The anticipation for Madonna to return to the spotlight with new music has continued to mount in the, unfathomably, seven years since she last came out with an album (2019’s Madame X). And while she’s provided fans with a few singles in between (including one of her most successful [even if she was “only” a featured artist on it], “Popular”), Madonna has remained more focused on other projects in recent years. Most notably, conceiving of and embarking on The Celebration Tour (after narrowly escaping a brush with death in part due to her rigorous tour rehearsals) and continuing to try to make her much-talked-about biopic happen (with Julia Garner still currently attached as the star to play Madonna). Then, of course, there’s been her by now long-teased “sequel” to 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor. Since, evidently, the music industry is at such a nadir that even the most iconic artists feel like they have to “reboot” musical projects of the past (as Lady Gaga also did with Mayhem, which amounts to her 2025 mash-up of The Fame and Born This Way).
And one supposes that, out of all Madonna’s albums from the twenty-first century, COADF remains, apart from Music, her most beloved (especially since others, like Hard Candy and MDNA, get a lot of unwarranted flak). Hence, her decision to “revisit” it, complete with once again tapping Stuart Price to produce. Indeed, after working with Madonna in various ways throughout the 2000s (starting with being the musical director on her 2001 Drowned World Tour), Price saw a major uptick in cachet, going on to produce and/or write for such acts as The Killers, Kylie Minogue, Pet Shop Boys, Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware. So to see him team up again with Madonna is very a full-circle, high-potential moment.
Alas, the first “taste” of their new collaboration era is a cover of Patty Pravo’s 1968 single, “La Bambola” (not to be confused with Betta Lemme’s 2017 hit, “Bambola”). A track that, hopefully, isn’t at all in keeping with the rest of the sonic tone of the forthcoming album (whose title has yet to be revealed). After all, this one was made expressly for Madonna’s latest ad campaign for Dolce & Gabbana (featuring her with another “boy toy”-type avatar, Alberto Guerra)—more to the point, for their fragrance, The One.
Her first campaign for D&G was in 2010, when she cashed in on her Italian heritage by cosplaying as an Italian housewife (washing dishes, eating pasta with her hands and generally looking “matriarchal” amongst various other subjects of the campaign). Of course, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are only too happy to help her cash in on it—both then and now—and, in the process, sacrifice just a little more integrity vis-à-vis authentic Italianness…or rather, what is perceived to be authentic. For it’s no secret that Madonna isn’t exactly una vera italiana. Though at least she’s one generation less removed than Lady Gaga. It was the latter’s great-grandfather who first moved to the U.S. from Sicily, whereas Madonna’s grandparents were the first to move to the U.S., marking her father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone as a second-generation Italian, and Madonna as a third.
To Norman Mailer, that made her close enough (bloodline-wise) to the homeland to be billed as “a pint-size wop with a heart built out of the cast-iron balls of a hundred peasant ancestors.” The same “warm feelings” for “Lady M” and her heritage have evidently also resonated with bona fide Italians of the high-fashion world, including Donatella Versace, Madonna’s other long-time champion in the realm of haute couture apart from D&G (who ought to be considering Madonna gave them a big mainstream push by enlisting them to design her costumes for 1993’s The Girlie Show). Though there was a time when Madonna didn’t exactly reciprocate those feelings. Namely, in 2015, when Dolce and Gabbana came under fire for their insensitive comments about IVF and adoptions made by gay parents.
Among the declarations made to an Italian magazine called Panorama, they said, “The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offspring and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.” Dolce added, “You are born to a mother and a father—or at least that’s how it should be. I call children of chemistry, synthetic children. Rented uterus, semen chosen from a catalogue.” It doesn’t sound quite so poetic in English and, when it comes to the Italian language, it has a tendency to sound much harsher in English. Though Emily in “Rome” would like to falsely spread the idea that, “[Italians] value politeness, they don’t want to offend so they say yes even if they don’t agree.” Not so. Especially not Southern Italians, who have a tendency to offend the average lily-livered American with their bluntness. In this regard, Madonna does have some very overt Italianness to her. It just doesn’t ever shine through when she actually attempts to speak the language. This being exactly what her cover of “La Bambola,” played during the ad for The One, requires. But let’s get back to that botched accent later.
Returning to the D&G PR crisis of 2015, it even had Madonna coming forward despite her still recent alliance with the duo via her print ad campaign for them. And though it was the man who once loved to slag her off more than anyone, Elton John, that led the cries of “boycotting” the brand, Madonna nonetheless responded to the general clamor with the following assessment, “All babies contain a soul however they come to this earth and their families. There is nothing synthetic about a soul!! So how can we dismiss IVF and surrogacy? Every soul comes to us to teach us a lesson. God has his hand in everything even technology! We are arrogant to think Man does anything on his own. As above so below! Think before you speak.” This posted alongside one of the 2010 ads wherein she holds a baby above her head while lying on a bed. Just for some added sting/effect. And it was plausible that, rather than being miffed by their former collaborator’s take, the Italians could respect such bluntness from someone they once worked with and apparently consider a fellow Italian (hence, styling her as such—then again, they’ve also styled Kim Kardashian as such, though she got to eather pasta with a fork).
In any case, it “only” took about five months for (one half of) the duo to issue something like an “official” apology via Vogue. However, prior to that, the comments continued to reverberate amongst outraged celebrities like John, Ryan Murphy and Ricky Martin. But, evidently, enough years have clearly gone by for Madonna to decide to work with D&G again (even after Gabbana said those things about Selena Gomez, Madonna’s fellow bridesmaid at Britney Spears’ wedding). Because perhaps even Donatella couldn’t sanction Madonna covering such an iconic Italian track…in Italian (remember: Donatella is the one who takes issue with the forever mispronunciation of her family’s last name by Americans). Or rather, her version of Italian, which is best left to occasionally saying, “Ciao Bella.”
“La Bambola,” for those who weren’t previously familiar with it, is something like an Italian version of “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot My Down)” (which people so often forget was originally sung by Cher and not Nancy Sinatra). And throughout, there is a masochistic and tragedian flair as only Italians can convey. One that’s made clear from the outset with a verse that translates to, “You spin me around, you spin me around/Like a doll/Then you throw me down, then you throw me down/Like a doll/You don’t notice when I cry/When I’m sad and tired, you/Think only of yourself.” So it is that, as the song progresses, Pravo becomes more and more assured of herself, and that she will no longer allow this “ragazzo” to treat her like just another “doll.” Needless to say, the material is resonant for Madonna, who has often addressed such a theme in her work: abusive love intermixed with becoming empowered after enduring the abuse for far too long (e.g., “Pretender,” “Bye Bye Baby,” “You’ll See,” “Frozen” and “Crazy”).
Even so, her intended “emotional delivery” of “La Bambola” is undeniably mitigated by her unignorable pronunciation. That is, her bad pronunciation. And while, sure, some might point out that it isn’t the first time Madonna has butchered a language (one need only listen to 2008’s “Spanish Lesson” for a prime example), it is the first time she’s spent an entire song doing it (not counting a “B-side” like “Verás” or “Lo Que Siente La Mujer,” or a non-single like “Shanti/Ashtangi” [which opted to, let’s say, “muddle” Sanskrit]), usually having previously limited herself to a few phrases in another language here and there. That was probably for the best.
But now, possibly inspired by what ROSALÍA did with “Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti” on Lux (and her language prowess on Lux in general), Madonna seems to feel equipped at singing an entire song in her ancestors’ native language. Which, on the surface, is a touching gesture. But, in practice, lands with the same effect as Lady Gaga trying to speak English with an Italian accent in House of Gucci. Well, no. This “La Bambola” cover isn’t nearly as affronting or grating as that. However, if Madonna keeps trying her hand at this “in touch with my Italian roots” thing, she’s at the same risk of offering up something more akin to merda than oro. And when she repeats, “No, ragazzo, no!,” those with a sensitive ear might be thinking, “No, ragazza, no!” of her accento.
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