Madonna channels the essence of Lisbon’s Fado music in “Crave”

In their review of what they describe as “a low-key moment which nods vaguely back towards the heartbreak of Like a Prayer, and yet sounds nothing like it”, NME draws a very interesting relation between Madonna’s new single Crave and her first-hand experience of Fado music in the bars of Lisbon.

Madonna permanently relocated to Lisbon last year, where she posted a faux-tragic picture of herself sipping champagne alone; “Would anyone like to sip Cham-Pain with me?” she asked wryly with a crying emoji – it was all very tongue-in-cheek. So far the influence of her latest hometown stretches as far as the Euro-pop flavour of lead single Medellin, but in the opening lines of Crave she appears to be tackling loneliness and unfamiliar surroundings with a new vulnerability.

I’m tired of being far away from home, far from what can help, far from where it’s safe.

And while Madge’s Mike Dean-produced auto-tuned vocals might cause a minor controversy in a tiled old Taberna, Crave certainly draws on elements of Lisbon’s traditional Fado music. Sure, Madonna’s not belting it out like she’s filling up a town square with her intense melancholy, but even so, there’s a vulnerability to Crave which also shares the genre’s resignation and fatefulness.

You know I just can’t change, this is how I’m made. I’m not afraid, take me to that place.

Read the full story on nme.com.