FEATURE:
Sky Fits Heaven
Madonna’s Drowned World Tour at Twenty
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IN 2021…
there are a few Madonna anniversaries to mark. Various singles and albums will/have celebrated big anniversaries. I think that marking various tour anniversaries is important, as it looks back at an important time in her career. The Drowned World Tour/Drowned World Tour 2001 is twenty this year. I think 2001 was a pivotal year in Madonna’s career. After releasing the iconic Ray of Light album in 1998 and following that with the excellent Music of 2000, she was embarking on this new phase in her career. Almost thirty years after her debut single, Everybody, was released, the Queen of Pop was still very much on the throne. I am interested in her tours and the concepts/tracks performed at each. Whilst the Drowned World Tour might not be as memorable and game-changing as The Blond Ambition World Tour (billed as Blond Ambition World Tour 90), it did bring together songs from two of her biggest albums. Although the setlists changed from night to night, a typical setlist shows what lucky crowds might have experienced on one of the nights. I think that the Drowned World Tour is really important. I will drop in a couple of videos to give a sense of what audiences witnessed during that run. I shall go on to an important date that fell during the tour that could have disrupted it hugely. Before that, some background regarding a hugely popular Madonna tour:
“The Drowned World Tour (billed as Drowned World Tour 2001) was the fifth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna in support of her seventh and eighth studio albums Ray of Light (1998) and Music (2000), respectively. The tour began on June 9, 2001 in Barcelona, Spain and ended in Los Angeles, California on September 15 of the same year. It was her first tour in eight years, following The Girlie Show in 1993. The tour was supposed to start in 1999, but was delayed until 2001 as Madonna gave birth to her son, married Guy Ritchie, was working on Music, and was busy filming The Next Best Thing. When the tour was decided, Madonna appointed Jamie King as choreographer and the tour was planned in a short timespan of three months, including signing up the dancers, musicians and technicians. Designer Jean-Paul Gaultier was the costume designer who designed the costumes in such way that they indicated different phases of Madonna's career. The poster and logo for the tour included references to Kabbalah, which Madonna studied.
The show was divided into five segments, namely Cyber-Punk, Geisha, Cowgirl, Spanish, and Ghetto. The setlist consisted mainly of songs from the last two studio albums released at that point, with 4 songs from previous albums added. The first segment displayed high-energy performances with Madonna wearing a kilt and dominatrix-style costumes. In the geisha segment performances Madonna wore a kimono and later performed airborne martial arts. Acoustic songs were performed in the country segment which featured Madonna in cowboy costumes. The Latin segment featured flamenco dancing and the last segment featured ghetto-themed performances. Drowned World Tour was critically appreciated from contemporary critics who complimented her ability to re-invent continuously.
This article gives you more information regarding a tour that was meant to start in 1999 - The tour was supposed to start in then, but was delayed until 2001 as Madonna gave birth to her son, got married to Guy Ritchie, was working on Music, and was busy filming The Next Best Thing. Whilst Madonna went around the world and received great reviews, the terrorist attacks on 11th September must have come as a huge shock. I think about artists who were touring at that time and how they must have felt. She postponed her 11th September date, though the 13th September date was very emotional:
“On September 13 2001, Madonna resumed the final string of dates on her Drowned World Tour after having postponed the September 11th show due to the terrorist attacks in New York. She donated the proceeds from her second Los Angeles concert on the 13th to benefit children who were orphaned following the tragic attacks that killed thousands of parents.
Several changes were made to soften some of the show’s violent theatrics for the final three shows: at the end of the Geisha segment she was lowered from the stage with her arm around the dancer’s shoulder instead of shooting him; her kilt in the opening section was changed to an American flag design; she did not perform The Funny Song but instead took the opportunity to share some more serious thoughts with the audience.
Madonna told the crowd at the Staples Center:
“Any of you who purchased a ticket to the show tonight will be contributing to a fund that will be for children orphaned by this tragedy, so thank you all. Now on a personal note I think that each and every one of us should look inside our own hearts and examine our own personal acts of terrorism, hatred, intolerance, negativity, the list goes on and on, we’re all responsible. If you are homophobic or racist or hate, you contributed to this disaster. It’s not just Bin Laden, it’s all of us, we’ve all contributed to hatred in the world today. And I would like to have one minute of silence to say a prayer for those who have died; to say a prayer for the friends and families of those who have died; to say a prayer for the rescuers who have worked night and day to rescue people from the rubble. And most of all say a prayer for anyone who thinks that it is right to kill in the name of God. Where there is violence, there is no God. Let’s have a moment of silence. Hold hands with those around you. Or stay still and reflect.”
A minute of silence followed before Madonna launched into Secret, which she prefaced by adding:
“One more thing–if you want to change the world, you must first start with yourself!”.
I will end with a review from one of the nights from The New York Times. It seemed like it was pretty stirring and striking being in the audience and witnessing the Drowned World Tour:
“It has been a long time since Madonna styled herself as a ''boy toy''; now everyone, boy or girl, is her plaything. What comes through her songs is an adamant determination. While her music still seeks to please pop ears, Madonna has long since given up flirting. And if she's narcissistic, her narcissism is backed up by the fact that people have been watching her for all those years.
The concert was a set of angry kiss-offs (''Human Nature''), non- apologies (''Nobody's Perfect''), nightmares (''Mer Girl,'' by far Madonna's strangest song), self-help manifestoes (''Frozen'') and metaphysics (''Ray of Light,'' in which she flies faster than light).
''What It Feels Like for a Girl,'' Madonna's quasi-feminist statement, turned up twice: first as a near-instrumental with Japanese anime cartoons showing a girl pursued, trapped and sexually abused, and later sung in Spanish with a pumping electronic beat.
Madonna has, as always, been diligent. Her voice sounded fuller and smoother than on previous tours, and she confidently exposed it in the ballads ''You'll See'' and ''I Deserve It,'' post-breakup songs that insist she'll recover. She picked up a guitar every so often, playing a punk girl at one point and a country gal (singing a ditty about cannibalism with a put-on Southern drawl) later. And while she danced more sparingly than she has in previous tours, she still made herself an object of authority and desire.
The female dancers and the two female backup singers often came forward to share Madonna's steps. The male dancers, however, followed her slavishly, throwing themselves at her only to be spurned. At one point, they were suspended high overhead by their feet, arduously curling themselves upward only to fall back again.
Through it all, Madonna made a display of arrogance, tossing off profanities, striking tough postures and glaring more often than she smiled. She represents self-love backed by plenty of gym time and a whole troupe of devoted flunkies -- enough to delight an audience she only seems to disdain. ''Music makes the people come together,'' she sang in the finale -- together, that is, if Madonna is in charge”.
I will leave it there. I think it is important to mark big anniversaries concerning iconic artists. Having not seen the Drowned World Tour myself, I have watched videos and seen photos and have got a sense of the atmosphere and drama. Aside from the horror of the terrorist attacks in September – that would have moved Madonna hugely -, it was a huge success. Even though the tour was restricted to North America and Europe (Madonna skipped Canada), all dates of sold out within minutes of going on sale. There were reports that the Drowned World Tour earned $76.8 million from forty-seven summer sold-out shows and eventually played in front of 730,000 people throughout North America and Europe, averaging at $1.6 million ($2.34 million in 2020 dollars per show. Drowned World Tour became the highest-grossing concert tour of 2001 by a solo artist, as well as the fourth highest-grossing among all, behind U2, N Sync and the Backstreet Boys (thanks to Wikipedia for that information). On 9th June, many Madonna fans around the world will mark twenty years…
SINCE one of the most-successful tours ever started.