My Inspiration: MXYM – I Am Madonna

North-East melder of all that is avant-garde, goth and glam, AKA MXYM, drops their latest single I Am Madonna, which focuses on a new mantra the artist has developed to keep their performance levels high and their mental health strong. 

As the title suggests the track is packed with attitude as well as popping beats, indie-rock guitar grit and a much more aggressive vocal delivery from MXYM.

Here, MXYM tells us a little more about what inspired the track, which is out now…

While on the surface my new track I Am Madonna may seem like a ridiculous, over-the-top camp bit of stupidity (which it is) it genuinely came from quite a dark place and was a pretty important song for me to write. 

Towards the end of recording my last EP, Memento Mori, I was finding it incredibly hard to find excitement in performing and making music. With the content of that project being very dark and dealing with some hefty emotional stuff, it became very taxing on my mental health. As someone who usually enjoys bringing the party to my live shows, I was really struggling to find that joy, my pre-show anxiety was at an all-time high and there’d be times I could almost not enter the venue I was about to play cause my brain was in full fight or flight mode (and choosing flight).

One of the main things that kept me going at the time was a Madonna biography I was reading: Mary Gabriel’s “A Rebel Life”. As a lifelong Madonna fan, this book made me feel so inspired by her tenacity and power. She was just like myself and all the underground artists around me. I ended up reciting “I am Madonna” on loop in my head like a crazy person, which truly helped me be able to go on stage and do my thing with the fire and enjoyment I’d had before. 

I knew I needed to make it a track, partly because I loved the absolute insanity of a song called “I Am Madonna”, but mainly so I could actually vocalise it. I wanted to create a song that would truly change my headspace and get me through the night. Hopefully, the track can do the same for others too, if you’re having a terrible day just play this and remember you can be Madonna too! WE’RE ALL MADONNA!”