"Hollywood" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna. The song was written and produced by Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadzaï for her ninth studio album, American Life (2003). On May 27, 2003, it was released as the second single from the album by Maverick Records. It later appeared on the greatest hits album, Celebration (2009). "Hollywood" is a folk rock, synth-pop, electro-folk, electropop and psychedelic folk song that lyrically discusses American culture and greed, focusing on Hollywood, California, as a place of pop stars and illusory dreams. Ahmadzaï did the main programming for the track and kept the track as simple as possible, without using too many instruments.
Several remixes of "Hollywood", done by DJs such as Jacques Lu Cont, The Micronauts, Paul Oakenfold, Deepsky and Victor Calderone, were included on physical releases of the single around the world. Music critics applauded the song's catchiness but criticized its lyrics. In the United States, the song was a top-five sales chart hit, topping Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs and Hot Dance Singles Sales component charts. The debut of the "Hollywood" remixes on the Dance Singles Sales chart gave Madonna her longest stretch of chart-topping titles on this chart, "Hollywood" being her sixth in a row. It also reached the top ten in Canada, Finland, Italy, Romania and number two in the United Kingdom and Spain on the commercial charts.
An accompanying music video, directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, portrays Madonna highlighting the highs and lows of Hollywood. After the video was released, French photographer Guy Bourdin's son filed a federal lawsuit that accused Madonna of ripping off the work of his father, showing sequences of the video to be similar to his father's photographs taken in the 1980s. "Hollywood" was first performed in an acoustic version along with "American Life" and "Mother and Father" on a promotional tour for the album. In August 2003, Madonna opened the MTV Video Music Awards performing a medley of "Like a Virgin" and "Hollywood" with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott. During the performance, Madonna kissed Spears and Aguilera on the lips, generating strong reactions from the media. "Hollywood" was later used as a dancers' interlude on the 2004 Re-Invention World Tour.
Background and writing
When Madonna started working on her ninth studio album, the cultural mood of America was bleak and paranoid after the September 11 attacks. There was discontent and fear all around as the terrorism and hatred took people by surprise, as they started questioning the feasibility of the American Dream. While developing the songs for American Life with producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï, Madonna interrogated and pondered upon those values. The confusion, disorientation and the anger they created seeped into the making of each and every song, including "Hollywood". She later spoke about Ahmadzaï's downbeat existentialism and the long discussions they had about this, and society's obsession with fame and fortune. In an interview with Q, in April 2003, she described the song as the allure of the beautiful life in Hollywood. The singer expressed her opinion about fame and celebrity culture, and how people think it to be a "wonderful life" but in reality is a "very powerful illusion".
In the VH1 special Madonna Speaks, the artist further clarified that the theme behind "Hollywood", as well as "American Life" and "I'm So Stupid" from the album, was about her "wanting to shout from the rooftops that we have all been living in a dream. I have been living in a dream — and you're all living in a dream and we have to wake up to reality." Madonna's first single from American Life—the title track—became the lowest charting first single from a Madonna album since her debut, reaching a peak of number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100. Warner Bros. Records hastily wanted to save the album from dropping off the charts, and decided to release "Hollywood", believing the song had commercial potential.
Recording "Hollywood" was produced by Madonna, along with Ahmadzaï. The recording sessions for American Life started in late 2001, then was put on hold as Madonna filmed Swept Away in Malta and starred in the West End play Up for Grabs. She returned to the Olympic Recording Studios in late 2002 and finished off the sessions. Initially, Madonna was not satisfied with the original version of "Hollywood" recorded, so she developed an alternate melody for it. The instruments used on "Hollywood" are similar to the ones used on the other songs from American Life. The mixing for the track was done by Mark "Spike" Stent at the Westlake Recording Studios at West Hollywood, California, while Tim Young did the mastering of the song at Metropolis Studios in London. Ahmadzaï played the guitars, and also did the necessary programming. He used a drum kit and percussion from an E-mu Emulator and also added extra drum sounds to give the song an old, disco vibe. Wanting to have a loud bass synth sound, Ahmadzaï used a Nord Lead synthesizer with lot of filtering manipulations. But he faced problems with it, so he used a Yamaha O2R mixer. He did not want "Hollywood" to sound like the music being played at the nightclubs, so he recorded Madonna's vocals with heavy compression in her headphones. Two machines were used for the vocal editing in "Hollywood". Madonna preferred the Antares Auto-Tune plug in, while Ahmadzaï chose an AMS pitch shifter]. Madonna wanted Auto-Tune because she wanted "Hollywood" to have a more dance-like feel to it, although Ahmadzaï was against it. Describing the recording of the vocals, Ahmadzaï said:
"We used mainly analog compressors on the vocals, sometimes very cheap or mid-budget stuff, recorded with a Sony G800 tube mic, a Neve 8081 preamp and an LA-2A compressor/limiter. But everything is about the setting ... We experiment a lot with vocal sounds. For example, the pitch-down vocal at the end was initially much longer. The mix of this one was very hard — like almost all tracks — because there was so much stuff going on. This is why maybe the final version is so simple."
Composition
"Hollywood" is a "bouncy" folk rock, synth-pop, electro-folk, electropop and psychedelic folk song. Ken Micallef of Electronic Musician described it as "a clubby disco beat underpin[ning] a mammoth bass line with freaky percussion, queasy arcing tones and madly treated vocals." It also contains house beats with elements of space age and retro music. Following the sound of twittering birds, the song opens with a four-chord sequence played on a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar; the riff was compared to the music of the Red Hot Chili Peppers by Rikky Rooksby, author of The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna. It is followed by the sound of drums and synthesizers until after a minute, when the arrangement is pulled out, leaving just Madonna's vocals and the acoustic guitar accompaniment. Madonna's voice glides over pop beats throughout the song. During the final sequence, Madonna's singing is slowly morphed lower in pitch into a distorted, robotic voice and she raps, with the repeated phrase "Push the button". According to the sheet music published at Sheetmusicplus.com, "Hollywood" is written in common time with a moderately fast tempo of 126 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of B minor with Madonna's voice spanning from B3 to C5. An abrupt shift of key takes place at about three minutes into the song, from B minor to C minor, which according to Rooksby was utilized to give the song's closing choruses a different treatment. The song follows a basic sequence of Bm–D–A–G–Em as its chord progression.
Lyrically, it discusses American culture and greed, focusing on Hollywood as a place of pop stars and illusory dreams. The bridge opens with Madonna saying, "Music stations always play the same songs/I'm bored with the concept of right and wrong". Further, Madonna questions the Hollywood experience, singing, "How could it hurt you when it looked so good?". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian noted Madonna's vocals in the song are "high-pitched [to sound like a] little-girl", with the intention of "[underlying] the notion of innocence lost".
Remixes Several remixes of "Hollywood", done by DJs such as Jacques Lu Cont, The Micronauts, Paul Oakenfold, Deepsky and Victor Calderone, were included on physical releases of the single around the world. In August 2003, the song was remixed with "Into the Groove" and performed with Missy Elliott under the title "Into the Hollywood Groove" as part of a promotional campaign for clothing retailer, GAP. Copies of the promotional CD were given to customers and were not available for individual purchase. An extended version, "The Passengerz Mix", was also included on the remix album Remixed & Revisited (2003). A promotional video for the remix was also shot. Rob Walker of Slate considered the video "interesting because Madonna has always been praised as much for her ability to market herself as for her actual talent as a singer and performer". However, he noted that "[the singer] can't even get an actual commercial right. Maybe Madonna really is over." A parody of the commercial which satirized at Madonna's age was featured on the ninth season of MADtv & the 2003 French & Saunders Christmas special.
"Hollywood" was also remixed by American DJ duo Blow-Up. The remix was set to be included on Madonna's second remix album planned for 2004; however, it remained unreleased. A Billboard review by Michael Paoletta considered it a "funky dark remix". An unofficial remix was commissioned to DJ Junior Vasquez for designer Donatella Versace's spring/summer 2004 menswear show in Milan, in spite of the singer having a falling out with Vasquez, following the DJ releasing an unauthorized single titled "If Madonna Calls". The original version that Vasquez played at nightclubs contained an actual phone message from Madonna left on Vasquez's answering machine. Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg confirmed that this did not mean the singer would collaborate with Vasquez in the future since the commissioning of the remix was just a "personal favor" for Versace.
Critical reception "Hollywood" received mixed reviews from music critics. Michael Paoletta from Billboard described the song as "punky" and compared it to "Ray of Light" (1998). Dimitri Ebrlich of Vibe magazine gave a positive review for the song, describing it as "disarmingly self-deprecatory as it reflects on people's desperate attempts to make it in America's glamor industry", writing that it was a perfect fit for American Life. Jude Adam of Third Way magazine gave the song a positive review, considering it as "quirky, sunny, and sweet in perfect measures." Stephen Thompson of The A.V. Club considered the song as "actually catchy". Alexis Petridis of The Guardian noted that Madonna divulges in the song that not everyone who wants to make it in the movies succeeds. Jessica Winter from The Village Voice commented that in the song, "Madonna channels a generic teen-pop chanteuse". Dennis Ferrera from Out, while interviewing Madonna for her 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor, described the song as a "killer single". Another positive review by J. J. Evans from Naperville Sun described "Hollywood" as a track which best exemplifies Madonna's "silly way of writing" but felt that it worked in this case. Chris Heath from Yahoo! Music commented that "'Hollywood' breaks free of its inferior siblings to strike out as a sexy sliver of dance pop that's as good as anything on Music". Chuck Arnold from Entertainment Weekly found it ironic that Madonna was singing about Hollywood, given all her failed attempts at a successful movie career. Nonetheless, he concluded that "with its sweet guitar picking, this American Life single shines its light wherever you are".