On September 19 2015, Madonna performed Ghosttown for the first time on tour during a sold out Rebel Heart Tour stop in Brooklyn.
Madonna had never intended to perform the single from Rebel Heart during the tour and she had not rehearsed it with the band. Watch the performance:
Madonna opened her Rebel Heart Tour on September 9 2015, in Montreal, Canada.
Before the first show, Women’s Wear Daily shared some of the costume designs by Gucci, Prada, Moschino, Alexander Wang and Fausto Puglisi.
Alexander Wang commented on the process of selecting costumes:
“For her, the performance comes first. She has to be able to dance and move and feel comfortable in it”
Arianne Phillips also commented on the process:
“Madonna doesn’t really finalize any of the designs until 100 percent of the choreography is set. It’s a real back-and-forth conversation and it’s a brutal process for most fashion designers. You’re hanging in the balance while all the practical aspects are worked out, like the choreography and the quick-changes.”
On August 16 2015, singer/songwriter Joe Henry shared a touching birthday tribute to his sister-in-law, Madonna:
This is the young woman I met shortly after our family’s move to Michigan in 1975 – as I entered my sophomore year of high school and, she, her senior one. Together, we were in the Thespian Society; and in that winter’s first production, we were cast as mother and son – the wife and child of Ralph Waldo Emerson – in a play about Thoreau.
She was whip-smart and short on patience; and to tell the truth, she scared me more than a little, but along with her sister Paula, her presence upon my landscape nudged open a door through which I would pass and find my life utterly and forever changed…that unusual and sprawling family becoming, years later, my own.
No one is more surprised than I by the way our lives have expanded; by the way that our journeys have diverged and become entangled. Like anyone, I can sometimes forget to see the flesh and blood/heart and mind behind the parade float that is her public persona. But then I will find myself across the kitchen table from her, sharing a martini, and be additionally shocked to recognize anew the compact, terse-yet-compassionate human at the switches.
I have told this tale before, but it bears repeating: when Elvis Presley died on this date in 1977, this upstart professed in real-time that she felt his spirit had passed out of his body and through her own in exodus.
I laughed at her then for such outrageous self-possession, at the arrogance that I assumed must allow her to declare such publicly.
Today, when there is laughter, it is the laugh of recognition I hear – and it begins somewhere high above me, where things that once seemed implausible play with wild abandon and in broad daylight.
Happy Birthday, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone.
On August 6 2015, Madonna.com revealed the first Rebel Heart Tour poster.
What is your favourite Madonna tour poster? What did you think of the poster for the Rebel Heart Tour?
On June 23 2015, Liz Rosenberg announced her retirement as Madonna’s publicist.
During Madonna’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Madonna thanked Liz in her acceptance speech:
“She’s been — and still is — the head of publicity for my entire career. Now, does anybody understand the insanity of being my publicist for the last 25 years? Well, I think Liz was smoking a joint when I first met her. I walked into her office and she very politely stubbed it out in the ashtray. I don’t think she thought I knew she was smoking a joint but it was a little bit obvious. Anyway, we hit it off right away. She was my kinda girl — tough, irreverent and funny. And we’ve had a long and amazing chunk of time together.”
On June 11 2015, a Rick Nowels interview was featured at songwriteruniverse.com in which he spoke about how he came to collaborate with Madonna for the Ray Of Light sessions:
“I always wanted to work with Madonna. I loved her voice, her songwriting, and the great records she made with Pat Leonard, Stephen Bray and Nile Rodgers. In 1997 I was in New York for the Grammys. I was up for Album of the Year (as one of the producers) for Celine Dion’s Falling Into You. I was in Barney’s (store) getting a tie for the Grammys and I saw Madonna there. I introduced myself, and I told her that she didn’t get the credit she deserved as a songwriter. Which is true, but it’s also an awkward thing to tell a huge superstar! She was very cool and gracious. I ended up getting a meeting with her in L.A. a few weeks later. We wrote nine songs together — three made the Ray of Light album: The Power of Good-bye, Little Star and To Have and Not To Hold. The Power of Good-bye was a number one song in U.K. and Europe. It was a career-changing experience for me. Before that I had always done my co-writing with friends. But working with Madonna…it was the first time I had ever written one-on-one with a great artist/writer. After that I changed gears a little, and now I mostly collaborate directly with artists.”
On April 14 2015, Madonna appeared on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine’s 50th anniversary cover, to celebrate 50 years of power, provocation and living the Comso-girl life. The May issue featured four different covers of Madonna, with photos by Ellen von Unwerth.
Here’s a snippet of the interview between Cosmopolitan and Madonna:
On longevity in her career: “Popularity comes and goes. You need to know who you are, what you stand for, and why you’re here.”
On sexuality and ageism: “Don’t be fooled, not much has changed — certainly not for women. We still live in a very sexist society that wants to limit people. Since I started, I’ve had people giving me a hard time because they didn’t think you could be sexual or have sexuality or sensuality in your work and be intelligent at the same time. For me, the fight has never ended.”
On Internet haters: “You can hide behind your computer or your phone and say whatever you want — you’re not known. Could you say it to my face? Would you say it to my face? I doubt it.”
Today In Madonna History 