Earth To Madonna – A Telecommunication

…Hello Madonna … It's me... Downward dog once if you can hear me… You came to me in ’98 via MTV’s plays of Frozen… you had henna squiggles on your hands, crows bursting out your chest, and a winter coat that transformed you into a dog… You were on a beach playing some sort of contorted version of Twister by yourself… You never cracked a smile… Must’ve been all those puy lentils for breakfast…

I was mesmerised. I was scared shitless. You the Maleficent to my Sleeping Beauty, I pricked my finger on my plastic CD cover of Ray Of Light and fell into an eternal slumber, entrapped by your pop genius; your own brand of holistic mumbo jumbo communicated via Eastern hums and foreign tongues, which I have never mastered but attempted to with religious obsession… You led me to the discovery of hummus. In Sainsbury’s. It was amazing…

Ever since the Queen of Pop turned World of Witchdoctor, Madonna and I have had telepathic communicative ability. I knew it all along. Now I have proof. Just weeks ago I was reminiscing about how much I love Ray Of Light’s producer William Orbit. It started with the new Washed Out album, the opening ocean-skimming beats of which recalled in my erudite mind the work of, erm, All Saints. It may be a genre-defining, paradigm of the latest hipster movement, yes. But it’s so almost a carbon copy of 2000’s second biggest hit single Pure Shores, which Orbit produced for the Appleton sisters, Melanie Blatt and whatsherface. Had Danny Boyle yet to direct The Beach, this Washed Out song would be a soundtrack contender.

One trigger leads to another. I’m compiling playlists, lining up Blur’s 13 on repeat, whiling away office hours revisiting Ray Of Light and Orbit’s remix of Barber’s Adagio For Strings. Yes! Here I am! Going into William Orbit! All this replenished capacity for beach-friendly electronica and Karmic pop chanting has me feeling guilty about missing three weeks of Ashtanga yoga, fearful I no longer own a red Kabbalah ribbon (my piece of string got lost in the fell-down-a-loo incident of 2008). I go hunting in my stash of travel sewing kits for red thread but find maroon.

Regardless of my misplaced spirituality, Madonna must have intercepted my Orbital-y signals. Obviously, as the internet on Sunday claims that Madonna and Orbit may reunite on a new record. I know what you’re thinking – 2011’s Most Influential In Music list has got my name all over it. Yet, I’m not sure whether my telepathic tips were such a good idea. Madonna’s misinterpreted what the (Buddhist version of) hell I was doing.

Sitting in a vegan hippy joint in Camden, I consider my reaction. There are shots of wheatgrass for sale; invigorating, earthy, weird. Hemp and incense surrounds the dreadlocked, multi-coloured, knit-wearing community. They look a bit 1998. The days when Rabbi Madge was trying to repopularise the Star of David are behind us. Richard Dawkins is the new religion, the recession is anti-bottled water/pro-meat casseroles, and yoga’s something you do on a Wii Fit… in front of a telly. William Orbit-era Madonna, while once ahead of the game, now redolent of time and place. It’s not even “vintage”; it’s moth-eaten.

See, Madonna’s not like other women. She doesn’t need to do a spring revisit to the wardrobe and inspect yesteryear’s garments for potential trend comebacks. Madonna didn’t go sifting for shoulder-padded jackets when, in 2008, La Roux took a ride on the Tardis to the year 1987. Madonna isn’t today looking at Nirvana t-shirts in Urban Outfitters exclaiming, “Thank Goa, grunge is back in – I’ll dig out my Doc Martens and see if Shirley Manson wants to come round for tea.” No.

Madonna is about reinvention. She takes the great morsels of bygone eras (Marlene Dietrich, Andy Warhol, Abba…) and mutates them into something state-of-the-art, contemporary. What is Madonna if not the avant-garde pioneer of popular culture; the commercially viable Yoko Ono? What’s to say this re-partnering isn’t an instance of a revival we only have room for in our wildest dreams? Vanilla Ice, the Wispa, EastEnders’ Dirty Den, The (New) Cars… Next in line of awkward comebacks is Madonna, spinning Cream Ibiza Classics in the kitchen, scouring for RyanAir deals to Balearic seas. Just as coffee tables don’t need a second helping of the Sex book, the world can’t require more Madonna above a highway, braless and dancing convulsively, shaking her beaded Herbal Essences curls to trance beats. Not now. Not ever.

Madonna! Telekinesis me now. Stop gatecrashing my iTunes trips down memory lane. Time to get ahead of the curve again. “Madonna secures guest vocalists The XX and Warpaint. Inside the Haus of Gaga. Relocated to the set of The Dark Knight Rises.” This is the sort of Biblical headline I want to read. You have many reincarnations yet to explore. Here are some humble suggestions…

1. Madonna surfs “Chillwave”: If Washed Out also screamed William Orbit at you, bite the bullet and bag the new genre’s posterboy himself – Ernest Greene. Also dubbed Glo-Fi, the Chillwave movement offers the Donnie Darko superpower of time travel. Exist in 1980 and 2011 simultaneously and defy time and space. It’s like Polaroid gone digital. (New merchandise alert!).
2. Madonnicana: Bon Iver would like to invite you to a log cabin to toast some marshmallows and reminisce about your past loves. Herein lies potential for fashioning accessories out of wood, popularising bearskin caps (strictly faux) and becoming the first ever female popstar with a full beard. Beautiful Razor… coming to a future Twilight soundtrack.
3. M-androgyny: See if Prince wants a revolution, call Jack White, grab your Gibson Les Paul and Slash hat and start shredding Led Zeppelin IV. Alison Mosshart was Best Man at Kate Moss’s wedding and Lady Gaga looks like Al Pacino on her new single sleeve. You know what it feels like for a girl, time to know what it feels like for a rock God. Bender that gender.
4. Freakfolk Madonna: Join Animal Collective, MGMT, Twin Shadow and Ariel Pink and get your twee on. Fuse any sort of sound together (the more household objects/old Nintendo effects the better) in a psychedelic jam of newer age hippy proportions. Hunker down in Brooklyn, NY with the Hasids and wackos who gaze at their moccasins through non-prescription glasses.
5. Dubstep-onna: Burial, Four Tet, Magnetic Man and James Blake provide the urban sounds of nocturnal London, deserted tube stations and abandoned donner kebabs. It’s difficult to dance to, but who needs a leotard when you can seduce the masses at 138 beats per minute? Human nature, innit.