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

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.

Plus he represented the typical late 80s/early 90s sound way too much.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

When's the EROTICA poll?

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

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Wow! Every song!

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.

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.