Madonna's Living It Up and We're All Invited.

Madonna has never claimed she's got a top drawer set of pipes. There's reason to buy that contention. The one time Material Girl is sure she knows how to get everybody's attention. For better and numerous times for worse that's been the template stenciling her career. What you can be sure of is Madge, as she's called colloquially, knows her way around a dance floor. Early 2015 shall herald the arrival of "Rebel Heart". Smashing in its role as appetizer we're gifted with "Living For Love", a house scented fragrance that gives Madonna free reign to play the throaty vamp and the excitable schoolgirl. Early on you don't get the impression she's going to let loose with a club banger that begs for jello shots at the least, Chablis Blanc at the most. In fact her backdrop doesn't stray too far from the piano end of the spectrum. No need for impatience my little Madonna-holics. Not far from the starting line this bass heartbeat pumps at the right tempo to get the uninhibited in top form. Simultaneously wallflowers get ample motivation to be part of the action. Madonna's giving respect to each end of her career. There are traces of the budding diva who brought us "Vogue" and "Dress You Up". The well rounded woman responsible for "MDNA" rears her defiant head too. Usually Madonna doesn't cast herself as the victim in her romantic tete a tetes. Lyric stanza one from "Living For Love" ends with Madonna having become captured by a man's wiles only to find he put a shot through her heart (Nice homage to Bon Jovi's "You Give Love A Bad Name"). Her dalliance starts out promisingly enough. What's not to like? Girl loves boy. She lets him into her life. He empowers her, makes her strong. Eventually she feels she can do wrong. How mistaken she turns out to be. Where were the alarm bells? Out of sight out of mind I figure. She went from flying high to alone in the dark (Bonnie Tyler, she wasn't trying to cheapen your "Total Eclipse of the Heart"). The dance mayhem gets cranking after Madge gets up off the ground, dusts herself off, and vows not to give up. Euphoria replaces the pervasive bleakness of the previous stanza. The more she liberates herself, the smokier the club atmosphere becomes. Later on, she commends herself on not wallowing in bitterness. She's giving herself license to salute her growth as a human being. The killer lyric in this risen from disaster ditty has to be: "I deserve the best and it's not you." Remember Madonna at any phase in her carries the same weight as E.F. Hutton did in those commercials of yesteryear. People do pay attention when Madge kicks some schmuck to the curb. Unless you're taking up residency on Mars, you're aware that Madonna thrives as the ultimate culture chameleon. As an ingenue she racked up the pop hits. As a sexual rebel she turned heads both in her favor and, as her Sex coffee tabled styled read hinted at, away from her. Joyous motherhood (or is that Madonnahood?) informed the "Ray of Light" outing. By the turn of the new millennium she got back to crowding dance floors with "Music" and "Confessions on a Dance Floor". It's nice to see "Living For Love" carrying on that beloved tradition. Madonna's inner rebel comes out to play in this instance, and the results should serve as reminder to today's dance divas that it was she who carried the torch. Any residual flame represents her generosity of spirit. "Living For Love" isn't apt to die off anytime soon.