La canción Lady Marmalade cumple 20 años desde su Lanzamiento

[JefferXon]

La canción Lady Marmalade interpretada por Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya y Pink para la banda sonora de la película Moulin Rouge, hoy cumple 20 años desde su lanzamiento en el 2001. 

 

Xtina ha publicado en redes sociales celebrando el 20 aniversario y ha invitado a sus seguidores a que le envíen material utilizando el audio publicado por ella en Reels. Ella los estará publicando en redes sociales.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CM71FVNp024/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CM71-3fJTDv/
 

xtina: Happy Anniversary, Lady Marmalade <3 <3
27 DE MARZO DE 2021 - Instagram / Twitter

xtina: <3 Lady Marmalade <3 tag me in your videos using this sound - I’ll be watching & resharing!
27 DE MARZO DE 2021 - Instagram

[ja23gonz]

una de las mejores colaboraciones de la historia definitvamente!!! y tambien de las mejores actuaciones vocales de Christina en su historia...es epica su intervencion alli!!! 

[JefferXon]

Missy Elliott, Mya y Pink publicaron ese día en sus redes sociales:

 

https://twitter.com/MissyElliott/status/1375925548124360704

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CM8GxVzjyX-/

 

[ja23gonz]

que fino hubiese sido un reencuentro entre todas!

[JefferXon]

Cercanos a Xtina que publicaron ese día por los 20 años de Lady Marmalade:

 

 

 

 

Del equipo con quienes trabajó en Miami:

 

 

Otros:

 

[JefferXon]

Por los 20 años de Lady Marmalade, Billboard entrevistó a varios involucrados (Xtina incluida) en este proyecto para reconstruir la historia. Missy Elliott, Pink y Lil' Kim, se negaron a ser entrevistadas para este artículo.

 

[billboard] Magic in the Chaos: How Christina Aguilera, Mya, Baz Luhrmann & More Revived ‘Lady Marmalade’

 

 

by Hilary Hughes / April 06, 2021, 12:11pm EDT

 

Baz Luhrmann knew that he needed a pop supergroup to sing the signature song for his gamble of a movie-musical. He didn’t know it would take on a life of its own.

 

Baz Luhrmann was driving through Los Angeles when he heard Christina Aguilera belt the bridge of “Lady Marmalade” on the radio for the first time. It was the spring of 2001, and this version -- produced by Missy Elliott, and featuring the staggering pop/rap supergroup of Mya, P!nk, Lil Kim, and Aguilera -- had been playing on a loop in the head of the Australian director since he popped into the studio while they were recording it.

 

The hook, “voulez-vous couchez avec mois ce soir?,” was delivered in French, but universally understood thanks to the largesse of the original: first released by R&B trio Labelle in 1974, “Lady Marmalade” was an ode to a New Orleanian prostitute that seduced listeners with an unforgettable proposition -- in English, do you want to sleep with me tonight? -- and an iconic bass line that propelled it to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

 

Later that day, Luhrmann pulled up to the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, and Aguilera’s same high notes came blasting out the windows of a car rolling down Sunset Boulevard. He then flew to France to attend the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where his third feature, a jukebox musical starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor called Moulin Rouge!, was set to premiere. By then, “Lady Marmalade,” Moulin Rouge!’s signature song, was inescapable -- and the movie it was recorded for hadn’t even hit theaters yet.

 

 

 

“You could feel the energy,” he recalls. “It pretty much didn’t stop. There was lots of amazing music in the film, but everywhere I went, every talk show I went on, we were played on with duh nuh nuh nuhhh, nuh nuh nuh -- that opening riff brought us on for the next year and a half.”

 

Set in the bohemian throes of turn-of-the-century Paris, Moulin Rouge! told a tragic love story through reimagined versions of pop’s most enduring classics, from Elton John’s “Your Song” to Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” and David Bowie’s “Heroes.” “Lady Marmalade,” the star of the soundtrack, was tailor-made for Luhrmann’s romantic epic: the can-can dancers and courtesans of the Moulin Rouge! needed a theme, and they found it in this fresh arrangement orchestrated by Elliott, who produced it alongside Rockwilder, her frequent collaborator, and Ron Fair, who discovered Aguilera and helmed the vocals throughout the recording process.

 

In hindsight, “Lady Marmalade” was always destined to be huge -- even if the film studio, 20th Century Fox, and Interscope Records, the label distributing the soundtrack, didn’t initially understand what Luhrmann was trying to do. Like its predecessor, the quartet's new version was an indisputable smash: it reigned at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for five weeks -- one of the first No. 1 hits to get to the top spot on the strength of airplay alone -- making "Marmalade" only one of a handful of songs to reach the chart's summit through two separate renditions. The music video, directed by Paul Hunter, ran with Moulin Rouge!’s lingerie-clad aesthetic and was an instant favorite on MTV’s Total Request Live. Both Moulin Rouge! and “Lady Marmalade” went on to enjoy a fruitful awards season, with the film collecting two Academy Awards and the song scoring a Grammy for best pop collaboration with vocals at the 2002 ceremonies.

 

Twenty years later, “Lady Marmalade” remains one of the most-streamed songs on any platform for the five women involved; it’s enjoyed a place of honor in Aguilera and Mya’s live setlists, and Lil Kim joined Aguilera onstage as recently as 2019 to relive the glory of these “badass chicks from the Moulin Rouge.” Below, Aguilera, Mya, Patti LaBelle, Rockwilder, Fair, Luhrmann, and the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack and music supervision team revisit how they gave “Lady Marmalade” a second life, and how it continues to thrive in sassy, sultry glory.

 

“There’s a blood line from Romeo + Juliet straight into Moulin Rouge!”

 

Moulin Rouge! is the third and final installment in Lurhmann’s “red curtain trilogy,” which includes his directorial debut, 1992’s Strictly Ballroom, and 1996’s Romeo + Juliet, his edgy, contemporary presentation of William Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy. Music played a crucial part in anchoring Romeo + Juliet in a modern context, but the studio balked when he paired Garbage, Desiree and Radiohead with iambic pentameter. They were proven wrong when the film came in first at the box office and the soundtrack debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, which made it easier for Luhrmann to ask for and receive the support he needed when it came time to plan his next picture.

 

Still, the studio didn’t fully understand the appeal of a Belle Epoque musical that mashed up “Lady Marmalade” with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” -- but Jimmy Iovine, the founder of Interscope Records, trusted Lurhmann and his vision. After getting the green light from Fox and Interscope, Luhrmann and his team set about securing the songs that would eventually build the foundation of Moulin Rouge! -- and bring “Lady Marmalade” into the fold.

 

Anton Monsted (music supervisor, Moulin Rouge!; EVP of soundtracks and A&R, Capitol Records): When I came into the picture on Romeo + Juliet [as Luhrmann’s assistant], one of the first things he said was, “Music is going to play a huge part in helping to bridge the storytelling language [between] the Shakespearean language and the contemporary setting.” When he pitched the film to 20th Century Fox, it was a tall order: he very memorably said to the head of the studio, “Oh, did I mention there’ll be contemporary music, hit records, more hit records than you can possibly imagine?” After getting the film greenlit, we all had to set about living up to that promise.

 

Laura Wasserman (music supervisor, Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge!): At first, people didn’t understand [Romeo + Juliet], but the one thing that was solid was, if you took scenes to musical artists, they went crazy -- musicians and artists just loved it. I was never scared to put him in a room with an artist. He understood the artist’s mind, the musician’s mind; he could really express visually what he wanted to them, and they just wanted so badly to be part of his creative vision.

 

Karyn Rachtman (music supervisor, Romeo + Juliet; soundtrack exec. producer, Moulin Rouge!): I really remember the conversation for Romeo + Juliet, how we had to convince the record label every step of the way, and how Baz had to fight Fox every step of the way. With Moulin Rouge!, it was based on the success of Romeo + Juliet, and there was no question: whatever Baz was doing next, every record label wanted it.

 

Luhrmann: I found my great advocate for what, at the time, people thought was the most ridiculous idea in the world, and I can understand why -- [Moulin Rouge!] was a musical set in the 19th century. But the gift, the preposterous conceit of the musical, is that Christian, the poet, the hits of the 20th century come out of his mouth instead of poetry -- therefore, in a comic way, we know he’s a genius. When I went to see Jimmy Iovine at Interscope, he said: “You know, it’s a crazy friggin’ idea, but I’m gonna throw the dice.” In his Jimmy way, he said, “I’ve spent my life betting on creative ideas and creative folk.” He really backed us.

 

Wasserman: Baz has a very good sense of music, and he comes to the table with a lot of taste and a lot of ideas. You just take what he talks about and elaborate on it. He’s not scared of new things.

 

Monsted: There’s a blood line, or a lineage, from Romeo + Juliet straight into Moulin Rouge! In many ways, Moulin Rouge! is an evolution and a deeper dive into that style of storytelling.

 

Luhrmann: The whole idea was to make a popular opera, really. A lot of what I learnt and the rules that we started to set with Romeo + Juliet, we went on to say, “How far can we go with Moulin Rouge!?” Back in the day, publishing was so protected.

 

Anton and I really had to battle, and the only way we got that done -- I literally met with Elton John [about “Your Song”], who said, “What are you talking about, darling, this is a great idea!” I remember getting a lovely note from Phil Collins, who said, “I think it’s great, let’s do it!” I met with Dolly Parton, who said to me, “You know, that song of mine, ‘I Will Always Love You,’ has been a hit twice -- maybe it’ll be a hit three times.” It was the artists who actually led the charge to allow us to make what now is commonplace: it’s more than mashing up, it’s cross-fertilizing music. It’s a natural part of musical growth.

 

Rachtman: It was a very interesting time then in the soundtrack world, too, because soundtracks were doing so phenomenal that there were people out there doing “inspired by” records, where these songs had absolutely nothing to do with the movie… We had MTV then, and we had videos, and we had singles, and it would help promote the movie that would help promote the record. It was a beautiful relationship. People were making excuses to get a video on MTV that would cross-promote both things when it really wasn’t organic and authentic. With Baz Luhrmann, everything about the music in that movie was authentic.

 

“We wanted something a little bit like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers”

 

Lurhmann, Monsted, Wasserman, and the rest of the music team had hundreds of songs on a shortlist to work with, but “Lady Marmalade” stood out as the perfect track to introduce the vibrant vixens of the Moulin Rouge on the dance floor. Once they secured the rights to the track, they considered the possibility of a supergroup that could refresh Labelle’s treatment in a very 2001 way -- and that began with approaching Missy Elliott, one of the most compelling artists and producers of the new millennium.

 

Monsted: [“Lady Marmalade”] was written into the screenplay fairly early in the process. Baz and (co-screenwriter) Craig Pierce certainly thought that this was the song that could be used to express the world of the courtesans. When those can-can dancers come out, they’re not just dancers: they are Parisienne courtesans who are showing their availability to all the men of the Moulin Rouge -- selling their wares, if you like. The “voulez-vous couchez avec moi,” it’s French, it’s cheeky, and it’s sexy, and it felt like the right song to introduce the courtesans. It was part of the fabric of this film very early.

 

Patti LaBelle: I really didn’t have a clue that I was singing about a hooker when we heard the song [for the first time in the ‘70s]. Bob Krewe had played it for us, and we were on our way from L.A. to New Orleans to record with Allen Touissant. I said, “My god, we have a hit!” And he said, “Well, what’s the name of it?” And I said, “Lady Marmalade.”

 

We got to the part: “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, gitchy gitchy ya ya da da, mocha chocolata, ya ya." It was about a hooker, and we didn’t realize that until maybe three months after the song was out, because there were some nuns who were a little upset with us singing about a hooker. My response was, well, a hooker has to make a living, too -- she don’t take the mic out of my mouth and I’m not gonna take the mattress from under her. It was an accident, but a good accident.

 

Monsted: We were working on crafting a hybrid musical language, and “Lady Marmalade” was part of the crafting of that language. We had the actual cast members who were in the film singing that song as it appeared in the opening sequence of Moulin Rouge!

 

Wasserman: It’s funny because the studio didn’t understand it: they thought it was going to be really cool, but the opening scene was just that crazy sort of montage, you know? The studio just couldn’t deal. They were like, “You gotta fix whatever,” and [baz] was just like, “No. I’m not changing my vision.” He was right.

 

Monsted: That song had a second life quite a bit later -- twelve months later -- after the film had been shot. We approached Missy Elliott, she brought in Rockwilder, and we went on that second journey of reinterpreting the song on top of the bones that had already been in place.

 

Lurhmann: Because the Moulin Rouge had such diversity, my original idea was, “Let’s do ‘Lady Marmalade,’ but let’s let all of the characters be sung by the greatest pop singers from each continent in the world.” I wanted the greatest K-pop girl, the greatest European singer, the greatest American singer. I have to give props, very much so, to Laura Wasserman: she [said], “Look, that sounds like it’ll take forever to do. Why don’t we go with every different genre in America? Let’s get the most emerging pop singer, the edgiest rap artist...”

 

Wasserman: It took two years to get the song organized, and then it took me a while to put all those girls together. [Laughs.] I didn’t even know what I was getting into. Baz always makes it [seem] like, anything can happen, anything is possible, just try and go for it. I was the type of person who would be like, “Okay, I’ll go do it!”

 

Monsted: We wanted these performers [to] clearly come from different places in the world of pop music culture -- a little bit like the Fantastic Four or the Avengers or the X-Men. If you were trying to create a supergroup, you wanted to make sure that in doing so, their combined power is greater than the sum of its parts.

 

Wasserman: It was sort of like the chicken and the egg. I started throwing all these balls up in the air. [i got] Missy Elliott as the producer, and then I went to Irving Azoff, and I was like, “This movie is really incredible, I’m telling you, it’s going to be really amazing -- do you think Christina would do it?” At first [he] was like, “Yeah, for a gazillion dollars.” I’m like, “I can’t do that. I have to make a deal, it has to be equal, it has to be appropriate.” Fox just wasn’t going to give us the budget. He’s like, “Let me think about it.” Then I found out that [Christina] loves Missy and Lil Kim, and so I got Lil Kim to agree, and then Christina was like, “I really wanna do this!”

 

We went to P!nk, and someone else in the department had a relationship with her. We got her on board. They all sort of said they would do it if the other one would do it -- and tried to get one to say yes before the other. We got them all together, and then Interscope was like, “We want to have Mya in there.”

 

Lurhmann: Jimmy had to put the money down to make sure we could get all the different labels on board. At the time, it was very much Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears, but Christina really had the pipes. Jimmy loved the idea because with his crazy movie, there would be this one powerhouse single -- if we could pull it off. P!nk had just emerged on the scene; Mya had “Ghetto Supastar.” Lil Kim was a super edgy, young rap artist. Christina was the powerhouse. Eventually, we got them all on board, and the question was how to get them recorded. Ron Fair, who ran the label and was Christina’s guy, is also a great, great vocal producer.

 

Ron Fair (exec. producer; then-president, A&M Records): At the time I still had a very vigorous, wonderful relationship with Christina, who I discovered and signed to RCA, which probably is the single most important act of A&R in my life. Through Jimmy’s vision, when I became the president of A&M, I still was allowed to work with Christina. We were coming off of a hot streak of albums we made together when I was at RCA. I was really brought in to be the guy to help with the vocals, and we were constantly in touch with the producer, Missy, but her DJ and producer, Rockwilder, really did a lot of production on the music track.

 

Rockwilder (producer): I think I was working on stuff for Janet [Jackson] -- the All For You album -- at Westlake studios. Missy was in the next room and asked if I wanted to be a part of this journey with her of remaking “Lady Marmalade.” I was like, “Wow, ‘Lady Marmalade?!’” I said, “Yes, no problem.”

 

Mosted: We were obsessed with Missy Elliott. Once we knew that we would be working with Missy on the track, we knew that we were in the right hands to do something incredible… I remember how fresh Missy’s production sounded at the time, how it felt very of the moment. That was what we were trying to do: we were trying to nod to the classic stature of the track and people’s relationship to LaBelle’s version, which is the one everybody knows, the one everybody grew up with. We wanted to break new ground, but you can’t throw out the past while you’re doing it.

 

Fair: In Baz Luhrmann’s mind, Missy was going to be the grand chef of the flavor of the whole reinterpretation of the song, and we knew what an important scene it was in the film.

 

Rockwilder: The glue to the whole thing is the fact that Missy was involved. She has such an attractive vibe that the only way I think it could’ve been pulled off [was] if Missy was actually the glue in it, hearing the sonics of what she needed to hear from us to take it to that level. She’s like this intersection: once she’s in the middle of it, it has no choice but to be great, and I love her for that. (Ed. Note: Missy Elliott, along with P!nk and Lil’ Kim, declined to be interviewed for this article. Elliott sent a statement to Billboard calling the “Lady Marmalade” recording “one of the best creative experiences we all ever had,” and declaring it “a true celebration of diversity, talent, and female unity.”)

 

Christina Aguilera: When the song first came to me and it was presented as an idea, I was totally into it. Ron and I were working very closely together, and had just come off the success of my first record. This was an important and exciting time for me to sink my teeth into stuff I loved, and as I soon as I heard Missy Elliott and Rockwilder’s duh nuh nuh nuhhhh nuh nuh nuh -- as soon as you hear that hard bass line and bring that into the picture, it was undeniable that this was something that feels good from your gut.

 

Mya: I got a call from my management, and it was very vague: “Hey, do you wanna do a song with a couple of females? We’re looking at P!nk, Missy, Christina Aguilera, Lil Kim.” I’m not sure they had everyone together, but it sounded interesting. I didn’t even know what the song was. I said, “Sure, that sounds really cool, what is it about?”

 

And so, as time went on, I got wind of when the session might be and what time I could start studying, and it was a song I was already familiar with. I had worked with Missy Elliott on my very first album, and P!nk and I used to work with the same producers when we were like, 16 years old in Philly. I knew her as Alecia prior to P!nk, so that was pretty cool.

 

Anton Monsted: It’s a bit like when I’ve watched Baz assemble the cast for any of his films: there’s a moment where it just clicks, and you go, “Ah! We’re there. We’ve got the right cast to make this movie.” It felt that way with this combination of performers and with Missy very much in the mix.

 

“There was a really healthy, love-of-music riff fest going on”

 

With Elliott and the quartet secured, recording began: Rockwilder set about putting a 2001 spin on Allen Toussaint’s funky arrangements from the original, while Fair worked with Aguilera, Mya, P!nk, and Lil Kim on their respective vocal tracks.

 

Everyone involved had either just come off a career-defining hit or was on their ascent to super stardom: Mya was riding the wave of her 2000 hit, “Case of the Ex;” P!nk released her debut single, “There You Go,” in 2000; Lil Kim stunned the world with her highest-charting album yet, The Notorious K.I.M., that summer. Aguilera was on the cusp of transitioning from teen-pop stardom to a more mature sound. It was the perfect time to bring these ascending talents together while giving the can-can girls something to dance to.

 

Due to scheduling conflicts, the artists were rarely together in the studio, but controversy played out in the headlines anyway: P!nk later alluded to tense negotiations at the onset of the recording process in an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, which led to what Fair refers to as a “media-generated feud” between her and Aguilera. (The pop stars have long since made amends.)

 

Monsted: I remember the “Lady Marmalade” period as one where we were all feeling the pressure of time. We were mixing the film, finishing the music for the rest of the film -- and then just, night after night after night, I remember being in the studio with Baz. We’d go to the studio, and listen to the track with Missy, and then the next night, we’d be in the studio with P!nk, or Christina -- I think it was quite a mountain to climb to get all these elements together.

 

Rockwilder: They had the scheduling of the days that we were supposed to sit down and talk about it, but when they had the session, I saw Mya come in, then P!nk came in, and then Christina came in, and I remember being with my friend Twin, and he looked at me, and he was like, “What’s about to happen?!” And I said, “I don’t know!”

 

Fair: Rockwilder found a way to reinvent the harmonic structure without any sacrifice. If you go back and listen to Toussaint’s version, it’s got all the Professor Longhair piano, and all the New Orleans stuff, and I love all that. But in this version, in order for it to live at a contemporary spot, it had to be simplified.

 

Rockwilder: That growl that was in the original, the bass melody was really the first and foremost thing that you actually needed to really stand out. So what I did, I basically took it and made it more rock, more aggressive, more grimey, and brought it back with some harder drums, and the bridge. Everyone [recognizes] the familiar cowbell, and then the organ and the bridge part -- I think those were the major key parts I wanted to accent from the original.

 

Luhrmann: We were all into tech, and Missy had just got with Rockwilder, and they’d just laid down the bottom mic tracks. I talked to them, and took them through the world of Moulin Rouge!, and Rockwilder said, “I got it: it’s kind of like the follies.”

 

Fair: Mya, she’s a recording monster -- loves the process, totally disciplined, has a great pocket -- so she was like, “Well let me start!” She started with the “voulez-vous couchez avec moi”s, and laid down the pocket for the background parts that later on Christina and P!nk would jump on... She was a great partner at the beginning to lay down the structure of how we’re going to do it.

 

Mya: When we recorded the song we did it in two phases: we started with backgrounds at the same recording studio, and we were all there. We cut out leads separately, and we sang the song down from top to bottom.

 

Fair: There was a really healthy, love-of-music riff fest going on within the record. We had a very architecturally profound template from Mya, and then Christina and P!nk both in their absolute prime, singing to the 45th row, swinging to the fences in the way they approached the song.

 

Christina Aguilera: We were all very busy ladies at the time as well, at the same time, doing our own records and our own travels. We ended up separating [and] just squeezing in the recording whenever we had the chance, so not all of us got to be in the same room for all of that. I remember there being some kind of an initial sit-down and listening to the song and playing it. Just the beat alone kicking in was incredible, and feeling the energy, it was a beautiful thing to know that we were embarking off on something that was going to be super groundbreaking and special.

 

Rockwilder: The vocals, there was no ego nowhere: everybody was just professional, and everybody was good.

 

Fair: I don’t remember any real friction between them because they weren’t in the studio at the same time. I was so proud of all of them. P!nk had an amazing tone; she sounded like Joplin on steroids. She brought such a broad paintbrush in her vocal tone.

 

Rockwilder: There are a lot of things that a lot of people don’t know P!nk is capable of vocally, man -- she does it effortlessly. She’ll do it with a beer and a cigarette in her hand, you know? [Laughs.] [Kim], like P!nk, her persona is in the vocals: you can close your eyes and those girls could take you somewhere. Kim is definitely one of those people. Of course the music changes up, the track gets more hip-hop, but she works with anything that comes to her. I didn’t make the beat too hip-hop for her, but I made it just a one-two step thing, and she landed right on it, and brought it.

 

Mya: I love that for Kim being the pioneer -- as hardcore as she was, and still is -- I think that’s a beautiful thing, to be able to be yourself and take your world wherever you go. That’s just the beauty of collaboration and people being open-minded… [Her verse] adds a different flavor to what was once already a hit. It’s not revamp, it’s not refresh; it gives a new twist, a new-era type of twist to the original.

 

Rockwilder: When Lil Kim’s part came on, that’s when the whole marriage came together. It gave me an opportunity to experiment with mixing pop in hip-hop. It became its own world. We weren’t prepared for what was to come with this record.

 

You know what’s funny about that part? There’s a song called “Crush On You” that Lil Kim did in her early years with [Lil Cease]. She says, “And you can gitchi gitchi ya ya with the Marmalade.” Every time I hear that part, I’m like, “I wonder -- did she know that years later she would’ve been part of what she sang?” That was like, [‘97]: who woulda known she would’ve been a part of the biggest, most iconic thing to do with that vocal?

 

Luhrmann: [Ron] was so intense. For all of Christina’s incredible vocal powers, he had her record over and over and over again. I just have this image in my mind of him laying on his back with a tiny whiskey flask in his hand, doing shots of whiskey at like, 5 in the morning, and they’d been doing that vocal over and over and over again. When you listen to that track, you listen to how pristine that vocal is -- that’s just Ron with his particular gift for vocal coaching.

 

Fair: Instead of trying to land a lick and put it in a place, I just said, “Sing anywhere!” because the song is modular enough that I could extract them and put them anywhere I wanted later on. If Christina got into a good lick, I’d say, “Do it again!” and she’d give me two or three passes. Then I extracted all the ad libs, and attached them to two keyboards in the shape of an L. I had maybe 25 Christina licks, 25 P!nk licks, 25 Mya licks, and 25 licks from Lil Kim. I broke them into individual files, and then assigned them to the notes of the keyboard… Then I played them off the keyboard into the record until I had this unbelievable scheme where it sounded like they were singing it all, so one girl started, one girl came in on the end, and it turned into this magnificent thing. It was 13 days where I did not sleep. It was an absolutely holy experience making that record.

 

Aguilera: This was a transition time for me, where [i sang] how I wanted to sing for the first time. I’m a vocalist, and at the end of the day, I can’t help the way I feel a song and if I want to ad lib. Within the pop boundaries at the time, I remember, I would be told a lot to hold back -- to not sing so much, to not sing so loud, to not put an adlib here or there, because it doesn’t fit a pop format. By the time I was done with [“Lady Marmalade”], I was moving on to Stripped and making a record that I felt embodied me, and not caring about having a lot of restrictions.

 

So it was a transition song -- but also, the way it was written, Patti LaBelle being the greatest and the other ladies in LaBelle... they really sang that song. I was able to be like, “Okay, I can really feel this, and I can really feel good about letting loose and belt if I wanna belt, adlib if I wanna adlib.” The fact that all the ladies brought their vocals to the table, too, in unison and harmonies, it was so beautiful to see. It wasn’t so formatted. We were doing a lot vocally, and it was demanding! It was an incredible thing that everybody met that bar.

 

Mya: My worry and concern was always covering a hit record and doing it justice, keeping the integrity, and also making it appeasing or pleasing to the ears of the listeners from the generation that received the first hit record [while] merging both worlds together. You want to pay homage respectfully and appropriately, artistically, and have the originators be proud of your rendition, and not say, “Why did I clear this song? This sucks!” That was my only concern… but I loved the finished product. I was actually wowed when I heard it. You never know how it’s going to sound after you leave the studio unless you’re engineering it yourself.

 

Fair: We were sending [Missy] files: every time I would do another pass or another edit or another version, I’d be like, “Are we good?” She’d give me notes and make me change things. She kept her hand on the steering wheel, which was a great thing, because she couldn’t be in the room with us, but she gave me enough freedom to bring this sort of polished pop thing that I do, but keep the hum. It was a magic collaboration.

 

Luhrmann: The CD-Rom had just been invented, I think, so we wanted to get a copy of the track. We had these new laptops; they were probably the size of a fridge. So it was like, “I got it, we can burn the CD!” We put the CD in to burn the track, and it wouldn’t work. Missy was like, “I want to get outta here.” She said to roll the track, and she took her phone out, she called herself at home, and said, “Hi, this is Missy, leave a message” -- and she recorded the track on her answer service at home. She said, “That’s how we roll,” and left. [Laughs.]

 

Wasserman: I remember getting this rough cut of “Lady Marmalade” -- I think I still have it somewhere -- and I played it for people at the studio, and they were just dying: What did we just do?

 

Rockwilder: I’ve never had a studio session [like that] in my whole career -- and I’m blessed to say that…. Will it happen again, we don’t know, but I was able to witness that and be a part of that and watch everybody walk in the room. I wish we had iPhones back then. [Laughs.]

 

Monsted: The song is an expression of the essence of the film: It’s cheeky, it’s sexy, it has inherent drama. It makes you want to dance. All those things come together, and I think it mirrors the world of the Moulin Rouge. It’s a banner that announces the film to the world.

 

Rachtman: That’s the beauty of soundtracks: that song felt like the movie, and that movie felt like the song.

 

Rockwilder: Jimmy Iovine put his hand on my shoulder and said, “If you don’t make another song again, this record — this is going to be the one right here.... You did it. This is the one.” I’ll never forget that.

 

Fair: Each of them really made a massive contribution. Mya had the pocket. Christina brought the fireworks. P!nk brought the sandpaper and the grit and the attitude. Lil Kim put the hip-hop sauce on it. The rest is history.

 

“I’d never, ever considered having a whip in my hand for any of my music videos….”

 

Once “Lady Marmalade” hit airwaves on March 25, 2001, the soundtrack flew off record store shelves and served as the pitch-perfect opening act for Moulin Rouge! Mya, P!nk, Lil Kim, and Aguilera reunited to film the music video, which was directed by Paul Hunter and rolled with Lurhmann’s vivid hues and brought one scandalous pajama party to the screen. Soon, it was a popular favorite on MTV’s TRL, and a radio hit; within a year, it was a fixture at awards shows and a winner, too.

 

The 2001 MTV Video Music Awards and the 2002 Grammy Awards both featured, and celebrated, “Lady Marmalade”: the ladies laced up their boots and grabbed their corsets to perform for each audience, and LaBelle herself endorsed their cover by joining them to perform it at the Grammys. Kidman’s Satine may have been the queen of the Moulin Rouge on screen, but the “Lady Marmalade” quintet enjoyed their own victory lap long after the movie left theaters.

 

Aguilera: [The video] was when all the magic happened, because we all got to play dress-up, and wear our boots, and our heels… the big hair, the jewels, just over-the-top makeup and theatrics -- playing up to that Baz Luhrmann [aesthetic], making things fun and just alive and beautiful. I mean, that was the goal.

 

Monsted: Baz and I went down to the shoot, which was at a theater in downtown L.A., late at night. Baz was like, “Oh my God, have you ever seen a crew this size?! This is bigger than the movie crew we had on the film!” [Laughs.] The craft service was really elaborate. We were bowled over by how well resourced this music video was!

 

Aguilera: The energy of what we were all doing -- embracing our own sexuality, honing in on how we felt best expressed as the individual women we were, bringing that all to the table and owning that -- that was what really came across. I think the confidence that we all brought to the table, just being ourselves, was undeniable, and everyone did a kickass job.

 

Mya: I’d never, ever in my life considered having a whip in my hand for any of my music videos! [Laughs.] You get to live a little in a different space. It was a sacred space to explore that side of yourself. It’s in there somewhere, it may be locked away, but [there’s] something about being around other women that’s very freeing, where you’re giving yourself permission to explore that part of yourself, and then to be young, and female, in a world or society that often either criticizes or labels that as a not so good thing -- it was fun.

 

Aguilera: It wasn’t for anyone else. It was truly about celebrating ourselves as women, which, I’m so happy this conversation is more open now: we have marches, we celebrate women’s day, we recognize each other, we praise each other on a platform that didn’t exist back then. Before social media, before we had any of these outlets, I think it definitely set a precedent and a tone that it’s okay to be different, and be amazing together, to showcase how you feel individually in representing yourselves.

 

All of us were also getting to play over-the-top characters and be loud and vibrant and kickass, stomping around in our big heels, all in unison together like that. I remember the confetti going off at the end -- I mean, how fun is that, just being part of such a powerful moment?

 

Mya: I do remember working with [choreographer] Tina Landon in rehearsal, and us all being there together, like, “Wow, I feel like I’m in a girl group!” I’d never experienced that before, but I loved it. I think being on the road forever by yourself, it gets a little lonely, and not as much fun when everyone around you is just business, including the dancers and the staff. But when you’re there with other artists who totally relate to what you have been through, it’s really freeing, and it’s such a fun place to be. You can really let your hair down.

 

There were a lot of jokes in rehearsal, a lot of running around the studio; we went out to lunch together. I cherish those types of moments, because being solo for so long, it’s very rare that you can truly let go because you’re always on guard… the boundaries between business and friendship can be a little bit of a task. But that was amazing to experience, because, hey, these are girls that are just like me.

 

Luhrmann: There was some comment at the time, going, “Okay, so these are young women running around in their underwear?” There was some pushback -- I think about what’s going on now with Cardi B and Megan The Stallion -- [because] they presented themselves as “I own this, I am strong, I have the upperhand here, it’s me.” I think that’s something that was inherent in [Moulin Rouge!].

 

Fair: When we finished the record, I brought it to Interscope’s phenomenal head of promotion, Brenda Romano. As an A&R guy, the person who matters the most to me is the head of promotion, because I want my record to work on radio. She’s in New York; she takes it over to Z100 and Hot 97. So Z100 says, “We’re sorry, but we don’t play covers.” So Brenda calls me, I remember it clear as day, and goes, “Ron, I don’t know how to break the news, but I’m really sorry -- we’re gonna have a problem at Z100 because they don’t want to play covers. That’s not what they do.”

 

She called back four hours later, and she said, “Hot 97, the rhythm station, went crazy, and they put the record on the air.” The phones lit up like in the movies, like That Thing You Do!, it was like, out of a movie where all of a sudden, the phones at the station light up. By the end of the day, Z100 reversed themselves and added the record.

 

Wasserman: The way that it exploded was just the way Billie Eilish explodes, or the way Taylor Swift explodes -- it’s just because it’s good, and because it speaks to somebody. Jimmy was excited, and it all goes back to Baz Lurhmann, because Baz knows how to work it. All these people want to be around him -- they want to be in that little twirl of fairy dust that’s Baz. Baz walks around with sparkles. I can’t explain it. You want to be in the sparkles.

 

Fair: The Holy Grail of a song from a soundtrack is that you have a No. 1 record the weekend the movie opens -- and we hit the mark on this one. So it’s another thing: the record peaked when the movie opened, and that’s part of why, when people went to see the movie, they thought they were gonna see Christina, P!nk, Mya and Lil Kim in the movie. The timing was perfect… In those days, the commercial single sales were a big component of the chart positioning. “Lady Marmalade” became [a rare] no. 1 record that achieved that ranking without any sales at all, just on airplay, because Jimmy was wise enough to not ever put out a commercial single so people had to buy the album. And then Moulin Rouge! became a cultural phenomenon.

 

Laura Wasserman: There’s one thing I will say, which is kind of the strangest thing of all of this: The song is barely in the movie. Barely! It’s what it is. It’s the strong women, the video… That’s what so crazy: it’s iconic, and it’s not like it’s this huge scene in the movie.

 

LaBelle: I think it’s the best thing ever. When I heard the remake with Christina and all the girls, I said, “Dang!” I mean, they did it so well. There was something they said in their version, “Better get that gold, sister” -- some of the things they put in there, I started using again on stage when I would do it live, because I love their version! They were all wonderful.

 

Mya: Meeting Patti LaBelle, and having her come to the studio and walking into our rehearsal [for the 2002 Grammy Awards], I think that’s when it really got real for us. Yes, we shot a music video; yes, we recorded a song; yes, it’s being received nicely on MTV and TRL -- but the queen and the legend herself is here, and she’s performing with us? Who would’ve thought in a million years?! It was a very surreal moment, an honorable moment, a humbling moment, but I think we all turned into mute fans for a minute (laughs). I think the Grammys were just the icing on the cake for something that was just already amazingly beautiful.

 

LaBelle: The funniest thing was, I had a red gown on, and it was my turn to come out, and go down the steps to the audience and whatever -- girl, my dress got caught. It got stuck on the bannister of the steps, and I think P!nk had to pull my lace. They had to undo me! I did finish the song; it was just wonderful. Singing with those ladies is just wonderful. They did a great job.

 

Mya: Some of the challenges didn’t have anything to do with vocals: it was more so not falling in heels, but also getting enough breath in the corsets that scrunch in your entire diaphragm that you need for belting notes. I think Christina had the highest part in the song and the most demanding, vocally -- the verses are very low in range, and then the bridge, which was her section, is the highest. That can be a challenge when your diaphragm is being squeezed three times smaller, you know? [Laughs.]

 

Aguilera: Us ladies, we definitely did what we did, but having the original come on that stage with us and bring her own legendary magic to all of us was so beautiful and humbling and just incredible to be a part of. You know, when you look back sometimes, there are some amazing moments in my life that I just feel so euphoric that they’re blurry. That would maybe be one of those moments.

 

“We came together as women at a time where it wasn’t embraced to come together”

 

A huge selling point for signing on to “Lady Marmalade” was getting to work with Luhrmann in any capacity: Mya respected his “brilliant mind” and hands-on approach, while Aguilera loved his bold aesthetic and how he “intertwines it with such magical stories and music.” Another was the rare opportunity to work with fellow female artists -- as well as a female producer -- on such a compelling cover that encouraged them to share the spotlight instead of fight for it.

 

Moulin Rouge! championed female empowerment, especially when it came to exploring power and agency in relationships -- a theme that resonated in pop at the time, when women were often pitted against each other and tabloids criticized every relationship development or wardrobe choice. The opportunity to work with other women on such a huge single was an even bigger selling point: it was a rarity for these pop stars to work with other women on stage or in the studio, and rarer still to work on a track that fused pop and hip-hop in such a modern, compelling way.

 

Looking back, this is the backbone of the legacy of “Lady Marmalade,” especially for the women who made it: the single was revolutionary in how it brought them, and their respective corners of popular music, together.

 

Mya: The obvious commonality was that we were women, but also successful, established, solo recording artists, and entertainers, songwriters, producers -- but yet, we were extremely different from one another, from diverse backgrounds and fan bases. I think these dynamics made the project super special, making the statement that yes, we’re women, yes we’re different, yes we can get together and do some cool, kickass stuff, and bring so many different walks of life and generations together.

 

It was all about representation, too, because we didn’t [see] that type of collaboration happening often -- much less with women. I had worked with so many male rappers or singers and it was pretty cutting edge -- so to be invited to work with women, and ones that I was a fan of, and familiar with, I thought they were really amazing at what they did. I was fan-girling the whole time.

 

Aguilera: We also came together as women at a time where it wasn’t embraced to come together as women. There was no social media; we sort of [had to] put our own ideals and opinions and promotion for artists out there. You kind of had to rely on the gossip magazines or an interviewer’s take on how [you] saw the industry, rather than how you really saw it, and things that you wanted to say.

 

It was a really interesting and, I think, hard time for women in the business to be pitted against each other. So it was especially amazing within its time, to come out as five strong, incredible, powerful females who really brought [it]. We all had such individual styles, and I love that we all brought each piece to the table to really create something so powerful.

 

Luhrmann: You’ve got to remember, today, we have R&B vocals and rap blending without even thinking about it. Back in the day, rap and R&B did not sit as happy bedfellows. There was a lot of territorial claim… the whole song was about different disciplines coming together to make something that was bigger than all of it, a bigger gesture.

 

Mya: Genres were just beginning to fuse together with collaborations. It wasn’t quite a popular thing: there were hip-hop collaborations within the hip-hop community, or maybe R&B and hip-hop here and there, but you never really got too much pop and R&B and urban, and hip-hop, or rap, and a little bit of rock. You never got too much of that or any at that time… With those elements, that was a major thing for hip-hop as well, which also expanded more possibilities.

 

Luhrmann: The metaphor of Moulin Rouge is about empowerment, and certainly, it’s about self-revelation, crossing boundaries, not being kept in your lane, and being accepted. It’s hard to remember just how female singers were absolutely siloed: a ballad singer like Christina wouldn’t really be ripping it up alongside Missy, just that combo alone… all the women involved in that project were allowed to step outside, or given permission, to smash the silo that the industry was trying to put them in. It [doesn’t] just have female power, but every kind of female power. It isn’t just the soaring vocals: there’s a sexuality in it that’s a claimed sexuality. It’s not a male perspective of sexuality: “Take it or leave it, here I am.”

 

Wasserman: [The “Lady Marmalade” supergroup was] not afraid to show themselves off, not afraid of their bodies, and not afraid of their voices. They just showed who they were [while] being strong and beautiful and talented and sexy -- and that it was okay. I think that might be what Baz was trying to show with [satine] in the movie: she was strong and beautiful and sexy, and she was okay with that. Maybe that’s why it all worked: the empowerment.

 

Mya: When women come together with so much power, it’s also a safe space for us to say what the heck we want with no care given, because many of us feel the same way. We don’t ask for permission when another girl, another sister, another woman, another stranger, a female, is backing us up. It’s always a safer space, but it’s also fun to live in that space. There’s a lot of freedom in safety, too.

 

Aguilera: There was so much gossip around, trying to pull us apart, and kind of be spiteful with each other -- that was promoted back then at that time. We set the precedence and the bar to be like, “No. We’re not playing that game. We’re coming together as powerful women and showing who we are and what we’re about and owning that!” at a time when it wasn’t so [expected] to do that.

 

“There’s no stairs going to it, no elevator going to it -- it’s its own level.

 

The reverberations of “Lady Marmalade” and Moulin Rouge! continue across popular culture: supergroups have assembled and disbanded in the two decades since its arrival, and countless talent shows, from American Idol to Drag Race and Dancing With the Stars, have taken a page from Luhrmann’s theatrical playbook to embrace musical theater and cabaret in popular culture at large. The impact of “Lady Marmalade” directly affected the trajectory of the talent and crew behind the single, too. Rockwilder continued to collaborate with Elliott, produced tracks for Mya, P!nk, and Lil Kim, and played a pivotal role in Aguilera’s next album, Stripped -- namely its second single, “Dirrty,” which unequivocally pushed the pop star into the next phase she’d been craving.

 

And then, of course, there’s the musical itself: before the COVID-19 pandemic forced Broadway to shutter, Moulin Rouge! enjoyed a brief, but successful, run onstage: when theater safely returns, so will “Lady Marmalade,” as the song is an integral tenet of Moulin Rouge!’s current evolution.

 

Luhrmann: One thing that I do remember [after “Lady Marmalade”] is that Jimmy said to me, “Look, why don’t we do that again and put a group together?” I said I had to move on, and he came up with the Pussycat Dolls.

 

Fair: “Lady Marmalade” was turned into a show tune. And a lot of the time, show tunes are not allowed in pop, or certainly hip-hop and urban music, because they’re too corny. But the fact that we got away with it, that’s the kind of stuff that influenced American Idol and all the shiny floor competition shows that were to follow. This pre-dated it, and those shows changed pop culture, because big singers started singing big show tunes alongside the cool stuff. It reminded everybody, “Oh, there’s an appetite for hearing people sing songs that we know!” Do the math on how many times “Lady Marmalade” has been covered on The Voice and on American Idol.

 

Luhrmann: The musical of Moulin Rouge!, which is about to open in Australia, and was doing really well on Broadway, it opens with “Lady Marmalade.” It’s had a life, that’s for sure.

 

Mya: There’s magic when women come together, and I think maybe seeing the magic that happened for us -- whether it’s visually or even successfully with charts and awards -- why not? Why not when it’s also a space that’s lacking often amongst women in a very male-dominated world, but also industry?

 

Christina Aguilera: I love collaborations. I’ve gone on to work with many of these girls. I just had Lil Kim join me onstage during my last tour to do this song in New York. Missy and I went on to collaborate for the Madonna performance for MTV, “Like A Virgin.” These women are just so talented and stand the test of time. P!nk is such a powerhouse. Mya was just the sweetest -- I think she was the easiest on set. It was just so great to have all of our dynamics come to the table, and really bring our professionalism and our love for music and what we do to really own this song and be a part of such a special, incredible, and visually stunning movie such as Moulin Rouge! The entire project, all the way around, it couldn’t have been more magical.

 

Rockwilder: There’s no stairs going to it, no elevator going to it, it’s its own level. We made it like that… It’s its own thing. Everybody’s playlists for artists, it’s one of the songs that’s [at] the top. That’s another thing that’s very impressive for what we’ve done: it’s everybody’s top record in their digital playlist.

 

Mya: I think it’s been a true testament that teamwork makes the dreamwork, and that machine work turns records into hit records so the world can receive it… It’s never about self, but what you can put into the universe for people to use as a part of their lives, as a positive component, whether it’s healing or fun and memory -- that’s all it’s about, bringing people together, but it definitely takes lots of people and components and moving parts. And when that all cohesively comes together, magic is made in the chaos.

 

 

Fuente: billboard.com

 

[JefferXon]

Rolling Stone publicó un articulo detallado por los 20 años de Lady Marmalade.

 

[Rolling Stone] ‘Lady Marmalade’: Inside the Vampy, Gossip-Fueling ‘Moulin Rouge’ Remake, 20 Years Later

 

How Missy Elliott, producer Ron Fair and “four badass chicks from the Moulin Rouge” created a Number One smash that couldn’t be recaptured today

 

 

By MATTHEW JACOBS / APRIL 7, 2021 1:51PM ET

 

In early 2001, newly appointed A&M Records president Ron Fair was summoned to a meeting with Baz Luhrmann. Fair had produced several hit soundtracks, including Pretty Woman and Reality Bites, and Luhrmann was riding high after the crossover success of 1996’s Romeo + Juliet. Preparing for the release of Moulin Rouge!, the director wanted to commission a cover of Labelle’s “Lady Marmalade” that would unite a handful of A-list pop divas and lend the movie a smash single. Fair’s boss, Jimmy Iovine, tasked him with bringing it to life.

 

“It had plutonium magic dust from the second the record started,” Fair says 20 years later.

 

Luhrmann enlisted Missy Elliott, mere weeks away from releasing “Get Ur Freak On,” to produce the track. “When I hung up, I was like, ‘Oh snap, what did I just OK?’ ” Elliott tells Rolling Stone. “And I thought about it because that record is so iconic, and so the pressure kicked in.” She recruited assistance from her pal Rockwilder, best known as a producer for Redman, Jay-Z, and Janet Jackson.

 

Mya, who was signed to Iovine’s Interscope label, was the first singer to come aboard, according to Fair, who then drafted his prized mentee Christina Aguilera. Before he knew it, Lil’ Kim and relative newcomer Pink rounded out the lineup, creating the most exciting multicultural partnership since Aerosmith and Run D.M.C. joined forces for “Walk This Way.”

 

 

 

By today’s norms, the ideas behind “Lady Marmalade’ seem quaint. Soundtracks are rarely commercial goldmines anymore, and all-star collaborations have become de rigueur in the streaming age. Just look at “Don’t Call Me Angel,” the 2019 Charlie’s Angels alliance that struggled to blend the disparate styles of Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and Lana Del Rey. “Marmalade” debuted in April 2001 and hit Number One that June, where it remained for five consecutive weeks during Moulin Rouge!’s theatrical run. It would go on to win Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards and the Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. “I knew it was going to be big, but I didn’t know it was going to be that explosive,” Elliott admits.

 

The goal was to create a cohesive package — the song, a video, live performances — that channeled the film’s ruby-red cabaret setting. Elliott and Rockwilder gave Labelle’s disco classic a contemporary spin, amplifying the bass, adding a hip-hop inflection and tweaking the lyrics from “He met Marmalade down in old New Orleans” to “He met Marmalade down in old Moulin Rouge.” By the time the women converged in the studio, they knew which verse was whose. Nonetheless, each recorded the entire track individually so that Fair could isolate the singers’ ad-libs to build a perfect anthem.

 

“At that point in my career, I had collaborated with so many hard-core rappers that were male that this seemed like an immediate ‘yes’ for me because it was so different,” Mya explains. “[With men] you’re kind of like the little sister and everyone’s on the lookout, so you don’t really have the platform to be totally free. When I got with the girls, it was like a playground. If I was with guys and delivering the message ‘would you sleep with me’ in French, I would have a bit of a reserve.”

 

It was also the height of pop rivalries and celebrity gossip. Industry clashes made for top-notch marketing. “There was probably more tension between Christina and Pink than the rest of the group,” says Tina Landon, who choreographed the video. Indeed, rumors of a feud persisted for years, with Pink claiming that Aguilera once tried to hit her in a nightclub. (Aguilera denied it, saying, “I wouldn’t swing on her. She can beat my ass.”) On a 2009 episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, Pink placed some of the blame on Fair’s approach in the studio. “He didn’t say hi to any of us and said, ‘What’s the high part? What’s the most singing part? Christina’s going to take that part,’ ” she explained. “And I stood up and I said, ‘Hi, how are you? So nice of you to introduce yourself. I’m Pink. She will not be taking that part. I think that’s what the fucking meeting’s about.’ ” Of course, Aguilera did take that part.

 

In 2019, Lil’ Kim also recalled “a little tension” on the set of the video, largely because the four singers still didn’t really know one another. Director Paul Hunter requested they watch each other’s solo takes, which might have contributed to a sense of competition. (“[Pink] was heckling me in the audience,” Aguilera said on an episode of Watch What Happens Live. “That’s what she did back then. She’s a different person now.”) Fair, who said he’d met Pink at a party prior to the studio session, insists he showed no favoritism toward Aguilera, a certifiable superstar when the song debuted. “I knew Pink and love her very much and apologize if, 20 years later, she felt my approach was rude,” Fair says. (Pink declined to comment for this story.)

 

“We definitely bonded in silence, just being women and being in a very civil space and out of our comfort zone in the same token,” Mya says. “Because we were all individual artists with projects out or on tour, it’s not like we had too much time on our hands between anything to bond separately. So that was our only time — in rehearsals, at performances, awards shows, maybe a lunch break where we got a little bit more personal and weren’t in work mode.”

 

For the video, Landon, who had choreographed Aguilera’s “What a Girl Wants” and Mya’s “Case of the Ex,” assigned each singer a prop that defined her character. Pink, sporting a top hat and fuchsia curls, got a chair, which Landon had to assure her would look different than what Britney Spears had recently done for “Stronger.” Lil’ Kim got cash and a chaise lounge where attendants delivered the wine and diamonds she rapped about. Mya got a whip, which she felt nervous wielding in front of her mother, who was on hand. And a skeptical Aguilera got long satin gloves that she would rip off as the song crescendoed. “I said, ‘Trust me, we’re going to make it cool,’ ” Landon explains. “Once we did it, then she loved it. She realized, ‘This is badass too.’ ”

 

“It wasn’t just like one thing was over-the-top; it was makeup over-the-top, feathers — it was like throwing toppings on a cake,” Aguilera told W magazine in 2018. With Elliott acting as emcee, the video was a vampy, MTV-ready tour de force.

 

And yet when Iovine’s promotional guru Brenda Romano delivered “Marmalade” to New York’s Z100, one of the biggest radio stations in the country, she was turned away. “Brenda called me and said, ‘Yeah, you’re not going to like this, but Z100 said no because they don’t want to play a cover song,’ ” Fair says. That same day, Romano took the track to Hot 97, a hip-hop station, and the programmers added it to the rotation immediately. “They played it and the phones lit up like in the movies,” Fair says, with Romano corroborating his account. “I’m weeping at that point, and then she called back that day and said, ‘Z100 changed their minds. They heard it on the air on Hot 97 down the street and they’re adding the record into heavy [rotation].’ And then the thing went crazy.”

 

Critics’ reviews were mixed, with Entertainment Weekly calling it “cluttered,” the Washington Post calling it “gaudy” and Rolling Stone calling it “god-awful.” Audiences rightfully disagreed. The ladies would perform “Lady Marmalade” together twice — first with a video introduction from Moulin Rouge! star Nicole Kidman at the MTV Movie Awards, and later with Patti LaBelle herself at the 2002 Grammys. Both performances borrowed the video’s choreography and aesthetics.

 

LaBelle, who arrived to rehearsal carrying a clutch containing only hot sauce and a compact, was the diva among divas. “They all honored me like the OG,” LaBelle tells Rolling Stone. “They were happy to be with Patti LaBelle, and I was so happy to be with those babies. I said, ‘Well, this is a great match.’ As we were doing the song, it was my turn to come down the stairs. I have on this red chiffon gown, and the gown got caught in the banister of the stairwell during the live performance. I think Pink, or one of the girls, graciously grabbed it and tried to make it a part of the act.”

 

Nowadays, when LaBelle does “Marmalade,” she uses the cover’s amended lyrics — proof that its impact extends even to the singer whose group made it famous back in 1974.

 

“I remember Jimmy Iovine put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘If you don’t fucking make another track again, this one right here is going to be one of your great, great accomplishments in the game,” Rockwilder says.

 

If there were a new “Lady Marmalade” today, Mya says she’d want a drag-queen edition featuring the likes of RuPaul and Amanda Lepore; LaBelle suggested Jazmine Sullivan, Halsey, Fantasia, and Jennifer Hudson. “It would be new divas killing it,” she says. Elliott, on the other hand, believes the effort is so singular that it can’t be recaptured.

 

“When you’re living in a new era, you look back and you be like, ‘Wow, I didn’t even really get a chance to truly appreciate those moments because I was just living in them,’ ” Elliott says. “I thought it was amazing then, but now I’m looking at it even more because we don’t do stuff like that a lot. It’s like, wow, we were really in the studio — different personalities, different singing voices and doing different things and able to pull together something that was incredible.”

 

Fuente: rollingstone.com

 

[JefferXon]

[Cosmopolitan] A Very Juicy Oral History of “Lady Marmalade”

 

Including and especially its iconic music video, which debuted 20 freaking years ago (I know).

 

 

by BRENNAN CARLEY / MAR 26, 2021

 

Cue a sepia-toned montage of you, keeping MTV on in the background *just in case* the song came on, cranking the volume whenever it did, and asking Jeeves for the translation of “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” so you could cheekily work it into an AIM away message. Because this wasn’t just a song from the movie Moulin Rouge! or a cover of Patti LaBelle’s 1974 classic. It was A Moment—with big hair, bigger voices, and even bigger personalities—that was really about power. More specifically, about women (in this case, the lingerie-clad, jewel-covered Mýa, Lil’ Kim, Pink, and Christina Aguilera) reclaiming their power as unapologetically sexual beings. The groundbreaking collab become a viral hit before viral hits were even a thing and is still going strong, btw—“Lady Marmalade” has 384 million YouTube views and counting, artists and the internet alike continue to pitch dream castings for a(nother) remake, and, yeah, it’s probably stuck in your head right now.

 

When Patti LaBelle originally recorded “Lady Marmalade” with her girl group Labelle in 1974, “we knew right away it was a hit,” she tells Cosmo. (She was right: It reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, stayed on the charts for 18 weeks, and helped tee Patti up for a decades-long solo career.) So this time around, when Baz Luhrmann’s big-budget Oscar-bait film was on the hunt for a standout song, record label exec Ron Fair and producers Missy Elliott and Rockwilder had huge shoes to fill. Failure to repeat the original chart-topper’s success was not an option.

 

 

 

Missy Elliott (coproducer): Labelle’s original version was a song we had all loved growing up, and we saw it as a kind of honor to put our own spin on it. We wanted to showcase each of the “four badass chicks from the Moulin Rouge,” bringing together their different skills and personas into a true celebration of diversity, talent, and female unity.

 

Mýa (singer): I got the request to be on the song—Jimmy Iovine, who was the head of Interscope Records at the time, suggested that my participation would be a great addition for multicultural appeal. “Lady Marmalade” is inclusive to all genres, races, ages. Pink had more of the rock and roll and alternative aspect happening. Christina had pop. I had the R&B, hip-hop thing. Kim was rap all the way. Missy was a full-on entertainer, and Patti LaBelle, she’s like a godmother to us and just a woman full of wisdom.

 

Christina Aguilera (singer): I think we all brought something unique to the table. The message was awesome, because every woman wants to feel good in their own skin. Every woman wants to own their sexuality—whether you want to put on a corset or not. Before, to be sexualized meant that you would be labeled, and to own your sexuality meant you would be slut-shamed. As soon as I heard Missy and Rockwilder’s production, it was just like, “This is going to be something that feels so good and so right.”

 

In early 2001, the four singers recorded their vocals separately in studio. On March 17, they all came face-to-face—for the first time—for a two-day video shoot in Los Angeles.

 

Tina Landon (choreographer): At that time, I had been working with Christina. I got a call from Ron Fair and Christina’s then-management, Irving Azoff. When they told me it was “Lady Marmalade” and that it was going to be with Pink and Mýa and Lil’ Kim, I was like, “Oh, my gosh.” It’s a choreographer’s dream. My whole goal was: How do I make four completely different artists all come across on the same level without anybody outshining anyone else and without anyone looking ridiculous? Because they’re not all trained dancers.

 

I wanted them to have props—it’s more relaxing when you have a prop to play with. With Pink, we had a chair, and the conflict was that Britney Spears had just released her “Stronger” video with a chair routine. Pink walks in—she wasn’t at all mean, she’s very respectful and very nice—and was kind of like, “No, Britney did that, I’m not doing that.” So we made it not about the chair. She was the star; the chair was just there to play off of.

 

When Lil’ Kim walked in, she was confused because the message that she was going to be learning choreography never got to her. It’s 8 at night, she’s got dark sunglasses, it’s my first time meeting her. She really wasn’t happy about it. She struggled with the choreography just because that wasn’t her thing, but I think the product says it all—you can’t tell, because she really worked hard.

 

Mýa: We were in there with Tina. We got to freestyle individually for our solo parts, but the ensemble choreography we all learned together.

 

Tina: When we met as a group, I was a little nervous. These are four big, individual, lots-of-personality artists in one room at one time at the height of their careers. I do remember there was a little bit of tension. I think it’s pretty public knowledge that there was tension between Christina and Pink.

 

It got a little hairy at one point.…They were all sitting there watching each other work. Paul Hunter, the director, was trying to give Christina direction and she couldn’t hear him. She said, “What did you say?” And Pink reiterated what Paul had said. Christina did the thing: “I was talking to Paul.” I just sank down in my chair going, “Oh, god, please don’t let this get worse.” And it didn’t!

 

Mýa: We all went out to lunch—Pink, Christina, Kim, and I—and sat down together during one of the rehearsal breaks. We’re just regular girls.

 

Tina: When we finally got to the dance section, the tension dissolved. They all wanted to do their best. They wanted to shine. No one wanted to be the weak link.

 

Christina: There was no drama whatsoever when all of us were on that stage together. We just all got into our zones, our own zones, our own place as artists. We were all super professional. I think the overall goal was to go big or go home.

 

Mýa: The moment was very empowering, because women are usually pitted against each other, especially in entertainment. There was none of that, to my recollection. It was truly about coming together, being women, being slightly over the top, expressing ourselves, and exuding our bold approach to being sexual beings.

 

After its release, “Lady Marmalade” did rise to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It became only the third collaboration by individual female artists in history to hit number one and the first-ever song to top the chart with more than two credited female artists. It also went on to win a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals. Its singers performed at the Grammys with their mentor Patti LaBelle, and the song became a musical and cultural behemoth, opening the door for a new generation of female-driven, genre-bridging collaborations.

 

Christina: When I was coming up, even on my first record, it was like, “Okay, we want to make sure it fits a mold. We want to make sure it fits a box.” This was a song where it was like, “It’s okay to let go. It’s okay to be free. It’s okay to really sing as big, as loud, as hard, and as soulful as you want to.”

 

Mýa: It was a moment that stood out in that era. If you wanted to say anything bad about it, that would maybe just be a reflection of a boring life. I would never have thought in a million years working with Patti LaBelle would be a part of my career…watching her while I was growing up and then to share that stage and then develop a personal relationship with someone that can lead the way—it’s nothing short of an honor. Patti is a beast. She just executes every time.

 

Patti LaBelle: After we did the Grammys, Pink sent me the most beautiful orchids. She’s from Philly, and she said, “Doing this with you, a Philadelphia girl that I love, it was beautiful.” She gave me flowers, and all these girls are my little girls. Mýa and Pink and Kim and Christina, of course—the singing fool. I call her a baby Patti. That little girl, she threw down.

 

Christina: These women are important. Pink and I went on to do a song for an album of mine, but it didn’t quite make the final cut. She’s such a powerhouse and definitely paved the way, setting the precedent of pushing back if something didn’t feel right. “Lady Marmalade” was the transition to when I really got to own myself as an artist. Like, “Okay, I can start playing with my body. I can start playing with who I am as a woman and being unabashed about saying it or talking about it.”

 

Patti: People loved it and still do today. I mean, if I don’t sing that song in a show, people get a little upset. When I do it onstage, I have to say to the audience, “I did this 100 years ago. These little heifers, they did it 20 years ago and it’s a hit.” I have to remind them that I did it first. Isn’t that something?

 

To this day, “Lady Marmalade” remains one of the most streamed songs on Spotify for each of its four leads, nearing 230 million spins.

 

Christina: There’s a reason it was a hit all over again, because the song is frickin’ good. It makes you feel good. Even if you don’t know what you’re saying, who doesn’t like singing “Gitchie, gitchie, ya-ya, da-da,” you know what I mean?

 

Fuente: cosmopolitan.com

https://imgur.com/a/AUUaNXs

 

[JefferXon]

[Vogue] Christina Aguilera on the Sound and Style of the “Lady Marmalade” Video, 20 Years Later

 

 

BY LIAM HESS / March 29, 2021

 

At the beginning of the video for the 2001 cover of “Lady Marmalade,” Missy Elliott stands before a red velvet curtain, welcoming you to the Moulin Rouge and revealing the night’s entertainment: Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lil’ Kim, and Mýa, all ready to take you on a rollercoaster ride of gaudy burlesque style. (Think rhinestone-studded lingerie, glittering costume jewelry, corsets, lace-up boots, top hats, wigs in every color of the rainbow, and more fishnets than you can shake a stick at.) The now-iconic video is a who’s who of early-’00s pop and R&B royalty at the height of their powers, all anchored by that deliciously cheeky earworm of a refrain: Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?

 

Already a fan of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, when Christina Aguilera first caught wind of the song’s re-recording for Moulin Rouge!, she revisited Patti LaBelle’s original and fell for its timeless appeal all over again. “I mean, it’s just a classic from the moment you hear that hook,” Aguilera remembers. “Patti LaBelle on that record killed it.” And after signing on and receiving the backing track for the revamped version by Missy Elliott and coproducer Rockwilder—which took the disco classic and gave it a hip-hop twist with the help of finger clicks and a thunderous bassline—it was love at first listen. “As soon as you heard that bass, it just hit hard,” Aguilera says. “You could feel the magic and the energy of this record, it was undeniable.”

 

The next step was to lay down the artists’ individual verses. “We each brought our own interpretations to the table and then just blew it out of water,” Aguilera continues. Yet while all of Aguilera’s collaborators had a unique spin on the song, from Lil’ Kim’s playful rap paying tribute to “four badass chicks from the Moulin Rouge” to Pink’s verse that drips with her signature raspy, punk-inflected attitude, Aguilera’s high notes and melisma at the climax still serves as the song’s most jaw-dropping moment. “It was the first time I was able to sing the way I love to sing,” Aguilera recalls. “I got to really let loose creatively, sing vocals that I truly loved and believed in. I could belt and do my ad-libs and my runs and be as soulful as I wanted to be. I got to have fun.”

 

 

 

Indeed, it’s easy to forget that up until “Lady Marmalade,” Aguilera had barely scratched the surface of her extraordinary range as a vocalist, with the gentler teen-friendly pop of her self-titled debut album offering little room to show off everything her voice could do. It was no coincidence that Aguilera enlisted the help of Rockwilder again later that year for her comeback single, “Dirrty,” marking the beginning of her reinvention as a musician in charge of her own sound and image. That led to Aguilera’s chart-topping 2002 album Stripped, a record exploring the themes of sexuality and empowerment first touched on in “Lady Marmalade” with an attitude as forthright as it was inclusive.

 

“I was in a transition stage at that point,” Aguilera remembers. “I was coming off the success of my first record, where I was kind of boxed in to sing a certain kind of way. Every time I tried to sing a little more the way I wanted to, it was like, you’re singing too much, you need to be softer, we need to lessen that. It was all about fitting a certain mold. When I went on to work with Rockwilder on ‘Dirrty,’ I got to do the music that I wanted to do; that same gritty, bassy feel that wasn’t thin-sounding, that you can sink your teeth into as a vocalist.”

 

So too did the flamboyant and unapologetically sensual image Aguilera crafted through her fashion choices for “Lady Marmalade” serve as a stepping stone towards the provocative style of her Stripped era—from the striped bras and leather chaps of the David LaChapelle-directed “Dirrty” video, to the theatrical, goth-adjacent couture she sported for the visuals accompanying “Fighter.” The bold beauty looks sported by Aguilera in the “Lady Marmalade” video are equally notable too, whether the dramatic smokey pink eyeshadow smattered with diamantés or the explosion of blonde crimped hair she topped with a sparkling tiara. “I mean, the whole concept was really, go big or go home,” Aguilera says, laughing.

 

While it’s a look that has never fallen out of favor, inspiring everything from bachelorette parties to Halloween costumes year in year out, for Aguilera, it was the (now surprisingly prescient) message behind the fashion that felt most powerful. “The costuming was a huge part of the visual aspect of this whole song,” Aguilera explains. “It was about being over the top and feeling comfortable in your own skin, and not worrying about the labeling and double standards that went on at the time around sexuality. We were just living our best life.

 

“At the time, for me as a woman, I loved being laced up in a corset, wearing the badass heels, having the makeup and the hair and the jewels, that was what felt good to me,” Aguilera continues. “But I think even if you weren’t that kind of a woman or that wasn’t your comfort zone, the energy of us as four strong women who weren’t playing coy or playing stupid while putting on the heels and the makeup was powerful. We were owning our bodies and feeling empowered as females in our sexuality, rather than being told we should be sexy in a certain kind of way. Look at the makeup: Was that made for a man, or for men to be attracted to? No! Absolutely in no way shape or form. I think it would have looked very different had that been our goal. This was for us.”

 

Despite the video’s enduring style legacy (and its evident musical legacy too, given the heated debates between pop fans over who would participate should a remake be done today) it’s the sentimental aspect Aguilera recalls most fondly—more specifically, collaborating with four of her most extraordinary peers and artists, and the feeling of collective power they shared while performing together on that shoot. “What I remember best is standing on the stage for that end shot where we’re all marching out in unison together, all singing our parts and belting our asses off, and it just felt so cool,” Aguilera concludes. “It was an unforgettable moment, it just felt like it was meant to be. Sometimes you have these things in life where it just felt like the right time and the right place, and this was definitely one of those great moments in my career.”

 

Fuente: vogue.com

 

[JefferXon]

[iHeart Radio] 20 Years Later, The Early Aughts Cover Of 'Lady Marmalade' Still Hits

 

 

By James Dinh / March 26, 2021

 

When the LaBelles released "Lady Marmalade" in 1974, frontwoman Patti LaBelle apparently had no idea of the explicit nature behind the song's French catcall, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" Inspired by New Orleans sex workers, the track became one of her biggest hits, but it goes without saying, that the all-star line-up comprising of Christina Aguilera, Pink, Lil' Kim, Mya and Missy Elliott was all too aware of the raunch of the coming out party when they were recorded their rendition of the song in 2001.

 

"Lady Marmalade" has been covered by dozens of acts in the years since the LaBelles' release, but none of the renditions have made the kind of noise that the Elliott and Rockwilder-produced cover had and that included a stamp of approval from LaBelle herself. The Grammy-award winning smash, which served as the lead single to the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge!, went on to reign supreme on the Billboard Hot 100 for nine weeks, a feat that was toppled only a decade later by Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX's "Fancy."

 

In honor of its 20-year anniversary, iHeartRadio is revisiting the iconic track and its accompanying music video by digging through the archives and speaking with some of the creators behind its release. Scroll on below to learn a few fun fact facts about the song and Paul Hunter-directed clip.

 

 

 

An international artist had previously been considered for the all-star line.

Before locking in on the final line-up, the industry players behind the 2001 cover of "Lady Marmalade" had considered other options. "I was told after the song’s success that a few other artists were being considered on the record in the beginning phase," Mya told iHeartRadio of the song's early career success, adding, "I was only aware of one other recording artist at the time, who was from a different country."

 

Pink wasn’t happy with her music video prop because of potential comparisons to Britney Spears.

Choreographer Tina Landon decided on giving the stars props to play with amid their choreography, so that they could incorporate some attitude into the mix. "When you have a prop and you can choreograph with a prop, it not only adds to the overall attitude of the overall vision, it just gives the person something to work with," Landon explained, before citing Pink's issue with using a chair as a prop. "She was resistant because Britney Spears' ['Stronger'] video had just come out, where it was all a chair routine. I hadn't seen it, so I was like, 'Oh crap.' I was ready to go. We reworked it so that it was not a choreographed chair routine. The chair was just in the room with her."

 

Mya signed onto the all-female collaboration without knowing the cover song.

There wasn't much convincing that Mya needed to get on board with the idea of an all-female cover track. "I recall just one convo with management taking place about a collaboration with other women. That's it," she recalled. "I was only aware of Missy and Christina Aguilera at the time. And just with that small bit of information, it was no question for me. I was in. I initially didn’t know what song it'd be until the month before recording."

 

Lil' Kim was not pleased to learn that she had to perform choreography in the video.

Lil' Kim is not a dancer, so it goes without saying that she was understandable confused when she met with Landon to learn her routine for the video. "[she] showed up not even knowing that she was going to learn choreography. She had no idea why her and I were meeting," the choreographer recalled. "She wasn't really happy at first. It was more like, you know, when the agent doesn't tell you something and then you find out."

 

Director Paul Hunter brought the women to set simultaneously at one point, a moment which saw Pink heckle Christina as she performed her solo routine.

The video was filmed over the course of two days at the Los Angeles Theater with Paul Hunter as directiro. Landon recalled one point during the shoot when he called all the women to the set to film their solo shots. "At one point he gave me the side eye and I was like, 'Oh, you're doing this on purpose.' Because you get a little competition, people perform a little bit harder," she recalled. "There was a little back and forth between Christina and Pink. Because Christina was onstage, Paul had said something to her and he's got a softer voice. She didn't hear him. She's like, 'What did you say?' Pink reiterated. I thought, 'Oh, no. Nope,' and Christina said, "I'm talking to Paul." Pink went [cat rawr]. That was about as bad as it got, but there was obvious tension at that point. I'm not used to this."

 

Lil' Kim played "host" on-set of the music video, considering the tension on-set.

Speaking with Billboard, Lil' Kim admitted that there was indeed "a little tension" on set of the clip. "I knew almost everybody, but it was like everyone was in their own little corner," she admitted. "Everybody talked to me, but everybody else wasn’t talking to each other. Everybody loved each other. Don’t get me wrong, but they didn’t know each other, so it was like, 'Let me talk to Kim because I know Kim.' It was hard ‘cuz I had to be the host of 'Lady Marmalade.'"

 

 

Fuente: iheart.com