The truth about 'Hung Up'
Dare we call it a comeback? Dissecting Madonna's mid-noughties pop juggernaut.
The truth about everything* is different every week! This week, it’s the turn of THE MADONNA DIARIES, a series of personal essays about Madonna’s back catalogue.
As a fan, to see Madonna on the back foot can be a painful experience. Or it would be, if history hadn’t shown us that, usually, a cornered Madonna means things are about to get really interesting. Either she’ll double-down and descend further into whichever mire the media has decided she belongs in, or she’ll check herself into creative rehab and emerge refreshed, reinvented, and ready.
2005. Where were we? I was heading for my 30th birthday (writing about myself as a 29-year-old feels like I’m imagining some alien) and had lived in London for nearly three years. I was still firmly in my ugly stage. I had a very, very bad haircut, the longest it’s ever been – think Brandon Flowers in the early days – which I tortured into submission with cheapo Argos hair straighteners every morning. That sickening sizzle and the biscuity, frazzling smell of damp hair between clamps of ceramic still makes me shudder to think of it. I dressed in clothes that were both too big and too small for me, my jeans wider than the English Channel, trailing behind me like a frayed wedding dress train, grubby with the dirt that holds London together. I bought T-shirts off Threadless, was not acknowledging my adult acne, and had my first ‘proper’ London job, editor at a digital media agency, when they were a thing. The most mid-nougthies late Gen-X London-dwelling existence you can imagine. It was an eventful year. That summer, I (for some reason given I hate sport) celebrated that the Olympics were coming to London, had a terrorist blow up a bus right in front of me, and I heard a snippet of ‘Hung Up’ for the very first time.
Madonna was climbing her way out of a difficult spell in her career. I will definitely talk about this in a future edition of The Madonna Diaries, but her American Life album had been a commercial disappointment – comparatively, many midlist popstars would kill for such global sales – and everyone was waiting to see what she would do next. There were rumours she would head in a rockier direction next – since-leaked demos seem to back up this theory – but it was clear something would have to change. (There is an alternative explanation for this about-turn, something to do with a Luc Besson film or whatever, but let’s be real, popstars crave hits as well as creative freedom.) Although I’m not a huge fan of American Life, I can admit this sparse, introspective, electronic journey was ahead of its time. It was also, almost certainly, the last time Madonna’s career felt it was evolving naturally, creatively, with each successive iteration, but perhaps a curveball is exactly what she needed at that time. We got one.
Madonna was living in the UK in 2005, as part of her bizarre cosplay as submissive wife to bulldog-in-Burberry movie director Guy Ritchie. I never saw her around – although she was often rumoured to be in Waitrose on Marylebone High Street – but I liked the idea of her living here. She felt closer, and more interesting; it’s just a shame she had to spend those years in a marriage that sounds like it was hell for both of them. Her ‘comeback’ was the subject of much fascination – Madonna’s fallow spells are not like everyone else’s, there has always, no matter what her chart performance, been interest in what she is doing – and after arguably stealing the show at the Live8 benefit in Hyde Park, and teasing her ‘new record’ was on its way, Madonna spent the very end of the summer nursing broken bones after being thrown off a horse at her… sigh, country estate in Wiltshire. Madonna! In Wiltshire! I wonder if she ever popped into Swindon Primark.
I remember being worried the new album would be delayed, but as usual, I underestimated Madonna. The campaign charged on, starting with a snippet of ‘Hung Up’ appearing in a Motorola advert, which Madonna would front, wearing a stylish black sling for her broken arm. I remember so clearly scouring the usual murky download sites for this (instrumental, as it turned out) clip. The huge rumour that it contained an ABBA sample seemed too ridiculous to be true – Madonna would never do such a thing, be so blatant about her much-documented cultural vampirism (or at least not with a piece of music already so mainstream). I asserted it would be a ‘subtle’ sample, like the jangle of ‘Jungle Boogie’ running through ‘Erotica’. Again, would I ever learn not to underestimate Madonna? The snippet, which took aeons to download over my terrible broadband connection – do people still say broadband? – was not subtle. It was frantic, it was slightly shrill, it was fast. It sounded very promising.
‘Hung Up’ was an apologia, a mission statement, a threat, and a promise.
‘I know I freaked you out last time,’ she seemed to be saying, ‘maybe I got too deep. Come with me back to the dance floor and we can work this out.’
Ignoring if you will the radio edit, which is like when you buy a packet of crisps and they’ve forgotten to flavour them, the album version of ‘Hung Up’ starts with a ticking clock. Ticking clocks are annoying – they keep you awake (well, me, anyway, I can’t sleep in the same room as one), and they remind you that life is a countdown. Madonna was 47 when ‘Hung Up’ was released – coincidentally the age I am right now, writing this, how the hell did this happen – and her work had begun to acknowledge the passage of time as a motivator to carry on, be better. Although long written off because of her age – the Smash Hits double page-spread headlined ‘Calm Down Grandma’ from when she was 34 is often cited as the beginning of this trend – Madonna was perhaps feeling it more then ever after her brush with mortality after the riding accident. Even though the parent album Confessions on a Dance Floor was likely finished by the time she took a tumble, there’s a sense of foreboding among the pumping dance beats. Indeed, in places, it’s no less deep than its moody predecessor American Life, but the blinding disco lights serve to distract you. Clever.
Pre-empting her critics, Madonna got in possibly the best shape of her life to prepare for this campaign. When the video for ‘Hung Up’ was debuted on Channel 4 one night – I can’t remember why artists or the channel did this, it was just something that happened every now and again – many were in awe. It was a very exciting time to be a Madonna fan, yet again, because even though ‘Hung Up’ was born of some serious wound-licking and chanting or whatever, Madonna hadn’t looked this confident in years.
Was it a regression, of sorts? Yes and no. Madonna had long experimented with hopping on and off the dance floor, and the ABBA sample, the other hints of homages throughout the album, reused lyrics, and the ‘Saturday Night Fever’ blow-dry gave the project a nostalgic feel, like she was trying to win the world back. But there was innovation here too, thanks to the guiding hand of Stuart Price. The best part? Madonna felt hungry again, starving actually. She’s at her best when she’s on the hunt. She was not ready to let go of the limelight.
Shall we talk about the video?
London. Not just the London you see on TV, from drone footage of Tower Bridge and grainy stock film of a Routemaster bus wobbling round Piccadilly Circus, but actual grimy London, down the road from where I would eventually live. Madonna felt within touching distance as she strutted down the (now impossibly gentrified) streets of Southwark. But first, the extended warmup section in the dance studio, the impatient buzz of the fluorescent lighting stuttering into life, Madonna disrobing from one of the many Adidas tracksuits she was papped in wherever she went, and emerging in… what was this? As campaign looks go, it was certainly more lo-fi than what we were used to. A flimsy wraparound pink top over a leotard – a leotard! They still existed?! – in the same hue, while downstairs we had footless tights and old-school slingbacks that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Strictly Come Dancing, whose third series started the week ‘Hung Up’ was released.
Obviously, she looked great. Youthful and energetic but in a natural way. The yoga poses, the twirling – nothing felt overdone or try-hard, just her authentic self. The cutting away to various young people around the world dancing to the track served to show that any beat could move you and it didn't matter how old the person singing was (which is TRUE, I wish we could get over ourselves sometimes), to hook in younger viewers and listeners and prove she was still relevant, and maybe to hark back to her early days as a street kid where she likely did exactly the same thing. I’m not entirely sure this worked. In the moment, it felt like a distraction. As talented as all the dancers are – some would go on tour with her the following year – in a Madonna video, you want to see Madonna. She knows this, of course, offering a remedy (perhaps a little later than she should’ve) when the disco-dancing youth from across the world find themselves magically transported to Union Street (or near enough) round the back of Southwark Bridge Road. (Witness the kids seen earlier dancing in the blue-ish taxi in the USA pulling up inLondon in a black cab and wondering how the hell they got there.) The magnetism of Madonna compels them. She appears, in a black leather jacket, jeans, and boots, as a dance-off takes place in a discofied Jubilee line train.
The final part of the video is Madonna being pure Madonna. She humps a ghetto blaster; she is partially undressed by good-looking strangers in a dark club as she slides over them like a tarpaulin being thrown over garden furniture; she chucks someone off a Dancing Stage Fusion machine – verrrrrrry mid-noughties – and then gives it every bit as much energy as the striplings she now commands. Madonna fans the world over punched the air. They’d stuck by her through thick and thin, obviously, but life is sweeter when your idols are winning; they’re easier to love.
We were blessed too, with some banging performances, kicking off with the song’s live debut at the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards, which looked like possibly the most fun she’d had onstage in a long time. It was cool, chic, yet ultimately, camp. She looked nervous, the vocals are shaky in places, but she’s utterly in control and by the second half she’s having the time of her life. (There was an edited rerun for the Grammys the following year with better vocals but missing a runway and some of the extra confidence Madonna seems to exude when she’s performing for European audiences – maybe a home crowd makes her feel more judged?)
Tip: whenever you watch any live performance, but especially the ones from this era, watch the dancers, look at their faces – there isn’t anywhere else they’d rather be.
Some urgent questions before I close:
Why only one glove when she’s on the Dancing Stage Fusion game?
And are they sweat patches or just shadows on the fabric under her arms?
Vogueing aside, is ‘Hung Up’ her best video choreography? She was certainly fond of it, reusing it for live performances (she’s always been a keen recycler, nothing is wasted on a one-off).
Is the belt she’s wearing in the strut down Union Street the same belt she’s wearing in the dance studio? Looks like it might be. Couldn’t find an alternative or just really loved the belt? (It looks green in the sequel video for ‘Sorry’, so maybe not the exact same one.)
Why are the footless tights rolled up so inconsistently? Sometimes one lower than the other, almost to the ankle? Other times rolled right up to below the knee? A rare disregard for continuity from Madonna.
This is a good hair colour on Madonna – how long did she keep it for?
The original official story about the ABBA sample has always been that Madonna sent an ‘emissary’ with a handwritten letter to charm Benny and Björn – but in the Song Exploder podcast in 2022, Madonna claimed ‘I decided to pay them a visit, honestly expecting them to turn me down’. So which is true?
Isn’t it kind of touching how genuinely happy Madonna looks when she’s twirling? ⬇️
We shouldn’t really have called it a comeback. She hadn’t been away that long. But ‘Hung Up’ felt like one, almost lasering out of existence certainly American Life, despite a smidge of Stuart Price on that album, and even parts of Music and Ray of Light too. It was a return to hugeness, to frivolity; it was a song made for the radio, to lure revellers young and old back to the dance floor. You could argue it’s one of the most cynical moves Madonna has made in her career, like she held a focus group and used bizarre alchemy to conjure up the perfect formula for a hit. But it doesn’t matter. More popstars – perhaps even Madonna herself – should realise this. When you’re eager for a hit, or a song that will live on way beyond its campaign, you don’t always have to look within. A song needn’t be emotionally draining or hugely intelligent and educational to touch you, a message is not compulsory. Sometimes, the sound, the melodies, the beats, are enough to move you. If you want to be remembered for ever, take us dancing.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock.
In other news
I was on the TV the other day, talking about red flags vs green flags on BBC One show Sunday Morning Live, along with fellow author Rosie Wilby. Have had quite an abnormal response to the green sweatshirt – it’s from Colorful Standard. If you’re interested, it’s on BBC iPlayer – my bit starts at 39m45s
The Guardian Blind Date this week was a mismatched low-scoring gritted-teeth disaster by the sound of it. Obviously, I reviewed it for you.