Madonna – Erotica

I'll be honest, I picked up this second version of this album because of all the reviews praising its sound quality. It is better than any repress, I will say that. it has been mastered differently, with the bass much higher and the overalll tracks being at a higher volume than the represses. The soundstage is also much wider, and overall it is a superior pressing, but I don't know if I can say it sounds as if its a new record and that you hear things you can't in the digital.

Was lucky enough to stumble across this last weekend in Atlanta. I agree with all the previous comments, it’s like a new album and the best version of this vinyl, hands down! Splurge, it’s soooo worth it!

This pressing is amazing. Heavy bass sounds dirty and banging with no distortion with clear vocals. The separation is sick! I agree with another commenter when they say it’s like a different album, it sounds amazing. There are things I’ve never heard on any digital format. I’m blown away considering how flimsy and thin these vinyl are. This has always been one of Madonna’s best albums and was way ahead of it’s time (still sounds so modern). If you get a copy, get this one! You won’t regret it. Sometimes original is best.

**Purchased Used**

This pressing is wonderful. The bass is extremely heavy, and the sound is clear, meaning certain things are now audible unlike in the digital release. I do wish that it had printed inner sleeves, but its to be expected with a promo release.

75% volume of the commercial release and CD, incredible sound !!! Just listening to it now for the first time on my linear and SAS needle. Holy moly ! Bass is pure vinyl to sub perfection, like listening / discovering a "new album". Talk about >>>>>STEREO<<<<< full spectrum. Totally "opened up" uncompressed "Deeper And Deeper" will give your "piezos" a real workout !!! Hats off to whoever did the mastering for this vinyl pressing.

Listening to this record!!! Erotica feels like a whole different album. Great bass and clear sound.

This is the copy to own when it comes to the Erotica album. Dirty baseline, great dynamic range, no syllables or IGD.
Only downside: it does not have any additional artwork / pictures like the official release.

An album ahead of its time sonically and culturally. The average pop music fan was not ready for Madonna at her most honest, brazen, and emboldened. Thanks to the Queen Of Pop and this body of work, most of today's pop star(lets) are allowed to be open and expressive about love, relationships, and sex. If there isn't a homemade sex tape or provocative photoshoot to accompany an album's release it's deemed too tame. In 1992 a pop star baring their body (and soul) in the way that Madonna did on EROTICA and in her coffee table book, SEX, was unheard of. This was considered a major misstep in her career as the album came out along side SEX and the "Body of Evidence" movie. Madonna was defiant, in your face, and overtly sexual with these projects and many people wrote her off. Revisiting this album, away from the surrounding hoopla you'll discover a mini masterpiece anchored by dazzling club tracks ("Deeper And Deeper") and sumptuous balladry ("Rain"). Go behind the sexual innuendo laced songs and you’ll uncover some of the deepest, richest tracks she’s ever served up. EROTICA (her fifth studio album) was overshadowed by all of the controversy and became her first album (other than her debut album) not to spawn a #1 Billboard HOT 100 single (although the title track did reach number 3). However its legacy to her career (and pop music, in general) will be long lived as its one of the most important and sonically satisfying albums of the iconic diva's catalog. Aural sex, indeed.

"Madonna at her most relevant", indeed. If "Vogue" and "Justify My Love" were to have had a baby, musically speaking, and were to be true nods towards the future, as proclaimed in the liner notes of “The Immaculate Collection", then "Erotica" the album would have been such a birth. Now, imagine "Erotica" (the song) being released as a lead single from a major pop artist today, or in any other time period in modern “Pop Music History” for that matter, "My name is Dita, I'm going to be your mistress tonight...", it is difficult to think about your Granny singing along to this one on the radio, no? Yet, the single did see release back in late 92', peaking at #3 on Hot 100, certified as a gold seller, and debuting at #2 on the radio, breaking all the records for that format no less...well, that's just how intense the anticipation was for whatever Madonna was about to do next. She took a real risk here with "Erotica", along with it's banned video, and in the early 90's it was a particularly important risk to take, it was Madonna testing the boundaries before someone else could, pushing people's buttons, getting a reaction, causing a commotion if you will, causing controversy, or at least threatening the idea to do so, and therein lies Madonna's relevance, and the importance of this album. Madonna was opening doors, forbidden ones, for herself as an artist, for women in general certainly, for gay men too, and for the music and entertainment industry as a whole. She had been doing just that right from the get-go, penetrating what was forbidden, relentlessly, but this time not without great penalty. Audiences and critics alike got fed up, even fellow recording artists weighed in, Mike Patton from “Faith No More” (an all male rock band) wrote the 92' single "Midlife Crisis" (originally titled "Madonna") about Madonna, apparently he was very disturbed by her constant image bombardment via MTV-the poor thing. "Erotica" the song "is" an exquisite piece of “Dark Pop”, and the rest of the singles from "Erotica" the album "are" nearly as exquisite. M, the (sometimes very calculated) risk taker that she is, and Shep Pettibone, together with André Betts, put forth a "Pop" concept record like no other; a musically dreary blend of jazzy hip hop and bass-heavy house, mixed underneath a deceptively indifferent and numb character performance by arguably the most important female pop artist of all time. “The Queen Of Pop” upped the ante’ here by pretending to release something really salacious and naughty on it’s face, only to be revealed as something quite normal, if not a little mundane, once the bedroom door was opened that is, an album about different kinds of relationships and self-revelations. "Deeper and Deeper", the second single, swells and swirls (“Round, and round, and round we go...”) with a desperate melodrama like I've never heard on any other Madonna record before or since (love that “Gypsy Woman” drumloop burried underneath). She wrote this underrated classic from the perspective of a gay man coming to with his own sexuality. Within the song, the writer portraying this character, makes a reference to lyrics heard on the floor-filling Gay Anthem "Vogue", which is really Madonna making a self-reference to "Vogue"-truly ingenious...When "Bad Girl/Fever" came out as the third single from the album, Madonna was Pop Music's "very bad girl", and the backlash from her "Sex" book and her movie "Body Of Evidence" was at a "fever pitch", pun intended. The double A-sided single was forced to scrape the lower regions of the Top 40, something that had not happened yet in her career since she came onto the scene in 84' with her first top 20 hit "Holiday". Nevertheless, "Bad Girl", a cautionary tale of self-destructive behavior, remains a beautifully depressing overlooked Top 40 gem, while it’s flip side, a very moody cover version of Peggy Lee’s "Fever", set dance floors aflame, becoming her 15th #1 club hit (look for the "Saturday Night Live" & "Arsenio Hall" performances of Madonna doing both songs justice, live). The only truly uplifting record off the album (depending on how you look at things commercially speaking), was the romantic ballad "Rain", released as the fourth and final single (in the States), it served double duty as a rebound top 20 hit on the charts, while at the same time beginning the process of softening Madonna's overall tarnished image...Madonna didn't take a risk like this again until ten years later with "American Life", another brilliant & “necessary”, but totally misunderstood record, where she would be punished yet again.