Madonna’s ‘Erotica,’ ‘Sex’: Why Musical Masterpiece, Defiant Book Still Matter
Erotica (Madonna album) - Wikipedia
In , Madonna was as astronomically popular as a boundary-bulldozing, unapologetically bacchanalian performance artist could get. The tour showcasing it, Blond Ambition, mixed spectacle with social commentary so sharply that it reinvented the pop concert and yielded the smash documentary Truth or Dare. But for her vast audience, she was nothing less than liberating, and her uninterrupted string of hits defined pop for a decade. Nearly everything changed two years later with Erotica and Sex. It remains one of the most in-demand out-of-print publications of all time.
Erotica is the fifth studio album by American recording artist Madonna , released on October 20, by Maverick and Sire Records. The album was released simultaneously with Madonna's first book publication Sex , a coffee table book containing explicit photographs featuring the singer, and marked her first release under Maverick, her own multimedia entertainment company. Erotica is a concept album about sex and romance, incorporating her alter ego Mistress Dita, inspired by actress Dita Parlo. Some of its songs also take on a more confessional tone, influenced by the loss of Madonna's two close friends to AIDS.
It is the title track from her fifth studio album Erotica , and was released as the album's lead single on September 29, by Maverick Records. It was later included on her greatest hits albums GHV2 and Celebration The song was written by Madonna, Shep Pettibone and Anthony Shimkin, while production was handled by the singer and Pettibone. She invites her lover to be passive while making love to her and leads him to explore boundaries between pain and pleasure.