Do you still like Madonna, even after all these years?

I was a fan ***OF*** Madonna, not Madonna's music per sé. When I was a tween girl, Madonna was everything a little girl wanted to be. Strong, independent, quick, cool, and gorgeous. It's as if I knew exactly how I wanted to head into my teen years through her influence. Madonna's music sort of came with the package when she first struck it big, so of course I did like "Like a Virgin", and through the discovery, enjoyed her debut album "Madonna". By default, I did purchase and (sort of) liked "True Blue", but I noticed a marked difference in who she was by that time. She was married by then, cut her hair all off, bottled blonde, and sort of looked like a sexy version of most people's grandma with her haircut choice and the way she did her make up. She wasn't the Desperately Seeking Susan-esque character of herself anymore. By then we were learning that Madonna's schtick was all about reinventing herself. So when "Like a Prayer" came out, I remember thinking, nope.. she's lost it on me. She became gimmicky. The film Who's That Girl didn't help, with her intensely annoying Nikki Finn cartoon character. I noticed that Madonna herself enjoyed phases, and she was responding to her love of things from the 50s that I just wasn't in to. After that, her image, message, and music drifted further and further away from what I initially liked her for. Other musicians could retain their sense of self both in image and sound while rolling with the times, but Madonna just seemed to completely implode and recreate something unrecognizable. Anyway, I mourn the 1980s Madonna. Who she was, and her whole attitude and style and whatever music reflected that. Beyond that, she just seemed to be a try-hard with her attempts to shock with oversexualization. (It was the 90s. No one was shocked by then.) And by then, her dance music was too lack-lustre to be great to a young fan that liked her 80s years.

I was a fan ***OF*** Madonna, not Madonna's music per sé. When I was a tween girl, Madonna was everything a little girl wanted to be. Strong, independent, quick, cool, and gorgeous. It's as if I knew exactly how I wanted to head into my teen years through her influence. Madonna's music sort of came with the package when she first struck it big, so of course I did like "Like a Virgin", and through the discovery, enjoyed her debut album "Madonna". By default, I did purchase and (sort of) liked "True Blue", but I noticed a marked difference in who she was by that time. She was married by then, cut her hair all off, bottled blonde, and sort of looked like a sexy version of most people's grandma with her haircut choice and the way she did her make up. She wasn't the Desperately Seeking Susan-esque character of herself anymore. By then we were learning that Madonna's schtick was all about reinventing herself. So when "Like a Prayer" came out, I remember thinking, nope.. she's lost it on me. She became gimmicky. The film Who's That Girl didn't help, with her intensely annoying Nikki Finn cartoon character. I noticed that Madonna herself enjoyed phases, and she was responding to her love of things from the 50s that I just wasn't in to. After that, her image, message, and music drifted further and further away from what I initially liked her for. Other musicians could retain their sense of self both in image and sound while rolling with the times, but Madonna just seemed to completely implode and recreate something unrecognizable. Anyway, I mourn the 1980s Madonna. Who she was, and her whole attitude and style and whatever music reflected that. Beyond that, she just seemed to be a try-hard with her attempts to shock with oversexualization. (It was the 90s. No one was shocked by then.) And by then, her dance music was too lack-lustre to be great to a young fan that liked her 80s years.