Madonna Discusses Her Grills And Worshipping Kendrick Lamar In Latest Wacky Fallon Interview
Madonna has a thing that she likes to do. She likes to show up on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, and she likes to fluster Jimmy Fallon. This is not a difficult proposition. “Flustered” might be Jimmy Fallon’s natural state. Nevertheless, Madonna delights in reducing Fallon to a blabbering mess. She doesn’t even necessarily have to be promoting anything. As it happens, Madonna has a lot going on these days. She recently appeared on new remixes from Beyoncé and Saucy Santana, and there’s also the upcoming biopic where Julia Garner will reportedly play Madonna. On last night’s Tonight Show, Madonna didn’t mention either of those things. She still covered a lot of ground.
Madonna was ostensibly on Fallon to promote her massive new greatest-hits collection Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones, but she was really there to be Madonna. As her interview with Fallon began, Madonna made an announcement about the grills on her teeth: “I just got these new grills, and if I start lisping, will you tell me? I’ll take the bottoms out.” She also said that she designed those grills herself, and she elaborated a tiny bit further: “People have a problem with my grills. I don’t know why… I just like the way it looks. It’s mouth jewelry. And I have really ugly teeth.” Jimmy Fallon did not disagree quickly enough.
Given that she was there to promote a greatest-hits collection, Madonna also spent some time reminiscing. She also talked about the first time she saw people dancing to her music, and she said that she’d learned how to play drums by playing along with Elvis Costello records. She claimed that she was a good drummer, and she challenged Questlove to a future “showdown, throwdown, hoedown.” When discussing all the collaborations on Finally Enough Love, Jimmy Fallon asked if she had any dream collaborators, and she offered this: “There is one artist that I worship more than anything in life, and I would love to collaborate with him, and that’s Kendrick Lamar. His new record is, like, history-making, mind-bogglingly brilliant, insane.”
Along with her two interview segments, Madonna also got together with Fallon and the Roots to perform “Music,” her 2000 dance-pop chart-topper, on classroom instruments. She played triangle. You can watch that performance and the interview below.
Madonna mentioned Elvis Costello because he was also on The Tonight Show last night. Talking to Fallon, Elvis said that his longtime drummer Pete Thomas, hearing the drum story backstage, offered free drum lessons to Madonna whenever she wants them. Elvis also told a story about spending a night at the Village Vanguard with Madonna. Along the way, Elvis announced a 10-night run at New York’s Gramercy Theater next February, with a different setlist every night.
Elvis recently reunited his first band Rusty with his old bandmate Allan Mayes. Rusty never released a record, so they got back together to record the old songs that they wanted to record 50 years ago. On the show, Rusty covered “Surrender To The Rhythm,” a song from Elvis’ old buddy Nick Lowe. As an online bonus, they also played their medley of Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and “Dance, Dance, Dance.” Watch the interview and both performances below.
Madonna’s Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones is out now digitally on Warner, with physical copies coming 8/19. Rusty’s The Resurrection Of Rust EP is out now on EMI/Capitol.