Member Since: 2/28/2012
Posts: 19,176
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So I was at barnes & noble the other day, I just got off the work and I was waiting for my hubby to go shopping, and to kill some time I picked up “Cindy Lauper A Memoir” book just to see what she has to say about Madonna.So here are few words about Madonna from that book.
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When I became famous - I mean right away - the press always asked me about one person: Madonna.
They tried to create this big rivalry, but my feeling was, you don’t ****ing knock another sister, ever.But even her record company got in on it.They ran an ad in Billboard where she was dressed in a white corset.And it said something like “This girl gonna give Cindy Lauper a run for her money.” I felt really bad about it. Everybody else was fueled up by this supposed rivalry, but I was backing up, going “I don’t wanna do this, I don’t wanna be part of this.”
The thing was, our music wasn’t even similar. (Although if you ask me, her voice was sped up in "Like A Virgin" to make it sound high like mine.) She was so smart about business and marketing (I never was) and she always was, and still is, beautiful. I kind of went the other way because I had on the war and I purposely wore clothes that were rebellious, and antifashion sometimes, especially toward the end 1985, I remember I saw Madonna for the first time at the American Music Awards at the beginning of 1985. That year I was nominated for two awards, Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist (against Madonna) and Favorite Pop/Rock Female Video Artist (against Tina Turner). When I got up to make my acceptance for Favorite Pop/Rock Female Artist, I looked at Madonna sitting in the audience, and I felt so crummy, because she had "Like A Virgin" out and it was number one for six weeks in a row. I never had that kind of success in my life, ever. Neither had she, so I thought it was awesome for her.
So I thanked everybody and then I said, “I accept this award for the people that came before me and paved the way, and for the people that will come after me.” And I looked at her and thought, “Next year it will be you.” I meet her afterwards and said “Hey, that track of yours "Like A Virgin" is unbelievable, it’s so great, congratulations.” She was nice but it was a really short exchange, I never could have a conversation with her because she always had lots of people protecting her.
I remember Jon Pareles of the New York Times did an article comparing me again to Madonna and how I was going to do better than her, and blah blah blah. I didn’t think that was such a good idea, because you never know what will happen. And after True Colors, Madonna proved him wrong. She is brilliant at selling, and she didn’t fight her record company the way I did. I think the secret behind her success is that she would find someone who was really successful at what she wanted to do - a writer or a producer - and do it with them. I never did that. I never wanted to call up people I didn’t know. And she also had Warner Bros., and their VP Seymour Stein, behind her fighting the fight for her, and I just didn’t get that kind of support from my label. I was always fighting with them. Even Dave got caught up in the “Madonna rivalry.” One time he said, “Don’t you want to compete with Madonna?” I couldn’t believe it. I was just trying to stay focused and do my own thing.
And by the way, the song “Madonna *****” had absolutely nothing to do with Madonna.It was about the Madonna - ***** complex. But of course because of the thing with me and Madonna, that’s what people were going to think. Dopey me.
But Madonna herself brought that concept into her greatest, most provocative stuff, such as "Like A Prayer", which, not for nothing, made me love her. When I saw that video I said “Alright, she’s ****ing great”. She pushed all the buttons with that one - brilliant. And Pepsi dropped her after that video, not only she did wind up taking money from them, but she used that controversy to make the video even bigger, and everyone was it, everyone. When Pepsi pushed her down like that, what they really did they pushed her up. She just knew how to work that. And like I said before, I always put my best foot forward but I didn’t know how to manipulate the press. I had no business sense.
And Madonna had it and she still does.
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M on "American Life"
