I'm burning up, burning up for your VOTES! — ILM Artist Poll #31 is Madonna

Certainly the Shep remix was all I heard in the summer and fall of '89, and it took on enough life on its own to wind up on TIC, but it sounded garish to me.

I'll probably get this rolling on Tuesday, when the Springsteen poll will (maybe?) be done with its reveal.

― Johnny Fever, Saturday, March 2, 2013 11:02 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

aw c'mon no overlaps, let it breathe a day or somethin'

i submitted a ballot, but only 12 cuts. i don't have a particularly strong opinion about madonna but the 12 songs i picked are epic jams (albeit probs predictable picks.)

It's probably not a debate worth pursuing but the idea that the Shep remix sounds more garish than the original is an astonishing proposition to me.

The arrangement of the original sticks fairly close to eighties ideas about R&B/soul.

Possibly my position on this is influenced by the fact that "Express Yourself" was one of the first videos to really have an effect on me (this is due to seven year old me being weirdly obsessed with Metropolis), and so the video plays an outsized part of what I think of when I think of the song. If they'd matched the video to the original version the result would have been comical, the song needed the slightly menacing propulsive undercurrent of house in order to sell its vision.

otm

A large part of what's made this nominations thread among the best I've read is learning how the rest of you experienced Madonna: radio first, video/radio, Erotica, ROL.

The big surprise for me is learning how early Borderline came. It was on the first ever tape I made of the chart countdown, which lasted me for years, and I'd always assumed she was well into her imperial phase by then. Instead it's like her third or fourth single. I guess it's because she never dipped below the radar again, for me she's just always been there.

1. 8th grade, was in Rochester, NY, for my cousin's bar mitzvah and in the motel room watched Madonna co-host an episode of New York Hot Tracks, speaking some Spanish. They showed the "Lucky Star" video.

2. Must've heard her on the radio and saw her on Friday Night Videos, etc.

3. 10th grade, my mom came home having driven by the big arena in town and said she saw all these girls on the street dressed in t-shirts that said The Virgin Tour. She asked if I knew what they meant.

4. Age 18, saw her on Broadway.

5. I realized one day that my college roommate only owned CDs that had gone platinum. Only CD of a woman in his collection was The Immaculate Collection.

6. Age 20, danced a lot in all-ages clubs. Getting to see the "Justify My Love" video in a club felt like getting to see something taboo. Also remember hearing that song on headphones for the first time and it was like Madonna was talking dirty in my ear.

7-15. Almost all of the songs I like most were after these stories, but nothing special about how I heard them.

I remember when new Madonna videos premiered after the nightly news, like MJ videos. It was exciting!

You guys realise that the Shep remix is the one used on the video, played on the radio etc. etc.

They played the original first; it wasn't until Madonna pawing her crotch became a Thing To Be Upset About that I started hearing the remix on the radio, and that was usually in the context of Friday night dance mixes on the local pop station.

Shep Pettibone is a musical scourge, I often think that when his work succeeds it is in spite of his terrible musical ideas rather than because he has any idea of what he's doing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xjLPnnUrug

Ismael Klata's account more or less describes my experience too. I happened to start paying attention to pop music almost exactly the same time "Borderline" made the charts. "Holiday" was apparently already well known amongst slightly older kids, so she may as well have been a chart fixture forever for all I could tell. Her ubiquity since means I was able to construct a ballot despite having absorbed great chunks of her oeuvre by (almost) passive diffusion. eg. heard all of the albums up to Bedtime Stories at release without needing to possess my own copy!

I was 13 and tuned-in to pop radio when "Holiday" came out, so I was aware of her from the start. Did not like her much, and specifically was irritated that she got more attention than Cyndi Lauper, who I loved.

(But the Lucky Star video was still an object of fascination and desire for me. She's probably the first pop star I consciously thought was sexy.)

I was rooting for Cyndi too at first, but it became clear pretty fast that Madonna had the better songs.

First albums head-to-head I'd take Cyndi, but after that, obviously not a contest.

Someone will correct me, but watching the "Open Your Heart" video for the nth time I asked myself, "Had any woman on MTV ever presented herself as a sexual object without shame -- as if being a sexual object was exactly how she wanted to be viewed? I started eliminated the big MTV stars like Benatar, Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett, Cyndi Lauper. None of them made a video in which the men -- even the gay men -- get their turn watching her pose or stretch provocatively.

Wendy O. Williams, though she probably went about it a bit differently.

Was Grace Jones on MTV?

The early videos maybe. "Slave to the Rhythm" too? Maybe "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect For You)."

First albums head-to-head I'd take Cyndi, but after that, obviously not a contest.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), dimanche 3 mars 2013 00:33 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Would make an interesting poll. At the time I would've picked She's So Unusual too, but today I think I would go with Madonna.
Both classics though. Tough choice.

She's So Unusual still slightly better than Madonna, I think, but yes.

I let Lauper have that victory because she never would again.

Cyndi's Sisters of Avalon remains a very underrated record, I think, enough so that were I to measure it against it's closest Madonna contemporary, Ray of Light, I'd have to call it a draw.

True Blue vs True Colours, though is a no-contest.

xxpost Alfred - Gaga's 'Bad Romance' has a touch of that but it's still done with a slight note of reluctance vs the Madonna 'Open Your Heart' vid.

oh wait I misread - at the time. I can't think of anyone?

FIrst exposure to Madonna was hearing "Borderline" on the radio a ton. In retrospect, I aligned it with Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You," both being totally gentle and pleasurable to my 5-year-old ears. Very kindergarten friendly pop.

Throughout elementary school, my gym teacher would have us do warm ups to s/t, so "Lucky Star" became the sound of me being forced to run laps.

I'm sort of surprised that I ended up voting for "Lucky Star" and not "Borderline" given my earliest memories of them were, respectively, of pain vs. pleasure, but I guess that's easily explained away through my current love for the torment of Erotica.

Can't honestly remember which Madonna video was my first. I didn't get cable/MTV until I was in fourth grade, and by then I was sort of off Madonna's wavelength (remember actively disliking "Who's That Girl," which was pretty big on Nick Rocks). I didn't hop aboard again until "Vogue," which hit me basically the same as it did this little bitch-in-training-wheels. My life was so awesome for months thereafter.

I got scared when I intercepted a mash note in sixth grade from someone who quoted, at length, the lyrics to "Justify My Love." Then I realized it was meant for someone else.

But by the time she redux'ed "Justify" a couple years later with "Erotica," I was caught in the deep end of junior high hormones, and the template just made so much more sense to me. I called in to KDWB multiple times to request it, something I rarely ever did, but I figure I probably hadn't quite learned how to touch myself then...? Nah, they probably happened concurrently.

to be con't.

great stuff Eric

i didn't even have MTV until like 1992 but somehow i have pretty strong memories of seeing half a dozen of the bigger Madonna videos from before that.

"learning how the rest of you experienced Madonna: radio first, video/radio"

i loved her and i didn't know what she looked like!! still hard to believe. but they played her early singles on the college radio station i listened to and i never saw a picture of her.

I got my video fix from taping "Friday Nite Videos."

I found the Paul Zollo interview from '89 about her songwriting

Interviewer: How does your writing process work? I know that many of your songs were written with Pat Leonard. You’ve mentioned that sometimes you’ll come up with a melody and bring it to him and let him figure it out–

Madonna: Yes. In my very retarded fashion I will sing it to him. Or hum the melody line to him, and he will put it into a chord progression and we’ll come up with the song that way.

Interviewer: These are melodies that just pop into your head?

Madonna: Yeah. And I start singing them just from my head. Or if I think of a lyric, like a hook or a line, I’ll just put it to a melody and he’ll bang it out on the piano for me.

Interviewer: You must have a great working relationship to be able to connect with him at that stage of the process.

Madonna: We have a very good working relationship because we both come from the Midwest, and we both worked our butts off to get where we are. But, you know, he’s the one who studied music. He knows how to read music, how to write music. I don’t know any of that. I’m completely instinctual and he’s completely intellectual. So it’s a really good combination.

Interviewer: Does he every give you a finished melody to write words to?

Madonna: Yes, he does. But inevitably we fashion it to me. I don’t think he’s ever written a melody that I just took and said, "Okay, that’s finished, I’ll just slap some words on it." It always needs to be worked.

Interviewer: One of my favorite songs on the album that you two wrote is "Oh Father."

Madonna: Isn’t that great?

Interviewer: It’s beautiful. And it’s one of those songs that has a near perfect marriage of words and music.

Madonna: That’s the great thing about Pat. I mean, Pat puts together these really strange chord progressions and these really great time signatures, and I’ll listen to it and I won’t even think about it. I’ll just put it on, and I’ll just keep playing it over and over again; it’s like free association. I’ll start singing words to it and making them fit. I don’t thing of structure. I don’t think of first chorus, first bridge.

http://allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-interviews-articles/songtalk-summer-1989

i didn't even have MTV until like 1992 but somehow i have pretty strong memories of seeing half a dozen of the bigger Madonna videos from before that

I think virtually nobody in Britain had MTV until the early 90s (and even then only a small minority). Pop videos were something you saw once a week on Top of the Pops.

I didn't cast a videos ballot because of that. I'd record videos and watch them repeatedly, but only the ones I thought worth committing celluloid to, which sadly meant not-Madonna. No doubt I'd've made an exception for Justify My Love, but iirc that would've probably had a single late-night showing after The Word.

Even now the only videos I can confidently place are Papa Don't Preach, Like A Prayer, Vogue, and some Ray Of Light stuff.

yeah but over in america i felt like one of the last people i knew who got a cable package w/ it (xp)

Friday Night Videos, y'all

i stayed up to watch Letterman a ton as a kid so i definitely watched a lot of Friday Night Videos

I voted for two videos that didn't even make my songs ballot. She really does (or did) rule that medium.

Here in Canada we had this 1/2 hour show called Video Hits that played at 4 pm mon-fri. So I would run from school every day to watch it and it was there that I first saw all the early Madonna videos, "Borderline", "Like A Virgin", "Material Girl", "Crazy For You", "Gambler", "Into The Groove". The Youtube description is pretty spot on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG_O-b44g9I

Youtube clip description: If it weren't for Sam Taylor, we Canadian kids of the 80s would have been walking around saying, "Madonna who?" :-)

We never had cable, but between Friday Night Videos and my cable-ready friends, I saw plenty of music videos.

Looking forward to playing "Holiday" over the P.A. as students enter Friday morning, last day before March break.

wooo!

Just realized that if we'd timed this poll better, we could've had the rollout in July on the 30th anniversary of the first album. Oh well. It's funny, because it doesn't seem that long ago to me that there was the big BOB DYLAN'S 30TH ANNIVERSARY concert -- but of course it was actually already 20 years ago. Time keeps on slipping into the future.

Also, there should totally be a MADONNA'S 30TH ANNIVERSARY concert, with Gaga and Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj and Elton John and Miguel all doing Madonna songs.

yes!

and Prince

must we rejoice at the thought of Elton John doing "Live To Tell"