I love it.
@@JukeboxJunkie7 Omg please. It’s STUNNING 😭
But she did perform it on the recent Celebration Tour..great performance
It's gotten a second life on streaming. It wasn't the biggest hit off the album at the time (that was "Deeper and Deeper") but now it's the most streamed song from the album.
@@BethThereseReacts the Rain video is a masterpiece
@@FindingMadonna I've done 6 remixes for Deeper and Deeper..Madonna had a contest to remix Music, Deeper and Deeper and Ray of Light when GHV2 came out in 2001..I've done multiple remixes for each song over the years.. back then I was just starting out but I have a remix I did for Deeper in 2014 i still listen to alot.. and a remix i did for Music in 2005 is still one of my favorites
Rain is a MASTERPIECE indeed! 😍👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I loved the 'Rain moment'. It's one of my favorites by Madonna. And give 'Secret Garden' a chance. The chorus melody is sublime. As always, I love your reactions. Kisses and bye bye baby.
@@leocesar9662 yeah secret garden is vibey!
I’m so glad you reacted to this album. In 1992 this album played a very important part in my life and I still play this album today. This album is perfect perfection for me. I’m so glad you reacted the RAIN where you did. When I first heard that song, I cried. Great reaction.
“Why’s it so hard” was really important because it gave me strength and courage to face whatever or whoever wanted to diminish myself!!! ❤❤❤💪💪💪❤️❤️❤️❤️
Deeper and Deeper is my all time favorite song by Madonna along with Rescue Me, Sky Fits Heaven and Vogue
Your Madonna reactions are seriously the BEST 🙌🏻
@@abrahamr.bustamante3185 Aw thank you 😭💙
RAIN IS A MASTERPIECE ❤
THANK YOU FOR YOUR AUTHENTIC REACTION ❤❤
@@claudeghanimeh1728 ☔️💙💙💙
1:53 You have to watch the music video for Frozen, you'll understand how much of a masterpiece it really is!
First comment about this video before forgetting.
The way she put Vogue in the kind of album Im Breathless is was an utterly astistic move. Hope you listen to it to, even as an "anecdotically" moment
So happy that you reacted to another album so soon. Erotica is another fan favorite, which barely doesn’t make the Top 5 for me. I wasn’t here when it was released, but I always consider it a brave album with mature themes in a time where talking about AIDS and sex was taboo. Production-wise it’s definitely a product of its time and you need to be in the right mindset to vibe with it. I agree that some songs could be shorter, but overall there are no skips for me on this album (I don’t listen to the PA Version with Did You Do It, which is trash). My favorite is Rain, it’s gorgeous, and a general public favorite probably due to being the most easy to listen to due to its more radio friendly production. My least favorite is Bye Bye Baby.
You asked during the video if Goodbye to Innocence existed in another world, and it does. 4 different demos leaked online (the last one having almost the same instrumental as Fever, which confirms the information you read). The song was then reworked after the album’s release and appeared on a random compilation « Just Say Roe ». The song unfortunately isn’t on Spotify but can be found on UA-cam. At the same time, Fever was also reworked for its video release, which is a shorter, more radio-friendly mix. It can be found on Spotify as « Edit One » and is definitely the best version. Madonna probably knows as it’s the version she performed live for the tour that promoted the album.
As other said on the comments, the Bad Girl and Rain videos are some of her absolute best. Bedtime Stories is closer to Ray of Light overall as it depicts a softer image for Madonna. I think you’re going to enjoy that one.
7:15 please do! fever is one of the best disco/dance-pop albums. i would love to see you do a kylie discog dive! maybe even music videos
As a huge Madonna fan since I was a kid (and one whose favorite Madonna song is Deeper & Deeper*), I'm so grateful for all the reaction videos, I clicked on this one so fast when I saw it lol. The Erotica album got lost in a lot of (sexist) noise at the time, glad to see people recognizing it for its worth! Thanks for posting these and I'm glad she's gained a new fan. Can't wait for a Bedtime Stories reaction! I think once you hear it you'll kind of get a feel for how all of her 90s-2000s albums all kind of led into each other, it's some great musical evolution.
*I love that she was just like, "I'm gonna sample my biggest hit in this banger of a song. Because I'm Madonna."
@@kevinfink4879 glad you are enjoying, thanks for being here! 😁
I totally agree with you, you have to listen to Madonna’s albums with earphones!!
I hope you listen to the bedtime stories album sanctuary has a transition into bedtime story and if you aren’t looking at the songs as they change you wouldn’t really know they’re two songs
These two songs are the climax of the album!!! And the transition is everything!!!
I loved this era because this was combined with the SEX book and I waited in line 2 hours to get both when they came out. This was her ultimate onslaught against puritanical America and she suffered for it (being literally called Satan), but I loved every bit of it all and I think even though people tried to resist, the cat was out of the bag and culture was dragged forward towards openness whether they were ready or not. I hope one day that everyone understands how insanely significant she has been in our culture. Few can match it -- the fact that she has met resistance at every single moment of her career exemplifies that statement. She is resisted because she is change itself.
Yasssss She listening to Cult album one of Mother’s best creation !!!!
@@danielsolorzano953 🕺🏻💙💙💙 i’m officially a madonna cult member
Btw thanks for all your Madonna reactions 😊 thoroughly enjoying
@@cristoferchanimak no prob! i’m enjoying too! thanks for being here 😁
Lyrically “Words” is so deep, please take a little moment to listen to the lyrics, specially the last part… that last part is the explanation of Linguistics Theory of Sign (linguistic sign)… believe me, Madonna is pure geniality!!!
really excited for bedtime stories, also really stoked for Rebel Heart & MDNA!!!!
A MASTERPIECE 🎉
This is my favorite Madonna album, one which I heard for the first time back in the late 90s. It's great seeing someone react to it for the first time and be as excited about it as I was when I first heard it. Welcome to the fold! Oh, and you should react to her videos next!!! That'll be fun to watch.
You were right. Rain is the best song on the album. It's a masterpiece. She sang it during her last big treck called The Celebration Tour. It was a huge highlight.
I bought this album when I was 14 and I instantly fell in love with Bad Girl and Rain. I was young and didn’t understand the others. I got to finally understand its brillance artistically and musically some years after my first listening. I hope it will become a grower for you too ✨
@@Sergeparadiesvogel i liked it right away but it’s also grown on me :D
Erotica received a lot of backlash in 1992 but still sold 7 million albums worldwide
Hey Bestie! It’s me again. I’m so excited to see you finally experiencing and reviewing one of my most favorite Madonna albums. Alongside “Like a Prayer” and “Bedtime Stories” which I cannot wait for you to review. As per usual… you did not disappoint. I swear to you that you have so many quotes in your videos that you should just put on t-shirts and sell. The part of you being startled at the sound of the glass breaking in the beginning of “Thief of Hearts” alone should be a gif. Then splicing the picture of Madonna with her hands over her face while you innocently did the same was yet another “I hollered so loud that I scared the crap outta my dog” moment for me. Anyways… I’m so happy that you did thoroughly enjoy this body of work. I will say that I’m surprised that you didn’t like “Words” nearly as much as I thought you would. It’s a heavy album which unfortunately was overlooked because of how controversial she was at such a conservative time in America. Meanwhile…it’s an amazingly produced, vocally rich, sonically versatile, deeply romantic and cohesive body of work that truly reflected the times AND as usual reflected where she was in her personal and professional life. Friendly note…It’s usually helpful to check out some of her interviews in those specific album eras to get a better sense as to where the songs are coming from. I’ve always found Madonna to be the type of artist that releases albums that are very reflective of that particular period in her life. Something that I’ve noticed not many artists often do and just release music for the sake of just releasing work.
Just like you did with Ray of Light’s “Skin” (My favorite track) you did the same for “Rain” which is also one of my most favorite songs AND music videos of hers. The funny thing is that I was going to point out that song to you in one of my previous comments but I wanted to have you experience it with little to any influence. You of course, reacted to it exactly how I knew you would. That song just does something to me. Ever since 1st hearing it as a 12 year old. At a time in life where life was just so confusing and I didn’t truly understand what it was to be gay. This album helped me out a lot. Subconsciously as a kid and consciously as an adult.
@@Merboy007 Hey merboy! Haha, this comment made me smile and laugh out loud! Thank you for appreciating my humor 🙏🏻 It’s really cool that she puts so much intention into the time periods of her work! Love that!!! 💙
Yes! Very eager to see what she thinks of Like a Prayer and Bedime Stories. For me LAP is still her greatest. Maybe not as cohesive or groundbreaking as Ray Of Light, but just as personal. And musically one of her best. Patrick Leonard is amazing.
Loved your reaction as usual. I love this album a lot. It has so many great tracks.
You are familoar with Madonnas voice and singing style POST Evita. Now you are about to be charmed with her PRE Evita voice ❤❤❤
@@patrykburski2148 yesss💙
The videos add a whole new dimension! 😉
@@TK-yf8sq i’m curious 👀
One of my fave Madonna albums
Only discovered your channel 2 days ago and I am LIVING for your reaction videos. Can’t wait for you to listen to ‘Bedtime Stories’ - my absolute favourite Madonna album.
@@Aidan_94 aw thank you so much 😭🕺🏻💙
She used the name Dita (mentioned in the Erotica song) as her alter ego in the SEX book. Both the record and its videos, the Sex book were considered a major scandal back in the 90ies. Back then she was probably the most hated woman in the world and she suddenly became a persona non grata. She continued with Erotica what she has started in 1990 with the song and video for "Justify my Love". Her exploration of female and gay sexuality, S&M etc. frightend a lot of people and she suffered for the first time in her career from major backlash.
G'day it's Steven from down under again
ALL HAIL THE QUEEN OF POP!
I'm struggling to forgive you about what you said about Frozen haha. come on, it's the most Epic song since "Like a prayer" and "Vogue" 😅
@@jeffs.s. It’s an amazing song! I don’t suddenly think it’s bad or anything, just doesn’t have as much replay value for me at this point in my life 💙
@@BethThereseReacts I get 😆😅. Just messing around with you
I Appreciate and am enjoying your honest Madonna reviews/reactions. Thanks for posting!
👍🏻✌🏻👍🏻
@@oceanlover3530 tthank you!!
As soon as this was suggested on my youtube I clicked! Yasss queen! Now… Madonna’s music is great on its own, but she truly is a visual artist, u should react to her music videos, she was a master at it, her and MJ basically turned music videos into an art from of its own
@@tommypicklez8285 i’d like to at some point! 💙
Omg!!! You posted on my day off!!! Iconic!!! ❤❤ also I LOVE Rain too!! It’s my fave on this album. The rain music video tho dude… WOW. one of my fave music videos of all time. Thanks for posting!!!
@@melvin1133 Love that!! 🕺🏻💙💙💙
Rain was the “ballad” the album needed similar to what she did with True Blue and Like A Prayer.
So exciting to watch reactions from someone who appreciates her artistry lol. Can’t wait until you get done with them all and we get your ranking^_^
@@nickeverritt8331 🥹💙💙💙