the Buzz for August 24th, 2014

24
Aug

Madonna — “Vogue” (from Celebration) —

This fascinating factoid churned pretty quickly through the Twittersphere, so you’d be forgiven for having missed it entirely, but just in case you, like me, were fourteen in 1990 and are given to enjoy a bit of useless trivia: Slate.com tells us that, with last week’s unfortunate passing of Lauren Bacall (at age 90), all sixteen of the pop cultural icons and legends, almost all of whom were scions of Old Hollywood balls and beauty, that Miss Madonna name-checked during the thrilling climax of this instant-classic turn-of-a-decade smash — a loving, gorgeously etched homage to the movie-star era — have now shuffled off of this mortal coil. Seems a fair bet that we’ll never see the likes of Bacall and those broads ever again, and Miley and her cabal of tartlets could take a comprehensive lesson or two from their grit and grace. True glamour rarely sounded so glorious. Rest in peace, Betty. (Incidentally, if you’d care to do further reading — both on this tune and the rest of Madonna’s hit-filled career, before and after — I put together a playlist of her best-known pop classics in April 2010, and you can find that piece by clicking right cheer.)