Songoftheday 9/24/22 - Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots 'cause it's okay to be a boy...

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"What It Feels Like For A Girl" - Madonna

from the album Music (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #23 (three weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 4

 

Today's song is from Madonna, whose eighth studio album Music had already spun off two big hits with the #1 "Music" and the follow-up "Don't Tell Me", which made the top five on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 in the beginning of 2001. The third single pulled from the set was "What It Feels Like For A Girl". Written by Madonna with producer Guy Sigsworth and David Torn, the song continues that album's experimentation of combining electronic elements to acoustic instrumentation in a dance-pop setting. The lyrics tackle the misogynistic belittling of feminine characteristics, and doesn't pull any punches from the get-go, with a sampled speech from actress Charlotte Gainsbourg saying it's ok for a young girl to be a "tomboy", "But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading". The total words are few and repetitive, but they carry much weight, especially with lines like "Hurt that's not supposed to show and tears that fall when no one knows", describing many women's hidden pain so directly. It may be a little hidden under the bleeps and bloops of the production (and the car-chase music video, which has the dance remix instead of the original) but the message is definitely there...

"What It Feels Like For A Girl" became the third top-40 pop hit from Music in America in May of 2001. On the radio, the song hit #14 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, while getting to #24 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 format and #27 on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. The remixes of the track, done by Above & Beyond in the video and Paul Oakenfold and Tracy Young among others on the 12" single, helped it top Billboard's Dance Club Play chart for a week. Internationally, the single spent a week at #1 in Spain, while reaching the top ten in Italy (#2), Canada (#2), Portugal (#3), Romania (#3), Finland (#4), Greece (#4), Croatia (#4), Australia (#6), the United Kingdom (#7), Denmark (#9), and Hungary (#9). It also made the top-40 in Switzerland (#11), Belgium (#14W/#23F), Norway (#14), New Zealand (#15), Germany (#16), the Netherlands (#16), Ireland (#18), Sweden (#22), Austria (#26), and France (#40). 

Although it wasn't released as a commercial single in the U.S., the song "Impressive Instant" , a collaboration with producer Mirwais, was serviced to DJ's with remixes from Peter Rauhofer and spent two weeks at #1 on the Dance Club Play chart, becoming one of Madonna's most beloved club tracks. Madonna will return to the series.

(7/10)

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Here's the original/radio version of the song..

Next is Madonna performing the song live in 2000...

as a postscript, Glee somehow thought it was a good idea to have the guys in the cast to sing this song for their Power Of Madonna episode. Nevertheless the EP the song was on went to #1 on the Billboard 200...

Up tomorrow: Female rapper and platinum blonde rocker team up to go mentally kaboom.