Annie says: I’m not the British Madonna

The Scotsman online has an interview with Annie Lennox about her new album. What follow are excerpts in which Madonna is mentioned.

Lennox has been doing her bit to redress the balance away from vacuous indulgence. On Songs of Mass Destruction, for example, there is a song called Sing which she wrote “as an anthem focusing on the mother-to-child HIV transmission-prevention program”. She enlisted the help of 23 of the most stellar female names in pop, from Madonna, Joss Stone and Shakira to Aretha Franklin, KD Lang and Celine Dion, who each contribute a vocal, Band Aid style. She intends to make the track available on the net, with profits from downloads going to support TAC initiatives.

“I thought, by nature of the fact that my gender is female, I will contact other successful, internationally known female artists and make a kind of posse, if you like, of women, who are making a stand for women that don’t have a voice,” she explains. “It’s a fantastic list of women. Even if nobody plays the song or it’s not a hit, it doesn’t matter. Because it’s an interesting event, to get all these people together. And I’m using it as a political statement, a little platform, really, for social change.” But Lennox is under no illusions that a single track, or performer, can change the world. She may have been touched by the idealism of the 1960s and spurred into musical action by the radicalism of the 1970s, but she’s no head-in-the-sand optimist. She’s a pragmatist.

With her changes of style over the years and ability to adapt to changing fashions, is she a British Madonna or female Bowie? She seems offended.

“No! I’m neither of those people. How could I be the British Madonna? Who’s she? In what terms could I ever be the British Madonna? I’m just me.”

Source: The Scotsman
Thanks to Vincy