American Life - Promotion

Promotion

To start marketing the album, Madonna performed the American Life Promo Tour. A performance on Tower's Fourth Street in Manhattan was presented to around 400 people, the set started with an acoustic performance of "American Life" followed by the track "X-Static Process". The promotional show also saw Madonna perform two other tracks from the album being; "Mother and Father" and "Hollywood" before performing an "impromptu" performance of "Like a Virgin", and lastly performing the title track again but this time being the album version. A stage was built in preparation for the performances with long dark drapes and large speakers, according to Billboard was so that over one thousand fans nearby could hear the performance. As well as several other television performances, Madonna performed at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, her performance consisted of a medley of two of her singles "Like a Virgin" and "Hollywood" and featured popular singers; Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears as well as Missy Elliott who performed her song "Work It" at the end of the performance. After the song "Hollywood" was performed by Madonna, she engaged in kissing with both Spears and Aguilera becoming an infamous moment for all three acts and in television history. In 2003, Madonna planned to release a special commemorative box set to celebrate her twentieth anniversary in the music business and the release of her first studio album, Madonna, in 1983. The plan for the box set was eventually cancelled and Remixed & Revisited was conceived in its place. The compilation contains remixed versions of four songs from American Life and a previously unreleased song called "Your Honesty".

In 2003, Madonna collaborated with photographer Steven Klein for an art installation project called X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS. The installation portrayed Madonna in different incarnations of her spiritual practices – from yogi, prophet, queen to freak and pole dancer. The publication was a worldwide success, leading to a number of exhibitions in New York, London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Florence. After the exhibition was over, Madonna was inspired by the images from the exhibitions and decided to incorporate them into her then unplanned tour and asked Klein to help her with the task. The poster released for the tour used one of the images from the installation project. It featured Madonna in a seventeenth century style dress, crawling on all fours towards the camera. The central theme of the show was unity versus violence. It was divided into five acts with different themes: French Baroque-Marie Antionette Revival, Military-Army, Circus-Cabaret, Acoustic and Scottish-Tribal segments. During the Re-Invention Tour, the Q magazine awards, Elton John accused Madonna for lip-synching in her shows which gained great controversy and was denied by Madonna's representatives. No official DVD has been released yet. A documentary titled I'm Going to Tell You a Secret, which chronicled the tour, was released. The documentary was recorded during Madonna's time on the tour and was finished during the recording of Madonna's tenth studio album Confessions on a Dance Floor.