(Credits: Far Out / Cher / Warner Records)
Tue 30 September 2025 17:30, UK
Whenever an artist has broken the mould, they’ve often broken a few noses along with it, because a natural byproduct of evolution is generally shock and awe.
Be it Elvis’ knee wobbling, making parents all over clutch their pearls, or Madonna‘s 1990 Blond Ambition tour, which was so sexually charged that even the pope had to get involved. It’s only now, with hindsight, that both of those artists and their methodology are heralded as groundbreaking.
Madonna’s career has been particularly perennially at the edge. It’s no coincidence that for the best part of four decades, she was one of the most talked about musicians in the world, constantly evolving with the times to mould her artistry and remain relevant.
It was, however, at the turn of the 1980s into the 1990s, where she was perhaps at her most innovatively controversial, thrusting pop music into the sort of sexual realms we’re now accustomed to. Once again, it was almost as though she had a window to the future, understanding how sexual liberation would translate to pop music, but at the time, it was deemed classless and deeply offensive to the actual music. It was a tour that made the headlines, attracted criticism from the entertainment elite, and so anaesthetised Madonna to the sort of high-profile feuds she would be regularly subjected to.
Musical icon Joni Mitchell decided to drag the singer’s name through the mud and use it as a reference point for a larger comment. Arguing that the introduction of video and visual performance has dampened the purity of music, she used Madonna as a rather shocking example: “Someone like Madonna can be seen as a feminist hero because she’s exploiting her own sexuality rather than being exploited by some man. That’s an interesting idea, but what’s the difference between her and a hard hooker, you know?”
Quite the interesting take from Mitchell and one that would have undoubtedly stung the pop icon. But it was one of many stray bullets she had to defend, for Mitchell joined the likes of Elton John and Michael Jackson as members of the Madonna critique club. But a more shocking name to join the ranks, given her own penchant for esoteric creativity, was Cher.
Despite having her own acute sense of what it takes to become an adaptable cultural icon, Cher was quick to label Madonna as merely talentless, saying, “She’s unbelievably creative because she’s not unbelievably talented, she’s not beautiful, but she’s rude.”
Adding, “So this man said, ‘How do you feel about her?’ and I said, ‘She’s nice, she’s creative, but she’s rude.’ I said a different word, but they bleeped me.”
In comparison to some of the criticism thrown Madonna’s way, being labelled rude and untalented is fairly tame. But as time has gone on, all that goddamn tension between the two musicians has somewhat dissipated, with a renewed sense of appreciation for their individual work overruling any animosity. In fact, in 2023, Cher finally conceded what so many have thought about Madonna, saying, “There’s no one like her that had their ear to the ground and knew everything before anybody else.”
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