I'll Make You Love Me: The Madonna "True Blue" Poll

live to tell

surprised by how many of these songs i know well

open your heart. it just makes you feel like you can do anything

otm

I mean, that vocal. Who says she can't sing?

Same goes for "Live To Tell."

Madonna can sing, she just sometimes has issues singing live due to dancing complications and having kind of a tin ear. I like her both pre- and post-voice lessons.

I'm not very technical, but I like Madonna's singing a lot. I like the tone of Madonna's voice and the way she "lives" the song. She just can't project much live, but in the studio it's great.

that's all we need.

Anyone want to defend the album tracks? The remixed version(s) of "Where's the Party?" on You Can Dance are incredible.

live to tell is madonna's best song

I'll be boring and go with "Live to Tell." Agree with Alfred about "where's the party" remix.

Anyone want to defend the album tracks?
The one non-single track I always loved was "Jimmy Jimmy," which I assume sounds at least almost as good as I remember it sounding (I can't even remember the last time I listened to this album in full.)

Live To Tell, but Papa Don't Preach a very close second.

HATE La Isla Bonita with fiery passion, though.

"Jimmy Jimmy" has a great sound - goes on a little long I think and the story's not much to linger over, but I just love the recording.

"La Isla Bonita" is the one track on this that really clicks with me, for whatever reason.

Every single song on here is awesome in a manner Madonna hasn't reached on any of her other albums. There are higher highs on her other albums but nothing beats the overall consistency of this one.

PS: "White Heat" pwns

Love the title track at the time. Maybe still do to some extent, but I have now started to realise how great "La Isla Bonita" is, so that one was my pick.

There are higher highs on her other albums but nothing beats the overall consistency of this one.

Yes. "Like a Prayer", which also had her highest ever highs, does.

Live to Tell is her best song, seconded

This was her last album with all good singles.

I love the title track so much. Remember the video? So hot! But yeah, really strong album as a whole.

Bedtime Stories also had all good singles IMO.

Papa Don't Preach was one of the first songs I ever learned how to sing. :)

Open Your Heart by leaps and bounds

Where's the Party is a great tune

Her best album.

I voted with my eyes closed.

open your heart. it just makes you feel like you can do anything

yes, absolutely spot on!!!

xp, this is a very solid album

one of wee winston's first cassette purchases

i'm gonna vote with geir. even at the time i felt like "true blue" got overlooked because all anyone wanted to talk about was "papa don't preach." and then the "live to tell" video was everywhere all the time. (song makes me think of chris penn now, which makes it sad.) but "true blue" nailed that new-wave-motown vibe as well as anyone did in the '80s.

yeah, better than most, even, i'd say!

i'm gonna vote with geir.

You didn't if you went for "True Blue". ;)

oh yeah. well, i voted with the geir of 1986. old-school geir.

Title cut's my least-favourite, too - sick to fucking death of that chord change...

It lost my vote to "West End Girls" in the 1986-#1's poll, so I'll give it the consolation prize here and go with "Live To Tell".

live to tell is really quite moving. or at least definitely the closest i've ever come to being moved by madonna. so that one

ya, that one

live to tell is the only song on this album I like

waht

I mean, I'll give you "Jimmy Jimmy" and "La Isla Bonita", but "Open Your Heart"? "White Heat"? "Where's The Party"? "Papa Don't Preach"?

Anyone who dislikes or dismisses "Open Your Heart" needs medication and white screens.

yes it's pretty undeniable

"Open Your Heart" may likely feature the best band performance on any of her albums. It just sounds so ... live. The drums are incredible and actually have some character, which is unusual for such a huge '80s uber-production.

otm

La Isla Bonita. May well be my favourite song of hers.

it's got horns, xp

"Open Your Heart" for me, with "True Blue" pretty close behind.

With such joyful, bouncy pop on the menu I just don't have the patience for the faux-anguish of "Papa Don't Preach," let alone the slow and (to me) comparatively dull "Live to Tell."

Live to Tell is all about texture and flow, and her damn voice

if you're in the right (wrong) mood, it can absolutely melt you.

This album is pretty much flawless.

i don't know, I like plasticy early 80's madonna more than this album which just sounds like bad reverbed drum sounds and mid-80's schlock and seriousness.

(which, admittedly, live to tell is the epitome of, but it does such a good job of it the rest of the album seems superfluous and just doesn't measure up)

i don't know, I like plasticy early 80's madonna more than this album which just sounds like bad reverbed drum sounds and mid-80's schlock and seriousness.

Although I do like "True Blue" to some extent, I feel the main problem about it is that it sorts of tries to be both of those incarnations, and doesn't really succeed at either. "Like a Prayer", on the other hand, was a fantastic album and her best ever, because it concentrated on that "seriousness" and was a great melodic pop album without, with the exception of a couple of the lesser tracks, ever trying to be "dance".

And, I think, part of the problem here is Pat Leonard. Patrick Leonard is a fantastic songwriter and pop/ballad producer, but he is really sucky at dance stuff. Madonna has never had better dance producers than Jellybean and Reggie Lucas, at least not until her work with William Orbit. Pat Leonard did a really great job at the pop stuff, but never quite managed the dance tracks.

Which may also be my problem with "Open Your Heart". Surely it's a great song, and I like it and all. But it probably would have worked better with somebody else than Patrick Leonard producing it.

Madonna has never had better dance producers than Jellybean and Reggie Lucas, at least not until her work with William Orbit.

Ahem, Shep Pettibone *cough*

Never liked what he did with her. Unmelodic and boring.

Vote "Papa Don't Preach" here because I sort of have a thing for voting for obvious third-placers.

― Nurse Detrius (Eric H.), Sunday, February 15, 2009 2:50 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

lol

Can I confess I voted for Jimmy Jimmy because of the silly dance my sister and her friend made up to it?

aw cuet

What can I say? I know my history.

"Live to Tell" woulda been my vote.

I associate "Isla" w/ the horrible office job I had the summer it was a hit.

haha so when I lauded the video for "True Blue" in this thread, I didn't realize that she'd made one with her in it (which is just ok). I meant the following one, which evidently was the winner of an MTV contest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZMkrGPkI8M

Come on baby, MAKE MY DAY

open your heart. it just makes you feel like you can do anything

― lex pretend, Monday, February 2, 2009 7:07 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark

^^

THIS IS A BUST

"Open Your Heart" is the greatest song in the history of the universe

young girls with eyes like potatoes

HEY THAT SONG IS GREAT TOO

AND SO ARE POTATOES

i had la isla bonita in my head & then i saw this thread revive it was kismet

My wife says she and her friends used to replace "THIS IS A BUST!" with "THIS IS MY BUST!"

Wait ... “Open Your Heart” didn’t win this poll?!

No, instead it is one of the greatest songs ever which won, a song which BY COINCIDENCE (really) I talked about in a podcast that went up yesterday

https://www.megaphonic.fm/mixtape/6

If anyone has not seen "At Close Range," you should, immediately, depressing though the movie may be. That song practically has a co-starring role.

Lex OTM way, way, way upthread - when the intro kicks in on 'Open Your Heart' it's so fucking energising.

I can't complain about the top two - prefer the follow-up far more, though.

I had a chance to write at length about "Papa Don't Preach" last summer: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/songs-of-the-summer-1986/

WUTCHOWT

I'm really enjoying Ned's discussion on this podcast, btw. I'm only up to the "Live to Tell" part, but great discussion on Madonna (and also Kermit the Frog!).

The interviewer is typical of a certain generational divide that I've noticed: as someone young enough that Madonna, for him, is Confessions on a Dance Floor, he's unable to conceive of Madonna as anything other than "a gay artist." But, like Ned, my experience of her, at least up until the Erotica era, was that pretty much everyone I knew was into her.

"Open Your Heart" is the greatest song in the history of the universe
― droit au butt (Euler), Saturday, February 17, 2018 2:11 PM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was my conviction for the longest time, but I have failed to connect with it in recent years it's weird

Thanks for linking "A Different Corner" and "Live to Tell," Ned.

This was my conviction for the longest time, but I have failed to connect with it in recent years it's weird

Opposite for me. I always considered it a good single, but in recent years it's become untouchable brilliance.

It's far from my favourite thing on here, but the "why oh why" hook in 'Jimmy Jimmy' is pretty neat! Also, 'Where's the Party?' is a jam.

the jimmy jimmy “why oh why” hook is pure bliss. peak girl-group madonna.

everything written about “open your heart” in this thread is otm, except for the fact that it didn’t win, which is not otm.

"Open Your Heart" man

open your heart. it just makes you feel like you can do _anything_

Listen to how Madonna rewrote this damn thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpqItgBGdo

“I’ve had to work much harder than this for something I want, don’t try to resist me” is one of the all time great pop lyrics - especially in the context of a song that works pretty damn hard.

in 5th grade (1986, the year of our lord madonna) i let myself get talked out of performing a dance to “open your heart” for a school concert & i regret it to this day

:(

this is my favorite thread revival in years.

This album is awesome, and 14 years later the poll results stand.

Incredible mix, one of the best extended 12"s of an 80s tune

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvvnGsqtZA4

otm`

I have the clearest memory of listening to this on my Walkman on a trip with my fam. Jimmy Jimmy was my fave and I was Madonna that year for Halloween lol

why
oh why
oh why
oh why

Oh why
Oh why
Oh why

it's so underrated

Personally I would have added a wig but my mom made me the lace dress by hand nd drew on my mole.

https://i.ibb.co/WDt7BWH/Screenshot-20231021-222257.png
post a pic

fab u lous

i remember going over to my friend’s house when I was 10 - her older cousin Mandy from the city was visiting
Mandy answered the door at like noon on a Sunday in full Madonna. Like, FULL madge:
arms full of silver & rubber bracelets
massive earings, loads of necklaces & crosses
hair scarf
jacket over layered tank tops & tube skirt electric blue lycra leggings
studded high heeled ankled boots
THE. WORKS
she chewed gum & smelled like 10 cans of hairspray & i didn’t know whether to fall to thr ground or pee or both
i was so in awe

and for like 2 years that was basically how she dressed

her name was Mandy & she is still like a god to

me

I think this is a really uneven album - half of it's great, half of it not-so-good - but worth owning just for the cover, probably my favorite portrait of Madonna.

I guess that's fair, tbh. But the best songs are so good the rest are almost like bonus tracks.

True. This is why she's really a singles artist to me, which is not a bad thing to be at all, it's just how she performs best as a recording artist.

Also, another thing about the cover: I've never seen an original pressing unopened, but IIRC it was packaged in blue plastic wrap with the title adhered to it as a sticker, and when you removed it, you're left with a textless gatefold portrait. I didn't grow up with vinyl, but when your albums typically have that kind of thoughtful design, I can see the appeal from a non-audiophile perspective.

the album cover is a fabulous photo

My vinyl copy bought at the time with my birthday money isn’t a gatefold, but it was perhaps different in the UK.