Way back in 1992, this week marked the release of Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ album and ‘Sex’ book – one of the most infamous career moments in what had at that point been nothing but one more outrageous act after another. This one-two cum-and-go assault from the pop stratosphere was an unprecedented and thus far unmatched height of controversy and capitalism. ‘Sex’ the book sold out, ‘Erotica’ sold less than the typical Madonna album, and Madonna was everywhere in the news (witness the covers of Newsweek, Vogue, Vanity Fair, New York Magazine, NME etc.) It was a highlight for any diehard Madonna fan, and my fandom was at its most powerful and potent, resulting in an absolute obsession with this particular period of Madonna history.
My personal and family life was a bit of hellish nightmare, finding me in a state of extreme depression and despondency, desperately and dangerously close to suicide – a continuation from the previous year – and the attempts became more concrete. Credit Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ album for keeping me alive one more day, just to hear how it all played out, and sometimes that one day is the difference between survival and something else.
With over three decades of time to digest and critically assess the work of this period, it seems to me that ‘Erotica’ actually fares slightly better than ‘Sex’, and both are neat little time capsules of early 1990’s sound and aesthetic. The ‘Erotica’ album brought such enduring classics as ‘Deeper and Deeper‘ and ‘Rain‘ – both sound as delicious as they did the first spin around, while lead single ‘Erotica‘ still slinks and struts with spiky heels in sinister fashion. ‘Bad Girl‘ is both more potent and more poignant all these years later, and final track ‘Secret Garden‘ remains an underrated masterpiece in sonic atmospheric moodiness. It’s telling that on her most recent Celebration Tour, Madonna included, by my count, four selections from ‘Erotica’ – clearly she has some love left for this cheeky section of a career that has since rebounded and rebuilt itself, while maintaining the defiance and ballsy brash ebullience from her earliest days.
