| "What It Feels Like for a Girl" | ||||
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| Single byMadonna | ||||
| from the albumMusic | ||||
| B-side | "Lo Que Siente la Mujer" | |||
| Released | April 9, 2001 (2001-04-09) | |||
| Studio | Sarm West (London) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 4:43 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriters | ||||
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| Madonna singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "What It Feels Like for a Girl" onYouTube | ||||
"What It Feels Like for a Girl" is a song recorded by American singerMadonna for her eighth studio albumMusic (2000). It was released as the third and final single from the album on April 9, 2001, byMaverick Records andWarner Bros. Records. It was written and produced by Madonna andGuy Sigsworth, withDavid Torn as co-writer, andMark "Spike" Stent as a co-producer. A mid-tempoelectronic,synth-pop andglitch pop song, it lyrically conveys society'sdouble standard toward women, addressing hurtful myths about female inferiority. To emphasize the message, the song opens with a spoken word sample by actressCharlotte Gainsbourg from the 1993 British filmThe Cement Garden. A Spanish version of the track, "Lo Que Siente la Mujer", was translated by Alberto Ferreras and included in the Latin American edition ofMusic.
"What It Feels Like for a Girl" received acclaim from most music critics, who declared it as a highlight from the album, while also remarking it as one of the most mature musical ventures of Madonna's career. Commercially, the song reached the top 10 in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Romania, Spain, Scotland[a] and the UK. In the US, it peaked at number 23 on theBillboard Hot 100 and atop theDance Club Songs.
An accompanying music video for "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was directed by Madonna's then-husbandGuy Ritchie and premiered on March 22, 2001. It features the singer as a reckless woman on a crime spree. The video was criticized for its depiction of violence and abuse, which causedMTV to ban it before 9:00 pm. The single was also released onDVD and became the highest weekly sales for a DVD release in the United States. Madonna performed the track on the promotional concerts forMusic in November 2000 and on her 2001Drowned World Tour, where a remixed version was used as a video interlude and also performed in Spanish. The song was covered bythe actors of television seriesGlee, during the episode "The Power of Madonna", and was included in theaccompanying EP.
After the critical and commercial success of her seventh studio album,Ray of Light (1998), Madonna had intended to embark on a concert tour in September 1999, but the tour was cancelled due to the delay of her filmThe Next Best Thing (2000).[1] She released one-off singles like "Beautiful Stranger" (1999) and a cover ofDon McLean's "American Pie" (2000).[2][3][4] The singer also became pregnant with her son Rocco, from her relationship with directorGuy Ritchie.[5] Wanting to distract herself from the media frenzy, Madonna concentrated on the development of her eighth studio album,Music.[6]
In April 2000, it was announced that French musicianMirwais Ahmadzaï was creating a melding of dance and pop songs with a disco feel for the album.[7] Later, it was also announced that Madonna enlistedGuy Sigsworth to work with her on the album.[8] The singer had followed Sigsworth's work, admired his love of understated technology in music, and contacted him for adding anambient feel to her record. Madonna played him the rough demo tracks developed forMusic, including the songs created with Ahmadzaï.[9] The idea for "What It Feels Like for a Girl" came to Madonna when she was halfway through her pregnancy and was trying to keep the media from finding out.[10] Sigsworth sent her a demo backing track containing asample from the 1993 British filmThe Cement Garden, directed byAndrew Birkin, in which the voice of actressCharlotte Gainsbourg speaks softly, "Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots. 'Cause it's OK to be a boy. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading. 'Causeyou think thatbeing a girl is degrading. But secretly you'd love to know what it's like... Wouldn't you? What it feels like for a girl".[9][11]
Madonna listened to the phrase uttered by Gainsbourg and started writing the song and the melody, resulting in "What It Feels Like for a Girl", a track described by her as a complaint about the politics of sexes.[9] She was going through some emotional turmoil due to living on a different continent than her husband Guy Ritchie.[10] Due to her pregnancy she decided to move to England to be close to him. "Being the girl, I made the first compromise. It's that extra thing that [women] have. I don't think that we're better than men, but I believe there's an extra accommodating chromosome", she toldInterview'sIngrid Sischy.[10] Madonna reflected on how her generation of women had been encouraged to be independent, be educated and take over any opportunity life bestowed upon them. But she had realized that being a smart and accomplished woman can come across as threat to men, thereby making them a casualty. Madonna questioned, "Why didn't somebody tell me? Why didn't somebody warn me?' And that's also what that song is about—swallowing that bitter pill... It was a combination of that, and also just feeling incredibly vulnerable that inspired the song."[11]
Sigsworth's demo track was the second of two sketches presented to Madonna, and she chose the one with the sample fromThe Cement Garden. It was almost finished but was still kept unpolished so that the singer could continue writing on top of it.[12] He recorded the track atSarm West Studios rather than his own studio since he did not want to "fuck up" working with Madonna.[9] The song was finished quickly and within four days they were able to create the final version. From the first day onward Madonna and Sigsworth decided to keep all the musical noises from the demo. So the producer had to find a way to reposition Madonna's vocals around the segments, utilizingPro Tools on aSSL 9000 J console.[12][13] Madonna insisted Sigsworth to give her a rough approximate sound, rather than work on the music for two-three hours. That way they would know if it can be kept or rejected and save time on production. During recording, Sigsworth noticed that theverses were out of sync with the music and wanted to add extrabar which would help them be coherent. However Madonna dismissed it, and he had to cut up the individual music to put it in his computer for accompanying her vocals. Sigsworth thought it made the song sound more "fluid and magical" and commended Madonna for not taking the cop-out solution.[9]
"What It Feels Like for a Girl" is anelectronic,[14]synth-pop[15] andglitch pop[16] semi-ballad.[17] Madonna and Sigsworth were listed as songwriters and producers on the track with additional production byMark "Spike" Stent.[18] American guitaristDavid Torn was credited as an additional songwriter after Madonna found out Sigsworth had sampled from Torn's 1987 album,Cloud About Mercury.[19] Stent recorded "What It Feels Like for a Girl" using aSony 3348 HR and a BASF 931 tape. Hemixed it at London'sOlympic Studios using SSL G SeriesQuantegy magnetic tapes. Tim Youngmastered the track atMetropolis Studio at Westminster, London.[13]
According to the sheet music published by Musicnotes.com, the song is set incommon time, with atempo of 104beats per minutes. It's set in thekey ofE♭ major, with Madonna's vocals spanning from the lower octave ofG3 to the higher note ofB♭4. The song has a sequence of D♭maj9–E♭–E♭/F–A♭ during the verses and F9sus4–A♭–D♭maj9–E♭ during the chorus as itschord progression.[20] The track begins with Gainsbourg's monologue which is followed by drum sounds, a rhythm section supported by string pads, and the chord sequence which highlights the melody.[21] Madonna sings over a synth line the first verse, "Silky smooth lips as sweet as candy, baby/Tight blue jeans, skin that shows in patches" in a mellow and feminine tone, which is driven by a "cool beat" and filteredbass licks.[11][22] The ambient production has a number of sounds floating in-and-out of the track, longechos and vocals being pulled back.[21]
As the pre-chorus ends, the drums are pulled out and added immediately thechorus starts, washed over by tidal keys and pads, and Madonna asking the question, "Do you know what it feels like for a girl?".[21][22] Phil Dellio fromThe Village Voice noticed the presence of "gossamer-like" synthesizer in the background, while author Rikky Rooksby highlighted theequalized bass guitar in the center of the production.[21][23] Another characteristic Sigsworth feature is the sound of a CD player "skipping" during the song.[12] A Spanish version of the track, titled "Lo Que Siente la Mujer" (English:What a Woman Feels), was translated by Alberto Ferreras and included as theB-side of the US CD maxi single release, as well as on the bonus disc of the 2001 Special Tour edition ofMusic and as a bonus track on the Mexican and Latin American editions.[24][25][26] Stan Hawkins, author ofCritical Musicological Reflections, felt that by switching "girl" to "woman" in the Spanish version, Madonna had "upgraded" its nature.[27] Lyrically, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" condemns male chauvinism by addressing hurtful myths about female inferiority and female role-playing in society, with the singer inviting men to imagine themselves as girls.[11]
"What It Feels Like for a Girl" was initially planned to be the album's second single, but "Don't Tell Me" was chosen instead.[8] The song was eventually released as the album's third single on April 16, 2001.[28] Upon release, severalremixes were commissioned, created byAbove & Beyond,Victor Calderone,Richard "Humpty" Vission,Paul Oakenfold andTracy Young.[29] The "Velvet Masta Mix", created by Richard Vission, gave the song a bass-heavy intro and a funkier groove.[17] Vission recalled that Madonna had turned down his first mix and asked him to redo it again.[30] Calderone's "Dark Side Mix" was more mellow, relying more onpercussions while Tracy Young's mix included stringedharp instrumentation. AllMusic's Jose F. Promis praised in particular the Oakenfold version for "transforming the song into a massive, deep arena club stomper".[17] The Above & Beyond remix, which was used for the music video, features "hard and rhythmic" pumping beats and removed Madonna's verses, leaving only the chorus and repeating the Charlotte Gainsbourg sample several times in the middle.[11] It peaked at number 14 on theVG-lista in Norway.[31]
Production duoThunderpuss was hired to do an official remix of "What It Feels Like for a Girl". However, when they were almost finished, an unofficial remix, credited as "The Thunderpuss Mix",leaked on the internet. During an interview withAbout.com,Barry Harris from the group recalled that they had been working on the remix and were waiting for it to be approved when they received a call from Warner Bros. Records, informing them that the remix was circulating in the internet. BothChris Cox and Harris tried to find out the issue and concluded that someone had retitled the original with their group's name and released it. Thunderpuss tried to convince the record label executives but failed and the remix was canceled.[32]
Upon release, the song received general acclaim frommusic critics. Rikky Rooksby wrote in his book,The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna (2004), that "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was the best track onMusic.[21] AuthorLucy O'Brien described the song as having a "beautifully executed sense of anger" in her 2007 biography,Madonna: Like an Icon. Likening it to Madonna's 1989 single "Express Yourself", O'Brien called it a "femme-pop" song.[9]AllMusic'sStephen Thomas Erlewine picked it as one of the album's highlights, calling it a "terrific midtempo cut".[33]Slant's Sal Cinquemani felt that "Madonna has revealed more of herself than ever [inMusic]. No longer shrouded with pedantic spirituality, she has become even more human [...] revealing her soul on 'What It Feels Like For A Girl'".[34] However, on his review ofGHV2 (2001), Cinquemani felt the track was "largely lost amid the conventional sonics ofMusic's final single" and called it that compilation's least dynamic offering, giving a C− rating.[35] Eric Henderson, from the same magazine, wrote that "occasionally, and only occasionally, Madonna's reach exceeds her grasp. 'What It Feels Like for a Girl' is one of those cases. Its intentions feel more fully fleshed out in the controversial music video than they do in the song itself".[36]
Nathan Smith fromHouston Press opined it was "one of the realest and most mature vocal performances of her career as she gently explores the double standard faced by ambitious women".[37] FromGay Star News, Joe Morgan called it a "clear reminder that Madonna can write some incredible lyrics".[38] Writing forEntertainment Weekly, journalistDavid Browne relegated the track as "an older, wiser 'Into the Groove'", highlighting its "softly padding beat and genuinely empathetic lyrics".[39]Q magazine's Danny Eccleston picked it as a standout track, claiming it had "the vaguest melodic echo ofBasement Jaxx's terrific 'On & On'".[40] Cynthia Funchs ofPopMatters picked the song as her favorite on the album, calling it "outstanding" with "sweet, enchanted beats".[41] Eamon Sweeney ofHot Press, found it similar, in tone and texture, toNatalie Imbruglia's 1998 single "Smoke".[42]Jon Pareles ofThe New York Times called it "Madonna's quasi-feminist statement".[43]Rolling Stone's Barry Walters called it "as musically gentle as it is lyrically barbed".[44]
Garry Mulholland ofThe Guardian, praised its "melancholy atmosphere and ambiguous air".[45] Also fromThe Guardian, Maddy Costa thought that the track was "exquisite", adding "on 'What It Feels Like for a Girl' you feel is the Madonna of old, talking about being a pop bitch and making you tingle even with its hackneyed lyrics".[46] Writing forBillboard, Larry Flick hailed it "a hook-laden midtempo jam [...] that should give theBritney/Christina generation of teenage female listeners a little food for thought", highlighting its "motherly, nurturing perspective".[47] Also fromBillboard, Chuck Taylor named it "one of the more substantive – and mature – musical ventures of [Madonna's] career", while panning its remix version for "reduc[ing] the song to a mindless trickle of beats without any hints of the verses".[14] Alex Pappademas fromSpin, pointed out that the song "flaunts the sexiest synth shimmer this side of [Aguilera's] 'Genie in a Bottle'".[48]The Village Voice's Phil Dellio found the song to be "the perfect answer record to [the novel]The Virgin Suicides (where boys indeed stand on the side of the street looking uncomprehendingly towards girls)".[23] In a retrospective review of its parent album,Pitchfork's Shaad D'Souza characterized "What It Feels Like for a Girl" as "something like Madonna's take on aDido ballad, with plush synths wrapped around the album's purest, most traditional hook" and a "beautiful yet slightly baffling song", concluding: "Then again, it's not a song of empowerment so much as a plea. [...] The lyrics are universal, but still hard to separate from the memory of the brazen, armored pop star who debuted in 1982, so consciously invulnerable to the standards of the world around her."[49]
While listing "The 100 Greatest Madonna Songs",Louis Virtel fromThe Backlot ranked "What It Feels Like for a Girl" at number 45, saying that "its tenderness and power resonated like no Madonna ballad since 'Take a Bow'".[50] In 2013, Scott Kearnan ofBoston.com included it at number 26 on his list of "30 Ultimate Madonna Singles"; he wrote that "Madonna's covered plenty of ground about how women are treated in the world, but she's rarely this unfiltered".[51] The same year, Edward Cheung fromPopMatters ranked it as the sixth best production by Guy Sigsworth, writing that "an excellently placed spoken word sample (delivered by Charlotte Gainsbourg) and a keening synth line immediately set the tone for Madge's track as fashionably lonely".[22] Matthew Jacob's fromThe Huffington Post ranked the track at number 51 on his list "The Definitive Ranking of Madonna Singles", pointing out its "meaningful lyrical accomplishment".[52]
While ranking Madonna's singles in honor of her 60th birthday, in August 2018,Jude Rogers fromThe Guardian placed the track at number 37 and wrote that "it sounds like aSaint Etienne song accidentally covered by a superstar".[53]Entertainment Weekly's Chuck Arnold called it "one of Madonna's artistic peaks" and her "most underappreciated" release; he listed it as her 14th best single.[54] In 2019, Samuel R. Murrian fromParade ranked it at number 16 on his list of the singer's 100 greatest songs: "Lyrically barbed but sonically soft, one of Madonna's most radical tracks explores the brutality of being a woman in a man's world. [...] Though it was recorded nearly two decades before the#MeToo movement, this track feels like an anthem for it. Madonna was, and is, ahead of her time".[55]
"What It Feels Like for a Girl" debuted at number 73 on the USBillboard Hot 100 chart of May 5, 2001, and moved to number 46 the following week, becoming in the biggest leap of that week.[56] The release of the DVD single, CD maxi and 12-inch vinyl prompted the song to debut at number 15 on theHot 100 Singles Sales chart with 6,600 copies, majority being from the DVD single becoming the highest one-week sales for a DVD single sales.[57] The song peaked at number 23 on the issue dated May 19, 2001, becoming that week's greatest gainer in sales.[58] The same week, it also reached the top of theDance Club Songs chart.[59] At the year-end ranking for 2001, the song placed at number 24 on Dance Club Songs.[60] According to Madonna's official website since only amaxi single was released commercially, it hindered the chart placement onBillboard Hot 100.[28] In Canada, the song debuted at number 14 on theCanadian Singles Chart, and reached a peak of number two after two weeks later.[61][62]
In Australia, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" debuted and peaked at number six on theARIA Charts, on May 6, 2001, and was present in the top-fifty for nine weeks, and was ranked number 84 on the year-end placements.[63][64] The track also reached the top of the Australian dance charts.[65] It was certified Gold by theAustralian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for shipment of 35,000 copies of the single.[66] The song debuted at number 50 on theNew Zealand Singles Chart, and reached a peak of number 15 after six weeks.[67]
In the United Kingdom, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" managed to become the third song fromMusic to peak inside the top-ten, reaching number seven on April 28, 2001.[68] According to theOfficial Charts Company, it has sold 86,771 copies in the country as of August 2008.[69] The song was successful across Europe, reaching the top-ten of the charts in Denmark, Finland, Italy, Netherlands and Spain.[70][71] However, in some countries, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" failed to reach the top-twenty. In Austria and Sweden, the song reached numbers 26 and 22, respectively, becoming her lowest-charting single since "Nothing Really Matters" (1999) in both countries.[72][73] In France, the song debuted and peaked at number 40 on theFrench Singles Chart, and descended rapidly.[74] The track managed to reach the top-ten of theEuropean Hot 100 Singles chart, reaching number eight on May 5, 2001.[75] It was also the most played song on European radios, holding the top position for five weeks.[76]
In February 2001, English filmmakerGuy Ritchie, Madonna's then husband, said that they were planning to work together on her new music video; "creatively, we like the same sort of things, so it just makes sense".[77] One month later, Madonna revealed to Ingrid Sischy that the video would be for "What It Feels Like for a Girl", which she found "ironic because [Ritchie]'s such a macho man, and his movies are so testosterone-driven, but I asked him a long time ago what song on the album he responded to the most, and that's the one".[10] Filming took place in Los Angeles, including on theOlympic Boulevard. According to Madonna she portrayed a "nihilistic pissed-off chick" in the clip, doing things that girls are generally recommended against. The video did not feature the original version of the song but theAbove & Beyond remix since the singer "wanted a matching visual to it and an edgy dance mix".[78]
The clip starts with the singer in a motel room getting ready to go out; her hair is straight, chin length and parted down the middle.[79] She thenhot-wires a yellow 1978Chevrolet Camaro from the parking lot, with the license plates reading "Pussy" and "Cat" on the front and back, before driving to the "Ol Kuntz Guest Home" to pick up a semi-catatonic elderly woman.[80] At a traffic light, they stop next to a car with three young men, one of whom blows her a kiss, which prompts Madonna to spin her car around andcrash into them.[81] She parks at anATM,tasers a man and steals his money, and later gives it to a waitress at a burger place, watched by two policemen.[80][82] The singer drives alongside and scratches theirpolice car and then squirts water in their faces from a fake pistol before driving backwards into their car, triggering their air bags.[80] She then mows down a pack ofstreet hockey players before stealing a red 1979Pontiac Trans Am from a gas station while a man fills its tank, spilling gasoline all over the pavement. Madonna then throws a lighter out of the window causing an explosion, all while still accompanied by the old woman.[80] The final shot depicts her slamming the stolen car head-on into a telephone pole in an apparent act ofmurder–suicide.[81]
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Upon release, the video was criticized for its violent content. Music channelsMTV andVH1 said that it would not be added to their regular US rotation and would air it just once, during a news segment, before being completelybanned.[83]
Due to the excessive violence where Madonna's character went on multiple killing sprees, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" became Madonna's fourth music video to be banned by TV channels (and her third banned by MTV), following "Like a Prayer" (1989) due to blasphemy, "Justify My Love" (1990) and "Erotica" (1992) for nudity and bisexuality.[82] "What It Feels Like for a Girl" aired on March 20, 2001, at 11:30 pm, following an introduction by MTV News anchorKurt Loder.[80] Liz Rosenberg, Madonna's publicist, released a statement urging the channels "to make a very strong commitment to playing this video [...] there are many other possibilities that we can explore but our first choice has always been for VH1 and MTV to play [the video], and more than once".[84] In 2002, the video was aired in its entirety onMTV2 as part of a special countdown of the year's most controversial videos.[85]
Three days later, the clip was shown several times onOxygen as part of its "Daily Remix" music series.[86] A spokeswoman for Oxygen said that the decision to air the video multiple times was because "our demographic is of 18–49 year old women [...] older than MTV's". Canadian music channelMuchMusic followed and aired the video several times throughout the day and night.[87] Norm Schoenfield, US VP of programming for MuchMusic, released a statement saying "[the video] is no more or less violent than what kids see on TV everyday. We weren't offended by it, and treating it just like any other Madonna video. Just because MTV isn't playing it, doesn't mean we can't". Schoenfield also criticized the decision of releasing an advisory warning alongside the video because "it's the artist's responsibility to do that". Nonetheless, other Canadian networks aired it only after 9 pm accompanied by a warning.[87] There were also talks of airing the video onHBO but it never happened.[84][87]
Following the controversy with MTV, Warner Bros. Records signed a deal withAOL to air the video online on its music forums. "Our job as a record company is to get exposure for the video, So when the label couldn't get Viacom to commit to showing the video, it started talking to other outlets", explained Rosenberg.[88] On April 24, 2001, the video was released as aDVD single with the disc having linearPCM sound quality.[89] It debuted onBillboard's Top Music Video sales chart at number two with 6,200 copies sold, the highest sum for a DVD single since Madonna's clip for "Music", which had sold 4,200 copies in September 2000.[57][90] The clip was later included on Madonna's 2009 compilation,Celebration: The Video Collection.[91][92] Regarding the violent content, Madonna said that her intention was to "make people ask questions and open dialogues".[89] Instead of banning the music video, Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg called for an open conversation for why Madonna's character went out of control. Rosenberg explained toNew York Daily News that the clip told the story of a woman who had probably been abused, and called it a "kind of an anti-violence film. I can't imagine anyone would want to duplicate it". The apparent suicide at the end had references fromGreek mythology, according to Ritchie.[84]
David Bianculli from theNew York Daily News felt that "Madonna has always kept her videos and images at least as fresh as her music. 'What It Feels Like for a Girl', though, is a bad attempt to chase attention by promising controversy".[80] Similarly,Billboard's Carla Hay concluded that the video did not live up to its hype.[87] George Lang fromThe Oklahoman, called it as the singer's worst clip and criticized Ritchie's directing abilities; "he has great visual sense, but his work often is lacking depth. Both his asset and his debit were in ample evidence in [the video]".[81]Entertainment Weekly's Nicholas Fonseca gave the video a rating of C and opined that "Thelma and Louise it ain't. In fact, little girls can probably find more empowerment copying Britney Spears' provocative chair dance from her 'Stronger' video". But he criticized MTV's decision to ban the clip when they aired much more violent videos on the channel.[79] Eden Miller fromPopMatters echoed this sentiment, adding that MTV aired videos such asEminem's "Stan", in which the main character drives his car off a bridge with his pregnant girlfriend tied up in the trunk, orRobbie Williams' "Rock DJ", in which the singer strips his skin off in graphic detail. Critics argued the gender double standards where violent music videos by male singers are largely tolerated by TV networks. Miller relegated the banning of Madonna's music video was because "the idea of a woman taking her aggression out on men is something even an edgy TV network likeMTV was unable to accept. That's what is so disturbing. And that really is what it feels like for a girl".[93]
Writing for theSan Francisco Chronicle, Neva Chonin accused the video for being amarketing ploy and believed that the singer knew it would result in controversy and drive sales amidst the publicity. Nonetheless, she praised it for being a follow-up to Madonna's aesthetics and changing of her looks from her early career. Chonin realized that by making the violent video, Madonna proved the song's concept further by making a girl behave violently in place of a boy.[82]Louis Virtel fromThe Backlot ranked it as the singer's 12th greatest video, calling it "the ultimate (read: solely tolerable) Madonna/Guy Ritchie collaboration [...] She's both chilling and totally confident. It's her most frightening performance in a music video, and when she plows that car into a group of strangers, her stoic response makes for her greatest video moment of the 2000s".[94]
Andrew Morton opined that the video was "entirely consistent with the themes [Madonna] has been exploring for the last twenty years, namely the relationship between the sexes, the ambiguity of gender, and the unresolved conflict, for women in a patriarchal society of being fully female and sexual while exercising control over their lives".[95] According to Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Freya Jarman-Ivens, authors ofMadonna's Drowned Worlds, the video represented the female fantasy of behaving like a "bad boy" and doing things associated with men. They pointed out the scene in which Madonna winks at three men at a traffic light just before crashing their car, as they felt that on this particular shot she was "turning the tables of violence back on the men for whom such behavior is considerednormal and putting them on the receiving end of violence, a position usually reserved for women".[96] They noticed that unlike previous Madonna videos which were banned for religious themes or sexuality, MTV found violence as an offence. Even using the remix in the clip changed the song's feminine and bittersweet nature to something faster and harder, adjectives usually reserved for boys. The authors concluded that as always, Madonna inverted the traditional roles and characterization of male and female in the clip.[96]
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"What It Feels Like for a Girl" was performed on the promotional concerts forMusic in November 2000 at New York City'sRoseland Ballroom and at London'sBrixton Academy.[97][98] On New York, Madonna dedicated the song to singer Britney Spears, while wearing a tank top with Spears' name printed on it.[97][98] For the London performance, she wore a different top imprinted with the names of son Rocco and daughter Lourdes.[99] Around 3,000 fans attended the concert in London, which wasstreamed over the internet. More than nine million people watched the concert according to Nicky Price, a representative for Microsoft'sMSN, thewebcast's producer.[98] It became the most-viewed webcast of all time, beatingPaul McCartney's performance of "50s rock and roll classics" at Liverpool'sThe Cavern Club in December 1999, which was viewed by an audience of about three million.[98][100]
For theDrowned World Tour of 2001, a remix of the track was used as a video interlude. Dancers wearinganime andmanga inspired costumes swung from wires in a Japanese-inspired sequence as the backdrops featured scenes of a naked girl being pursued, trapped and sexually abused. The clips were taken fromSatoshi Kon's 1997 filmPerfect Blue interspersed with footage of thehentai animeUrotsukidōji.[43][101][102] Writing for MTV News, Rob Mancini opined that the interlude video "upped the [show's] grim factor further".[103] On that same tour, Madonna performed the Spanish version of the song, "Lo Que Siente La Mujer", atop a rotating black leather podium, dressed in black trousers and a backless black blouse.[103] The female dancers were decked in masculine attires while the male dancers wore long wigs and corsets. Academic Georges Claude Guilbert, author ofMadonna As Postmodern Myth, praised the performance for its "gender-bending and further sense of ambiguity" while Sal Cinquemani fromSlant Magazine found it to be "anticlimactic".[102][104] The performance on August 26, 2001, atThe Palace of Auburn Hills, outside of Madonna's hometown of Detroit was recorded and released in the livevideo album,Drowned World Tour 2001.[105]
In 2010, "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was featured in an episode of American television seriesGlee, called "The Power of Madonna". In the episode it was performed by actorsCory Monteith,Kevin McHale,Chris Colfer,Mark Salling,Harry Shum Jr. andMatthew Morrison.[106][107] The song was released asdigital download to theiTunes Store, and was also included on the soundtrack EP,Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna.[108] It charted at number 125 on the UK Singles Chart.[109] In his review of the soundtrack, Fraser McAlpine from BBC News felt that "the decision to get all the boys to sing 'What It Feels Like for a Girl' is inspired, and represents a genuinely powerful musical moment that doesn't need the television show's plot to make it fly".[106]
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Credits adapted from liner notes of 12-inch single.[126]
Weekly charts[edit]
| Year-end charts[edit]
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Australia (ARIA)[66] | Gold | 35,000^ |
| France | — | 16,390[159] |
| United Kingdom | — | 86,771[b] |
| United States | — | 17,000[c] |
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. | ||
| Region | Date | Format(s) | Label(s) | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | April 9, 2001 | Maverick | ||
| France | April 17, 2001 |
| ||
| Germany | Maxi CD | Warner Music | ||
| Australia | April 23, 2001 | Maxi CD[d] | ||
| Germany | April 24, 2001 | DVD | ||
| United States | Warner Reprise Video | |||
| Japan | April 25, 2001 | Maxi CD | Warner Music | |
| United States | May 1, 2001 |
|
| |
| France | May 14, 2001 | DVD | Maverick | |
| May 29, 2001 | CD | |||
| Australia | June 4, 2001 | DVD | Warner Music | |
| Japan | June 20, 2001 |
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