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No Middle Ground

Music fans have ample reasons to either love Madonna or hate her

The most anticipated concert of the year, Madonna's Drowned World Tour, is inspired by the apocalyptic vision of J.G. Ballard.

Several decades ago, Ballard wrote four science-fiction novels, including "The Drowned World," in which the hero seeks truth and knowledge in a new world shaped by catastrophes involving air, fire, water and earth.

So Madonna has sectioned her concert into four episodes. She starts with 1) punks in kilts, who move on to 2) a fiery set featuring geishas and martial-arts fighters, then 3) cowgirl Madonna rubs up on a mechanical bull, and finally there's 4) a flamenco-dancing finale.

Fans who haven't seen the two-hour show on HBO this week can expect to hear lots of recent electronica-influenced work, and not many older hits. That's Saturday and Sunday at the MGM Grand Garden arena. The running set list has, for instance, included "Music" but not "Like a Virgin."

For Madonna to leave out many fan favorites is typical of her artistic/pretentious inclinations, which make her loved/hated for various reasons. Let's consider some of the greedy, artistic, experimental, brave and stupid things that repel/attract fans to the most excellent self-promoter.

Ten reasons to hate

Madonna

1. She has developed an annoyingly affected British accent. Isn't she from Michigan? Who died and made her queen of England?

2. She's a snoot. The latest example of her hubris was described by Rebecca Grant, a TV sports anchor, in FHM magazine. Grant was asked what the worst job she ever had was, and she replied: "Working with Madonna! She was a bitch. I asked her a simple question, like, `How do you know this director?' and she said, `I own a record company. If you didn't know.' I was like, `Excuse me for living.' "

3. Madonna reportedly has become so spoiled that she has boasted she has never changed one diaper for either of her two children, Lourdes and Rocco.

4. Madonna can't act, but she keeps trying. Film critic Roger Ebert on her performance in "The Next Best Thing": "Madonna never emerges as a plausible human being in the movie; she's more like a spokeswoman for a video on alternative parenting lifestyles. She begins the movie with a quasi-British accent, but by the halfway mark we get line readings like `we can be in each other's lifes' (a Brit, and indeed many an American, would say `lives')." Ebert on "Body of Evidence": "The movie stars Madonna, who after `Bloodhounds of Broadway,' `Shanghai Surprise' and `Who's That Girl?' now nails down her title as the queen of movies that were bad ideas right from the beginning."

5. She's greedy to a fault. If you want to buy a nice tour souvenir, the embroidered tour jacket, it will cost you $795. She also made a financial agreement with America Online so that AOL customers could buy concert tickets a week before tickets went on sale to the public. It's bad enough she's charging as much as $350 for tickets in Las Vegas, and as much as $250 in other cities. It's worse that she forced longtime fans to either pony up extra dough to join AOL or to wait a week for the whatever seats remained.

6. She has synthesized vanity to greed. Madonna has reportedly been working with the BBC on a Madonna documentary. Not only have BBC higher-ups decided to name it "I Love Madonna," but they've reportedly agreed to give Madonna some of the sales of the documentary.

7. She isn't a pure fan-pleaser. Madonna dislikes her own music from the 1980s so much now that she refuses to play more than two songs from her early years. After a recent Florida show, fans offered two types of comments to reporters. One typical fan: "I loved it, I loved it, it was worth any ticket price, unbelievable." Another: "Lousy. I didn't hear the songs that made her famous."

8. She's not the greatest record label mogul. She has been overseeing a troubled label, Maverick, that recently sacked six executives in one effort to stop the company's losses, which reportedly reached $60 million. Running a troubled label does not help its struggling musicians.

9. She's shying away from her full-bore slut mode. Madonna denied picking up any strippers at Atlanta's Gold Club, after a former Gold Club manager testified in court that she picked up a stripper there named Baby. And she's upset that a business is selling Madonna condoms. Is she repressing, or is she just upset that she's not profiting off of these two developments?

10. She's a litigious girl. Madonna sued a Web site owner who was using the domain name "madonna.com." Her lawyers claimed he didn't have a trademark right to the word, even though "madonna" is a generic dictionary word. According to Bully magazine, the guy who owned "madonna.com" didn't try to blackmail Madonna into buying the domain. But he did try to pass "madonna.com" onto the Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital in Lincoln, Neb., and Bully reported that Madonna threatened to sue the hospital if it took the domain name. She claimed the site owner tarnished her name, because he had been posting porn on the site. (To revisit Madonna's reputation, please see the book "Sex," Madonna's collection of naked pictures of herself.) She won the domain name by appealing to the World Intellectual Property Organization, which had previously ruled against Sting in his "sting.com" appeal.

Ten reasons to love

Madonna

1. She made it easier for women to act like whores in public. She slutted it up in music videos such as "Like a Virgin" and "Justify My Love." Women musicians, fans and other celebrities have felt more comfortable flexing their sexuality ever since. This is a good thing.

2. Even while acting whorish, she empowered women to be strong equals. Female musicians found the post-Madonna scene an easier place to score record contracts and to get their music played on the radio. Without Madonna, we may never have heard of, among others, Alanis Morissette. Madonna signed Morissette on her own label to make songs such as the one about the girl on her knees in a movie theater.

3. Madonna has sung melancholy well, typified by the sad waltz, "Oh Father": "You never wanted to live that way. You never wanted to hurt me. Why am I running away?" (She co-wrote the song, releasing it in 1989.)

4. She nailed sweet resignation in "Take a Bow": "I've always been in love with you. I guess you've always known it's true. You took my love for granted. Why, oh, why? The show is over, say good-bye." (Written by Babyface and released in 1994.)

5: She described herself better than anyone else in "Take a Bow": "You're one lonely star. One lonely star, and you don't know who you are."

6. Dennis Rodman: "Madonna looked at me all sexy and said, `You're staying with me, in my room.' "

7. On her current tour, Madonna is making fellow celebrities, including her friends, pay for their own tickets to see her onstage. Who paid? Mick Jagger, Angelina Jolie, Elton John, George Michael and Usher. Europe's Dot Music reports "a source close to Madonna" as saying, "It's not often that people like Elton have to pay for a ticket, but obviously he can afford it."

8. She makes people feel strong emotions. An Irish Times reviewer wrote of Madonna's "Music": "In the annals of bad records, this one has legs -- it is very conceivably worse than the `Birdie Song,' `Aga Doo' and the last Phil Collins combined. Some books, songs and films really do make you believe that the chief ape in `Planet of' was right when he maintained that human beings were lower than chimps: 'Music' is one of them. Give 1,000 chimps access to recording equipment for 100 years and they would not, could not, produce anything as boring as this castrated, truncated funk."

9. The American Family Association condemned her. The Vatican spoke out against her. MTV won't air several of her music videos. To upset American fuddy-duddies, the pope and MTV all at the same time is a musical feat of almost unparalleled chicanery.

10. She ruined a few hours of Eminem's life. The rapper sat through one of her concerts and declared later that he didn't like it so much that he would "rather sit in the dentist's chair" than see her again. Well done, Madonna. Jolly good, old girl!

Madonna has said her new tour was inspired by punk rock, the circus, martial arts, country music and flamenco, among other things.
AP Photo

what: Madonna

when: 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

where: MGM Grand Garden arena, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd. South

tickets: $75-$350 (sold out)