The Queen of Pop!
Happy 18th to Hard Candy by the way!
There’s a general discussion already at: https://popsquare.co/t/madonna/
On here, there’s Comeback Corner (for inactive artists) and General Store (for general discussion for active acts).
Oh thanks, I thought it was the come back corner like in the other place!
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So I’m on this Madonna Journey. For a long while now I knew I wanted to make the lead-up to her next album really special. And I knew it was going to involve this very exhaustive march through her career and her art. And I wanted it to be as “you are there” as possible. I’d love to just screencap my little spreadsheet and share what I’ve done so far, but I don’t have that trust level yet so I’ll just do this:
April 18th: About three dozen pre-Debut tracks from the late '70s and early '80s; A Certain Sacrifice
April 19th: The Madonna album; the Everybody single; performances of Everybody at Danceteria and Dancin’ On Air; her show at Uncle Sam’s Club; her audition tape for Fame because why not
April 20th: The Madonna album; the Burning Up/Physical Attraction and Holiday singles; the Burning Up video; performance of Burning Up on The Tube; performances of Holiday on a French program and American Bandstand; a Japanese TV interview and print interviews in The Guardian and Record Mirror
April 21st: The Madonna album; the Borderline and Lucky Star singles; the Borderline and Lucky Star videos; a performance of Borderline on The Dance Show; two MTV interviews and interviews for Ear Say and Countdown; the Like A Virgin VMAs performance
April 22nd: The Like A Virgin album; the Like A Virgin single and video; performances of Like A Virgin from Japan and Top of the Pops; her appearance at New Music Seminar and the American Music Awards; interviews for MTV and Molly Meldrum
April 23rd: the Like A Virgin album; the Material Girl and Crazy For You singles and videos; a Japanese TV interview; news reports from ET (Madonna Mania), BBC (The Madonna Craze), and ABC News; the Rolling Stone cover story; footage from the Desperately Seeking Susan premiere; Desperately Seeking Susan
April 24th: the Like A Virgin album; the Angel/Into The Groove, Dress You Up, and Gambler singles; The Virgin Tour; Live Aid; news reports about The Virgin Tour; news reports about the Playboy/Penthouse publications; helicopter footage from her wedding to Sean; a December 1985 interview with Countdown
April 25th: BREAK
Today will be: the True Blue album; the Live To Tell single and video; footage from the At Close Range premiere; her Rolling Stone cover story; Shanghai Surprise (oof.) and press coverage of the film
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This is still going on.
Here’s what I’ve done since my last post:
April 27th: The True Blue album; Papa Don’t Preach and True Blue singles and videos; BBC Radio interview, the MTV Video Vanguard Award acceptance, MTV Review 1986
April 28th: The True Blue album; the Open Your Heart and La Isla Bonita singles and videos; her Tonight Show appearance
April 29th: The Who’s That Girl soundtrack; the Who’s That Girl single and video; NBC interview with Jane Pauley; Who’s That Girl Times Square premiere footage; the Who’s That Girl film
April 30th: The Who’s That Girl soundtrack; the Causing A Commotion and Look Of Love singles; Rolling Stone interview; Who’s That Girl Tour news reports; the Who’s That Girl Tour
May 1st: The You Can Dance album; the Spotlight single
May 2nd: Speed-The-Plow news report, Letterman with Sandra Bernhard; news report about the Race Against Time marathon; her appearance at the Tony Awards; PSA for AIDS prevention; teaser for the Pepsi commercial
May 3rd: The Like A Prayer album; the Like A Prayer single and video; the Pepsi commercial; Rolling Stone cover story; news reports about the Like A Prayer/Pepsi controversy; outtakes from the Like A Prayer album
May 4th: The Like A Prayer album; the Express Yourself and Cherish singles and videos; VMAs performance of Express Yourself; Molly Meldrum interview; Vogue Magazine and Interview Magazine stories
May 5th: The Like A Prayer album; the Oh Father and Dear Jessie singles and videos; the Keep It Together single; MTV Artist of the Decade piece; AIDS Dance-A-Thon news report
And into the '90s we go!
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Love it when an underappreciated gem in her catalogue gets some flowers, and this mix of the ever brilliant Angel by Marco Sartori is a bit of a bop…
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Angel is such a gem, definitely overlooked. A lack of proper music video at the time and being paired alongside Into The Groove doesn’t help.
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Yes, at least Crazy For You, Into The Groove and Gambler got film footage vids (though all three deserved better), and Dress You Up got that amazing The Virgin Tour clip, but Angel just seemed to be overlooked entirely. A sign perhaps of just how full on 1985 was for Madonna and her team (but what a time to be alive!).
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Angel still went top 5 in America, a sign that she was so popular her songs could sell themselves even without a video, which was a nice counter point to those who said she was all image.
It was probably because of it’s b-side (Into the Groove) though, but I’m sure it was meant to be a low profile release between smashes anyways.
1985, really was THE year of Madonna wasn’t? With so many worthy contenders to also rank as that honour as well in her record breaking career.
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A bit off-topic maybe, but for me the Madonna single which truly deserved a proper music video was Rescue Me.
Her image was fire during this period, imagine what we might have got!
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Rescue Me is the single that definitely needed the music video treatment as opposed to that cobbled together 4 years old out of date tour footage from Who’s That Girl. At least both single artworks, were fire though.
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Yeah, I never understood why they used the WTG tour footage, rather than the Blond Ambition one!
And the UK single cover is especially gorge.
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The UK picture disc for Resue Me, is especially stunning I think.
Perhaps something to do with the availability of the footage - I wonder if Ciao Italia is more widely available than the Blond Ambition Tour Laserdisc.
For such an iconic tour that has quite a lot of professional recordings out there, it’s wild that there’s not a BluRay/DVD/whatever of the full show.
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Blond Ambition? My understanding is it is still owned by Pioneer because of the laserdisc agreement?
Although one would think it would have expired by now. I could be totally wrong about this of course.
Having said that, the Blond Ambition laserdisc is one of my most prized possessions.
Are you thinking of Justify My Love or Deeper and Deeper? I don’t think Rescue Me was released on picture disc.
There was indeed no picture disc for Rescue Me, but both Crazy for You and Holiday got picture disc releases around the same time as Rescue Me was released.
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Yes, this was my peak collecting years. Crazy For You got an amazing PVC catsuit picture disc and Holiday and Deeper & Deeper both had picture discs from the Italian Vogue shoot. The 12" single of Rescue Me came with a gorgeous poster of the cover image.
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