As a means to help stoke excitement for a deluxe edition of Eusexua (a.k.a. Deluxua), FKA Twigs has unleashed the first offering from it, “Perfectly.” And with it, yet another Jordan Hemingway-directed video. For Hemingway, in addition to being Twigs’ current bloke, has also been a creative constant during the Eusexua era, with the “Eusexua” and “Drums of Death” videos being his masterpieces out of all the visuals that have been birthed from the album (including “Perfect Stranger” [a “Beautiful Stranger” doppelgänger], “Striptease” and “Childlike Things”). Visuals that complement an overarching sound of well 90s-ness. But not just any kind of 90s-ness: Madonna’s kind of 90s-ness.
With “Perfectly,” the sound of 90s dance/electronica music remains decidedly Ray of Light, while the video reeks of “Human Nature” (and, now and again, the visualizer for Lola Young’s “Not Like That Anymore”). Which, as was the popular style of the decade (see also: the Kate Moss-starring CK One commercial), featured a stark white backdrop as Madonna and her dancers moved their bodies with choreographed abandon (sometimes from within the confines of “boxes,” sometimes not). The same kind of choreographed abandon that appears in “Perfectly.” The only thing that really sets it apart from the Jean-Baptiste Mondino-directed “Human Nature” video is the fact that there isn’t an S&M theme on the sartorial front (though there are some who choose to appear in latex). As for Twigs’ ensemble, it more closely aligns with the look M sported in the “Ray of Light” video: jeans (accessorized with a belt that features some metal of course) and a white, belly button-exposing tank top.
As for the rest of the “community” (as she calls them) that joins her, they all look as though they were plucked straight out of Michael Alig-era Limelight (and, accordingly, as though they, too, might appear on an episode of Geraldo). This includes the likes of Parma Ham, Kaiden Ford, Matteo Chiarenza Santini, Jace May, Eddy Soares, Maji Miyake-Mugler, Jaxon Willard, Max Cookward, Theo Papoui and Chadd Curry (a.k.a. Dahc Dermur VIII). All part of “the family that’s been birthed around Eusexua,” as Jordan Hemingway recently put it. These being the types of sentiments that Madonna has had about her own coterie of dancers, starting with the ones who accompanied her on her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour. And, although she would “switch cast members” with each new “cycle” in her creative life, she was always committed to establishing that kind of tight-knit bond with her dancers that could draw out so much more in a performance, thereby enhancing the project.
That level of comfortableness—of closeness—is apparent in “Perfectly,” a song that, fittingly, is all about embracing imperfections in the final product of a, shall we say, “art piece.” Because, for the true artist, a project can never be truly “perfect,” or even finished. There is no “final product,” only what’s forced to come out as a result of corporate deadlines. However, those artists who have managed to find themselves making decent dough off their art (usually by getting in bed with a corporation) occasionally find a workaround to keep “building on it” or “reinventing it” when it suits them (see also: St. Vincent with “Slow Disco”). For FKA Twigs, that’s been “releasing more music in this Eusexua era.” Granted, “Perfectly” was one of the first songs she wrote for the album. Even so, it seems as though it was for the best for her to wait to release it until now, after so much fan backlash to her cancellation of certain tour dates due to what she cited as visa issues—prompting some to call this era Flopsexua (a dig that should be filed under the “way harsh, Tai” category).
But since “Perfectly,” ironic in its title, is all about embracing the “messiness” of art (hell, of just being), it feels like a clapback on Twigs’ part. Complete with the caption, “This one’s for the times u were messy boots down, chaos with a heart, hard metal silver stiletto decking it on the concrete, bloody nose and all but u know [that] you did it PERFECTLY you absolute icon.” Co-produced by Twigs, Koreless and Xquisite Korpse (a.k.a. Matteo Chiarenza Santini), the dance-floor rhythms somehow complement the soft sweetness of Twigs’ voice as she sings, “Another day, leave it all to another day/Leave it all to another day, another me/And when I’m done, they’ll say I did it perfectly.” In this sense, “Perfectly” is also a love letter to the fans who think everything Twigs does is spun gold, no matter what. Or, as Madonna puts it in Truth or Dare, “Even when I feel like shit, they still love me.”
The hippie-dippy, “you get back what you put in” energy of Ray of Light is also present on lyrics like, “I love it all and it all loves me/The sweetest call, all over me/Another world and a stronger me/I think that I did it perfectly/All love is mine ‘cause I’m so lucky/A masterpiece, in hyperbole/I feel that something is calling me/I think that I did it perfectly.” Ah, if only Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) in Black Swan had listened to this song a few times, she might have spared herself some psychological damage.
Unfortunately, it took her dying for her art to finally decide, “I was perfect.” Twigs, in contrast, showcases, through the lens of this song, the ability to reconcile that “perfect” isn’t always going to look or sound exactly the way one envisioned it in their mind. And that reconciliation is part of the zen tone of the single. This includes Twigs shrugging, “Another life, fix it all in another life/Have it all in another life, another me.” In short, “If I can’t get it right in this life, I’ll try again in the next.” The notion of reincarnation (or “reinvention,” that Madonna-y word) having been present in the Eastern philosophy-infused Ray of Light era as well.
But it’s another Madonna song, “God Control,” that shines through in the lyrics, “A sky of blue, a sea of green/A messy room, fits perfectly/Inside my head I have the best time/Yes, in my head I have the best time” (sounds like the dissociative delights of Charles-Haden Savage’s White Room). It’s Madonna saying, “Insane people think I am/Brain inside my only friend” on “God Control” that evokes a similar message. And, to be sure, for the artist, inside of one’s own head is the only safe place (especially at present)…even if hardly the least chaotic.
To that point, it makes sense that Twigs would remark of Deluxua, “Eusexua is growing and I am still learning so much about her, it really just feels like the beginning. I can’t wait to share the world I am discovering more with you.” As for the other rumored tracks on the deluxe, they include “Sushi,” “birth HERe*,” “Sticky,” “Techno Ballet,” “Wild and Alone,” “Lonely But Exciting Road,” “Got to Feel,” Path of Destruction” and an Eartheater remix of “Striptease.”
Whether or not these songs are rendered “perfectly,” one need only remember that Madonna herself famously reiterated the old chestnut, “Nobody’s perfect,” on her 2000 song of the same name. So if Madonna, perfectionist extraordinaire, has come to feel that way, so, too, can Twigs. And maybe even you.
