Pink Floyd: The band MADONNA SHOCKINGLY dismissed as just “MUSIC FOR MEN”!

When it comes to crowning all of the monarchs and nobility of pop, Madonna is often considered the queen of the genre.

Madonna - 1990 - Singer - Songwriter - Dick Tracey
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Over the course of her illustrious career, she’s undergone plenty of reinventions.

During the early part of her career, her success was so formidable that her music and influence were virtually inescapable, with several acts emerging after her and attempting to jump aboard the bandwagon that she’d set in motion.

While many of her early hits can be described as pop with a capital P, with it all following a certain production style that was popular in the 1980s, her later forays into dance music, country and electronic proved that she didn’t just have a one-track mind when it came to conquering the pop charts.

There were obvious attempts to push her artistry further in different directions, the older she got, and for the most part, she’s kept to her ambitions in this sense.

However, everyone has their limits when it comes to incorporating influences into their music, and no matter how much she may have claimed to be interested in the trip-hop sound of Massive Attack or rave pioneers The Prodigy, there are fewer examples of them shaping her music.

On the other hand, Madonna is a vocal fan of classic rock and psychedelia, and this is evident from songs like 1999’s hit ‘Beautiful Stranger’ that play up to a love of The Doors and The Beatles’ later material.

In a 1994 interview with Q magazine, Madonna was questioned about what she thought of a number of high-profile music icons of the past and present, and she gave her unfiltered thoughts on a variety of figures who may have had an effect on her.

Surprisingly, the psychedelic acts that were brought up in this context were far from appreciated by her royal highness.

Madonna did make room to praise the early works of Elvis Presley, another artist with a regal nickname who she claims is “God”, and called George Michael “an incredible songwriter”, while acknowledging the lyrical brilliance of Morrissey and the sheer emotional impact of some of Bob Dylan’s work, but the mere mention of the Grateful Dead elicited a straightforward “yuck” from the singer.

However, her harshest words were saved for another titan of psychedelic rock, whom she claimed to have never understood the appeal of.

When asked what she thought of Pink Floyd, her reaction was “that just sounds like music for men.

I can’t relate to it. It’s very male”. While there is a certain archetype of Pink Floyd fans who tend to be the nerdish anorak dudes that will bore you with every small detail about their experiences of listening to The Piper at the Gates of Dawn for the first time, there’s very little present that ought to stop a woman from enjoying their music, and the fandom isn’t a gatekept thing.

However, while there’s zero logical explanation for her assertions, when you consider the phrase ‘dad rock’ and the bands you’d associate with it, there’s always going to be room for Pink Floyd.

Whereas, there are very few occasions where someone would call them ‘mum rock’, if indeed that is a thing. It’s a shame that Madonna hadn’t really engaged with the music of PJ Harvey, stating, “I know who she is. I don’t know her music”. She’s perhaps the finest antidote there is to counter the supposed blokecore of Pink Floyd, and if there’s an argument to be made that music for women exists, she’s most definitely written it.