Moving away from Stock, Aitken and Waterman, our Friday album gets me out of a tricky situation. If you are going to talk about 1980s pop, you have to feature Madonna. But which of Madonna's 80s hits would you choose?.... If like me you feel that it is impossible to answer that question, then I hope you'll be happy with today's album - Madonna's The Immaculate Collection.
Released in 1990,
The Immaculate Collection, spent nine weeks at the top of the album chart in the UK and is Madonna's second album to be certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipment of over 10 million copies across the United States. Having sold over 30-million copies worldwide, it is the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist and one of the best selling albums of all time.
From the moment Madonna released
Holiday, her international success was really never in question. Released as the third single from her debut album,
Holiday brought Madonna to the world and in the UK, it reached number 4 in the chart in 1984. Madonna's first two hits of
Everybody and burning up only performed in the US chart.
Her debut album would give her two more UK hits with
Borderline and
Lucky Star. However, it is perhaps the hits from her second album that made Madonna an icon all over the world; those hits being
Like a virgin and material girl. But it wasn't just Madonna's music that was becoming iconic, it was her look, style of dress and the way that she performed that influenced young girls/people everywhere. Madonna's style was copied by teenagers everywhere. The video that accompanied
Like a virgin attracted critics and fans in equal measures. The critics wanted the song banned due in the belief that it unminded family values. Although
Like a virgin stayed in the UK charts for 18 weeks, it peaked at number 3.
Material girl was the second single off the album; and with it Madonna created a mimcry of Marilyn Monroe's performance of the song
Diamonds are a girl's best friend, again the single peaked at number 3 in the UK chart. Hot on the heels came her fourth single
Crazy for you, released in 1985 and this reached number 2. Can we just take a moment here and think about the number of songs here that are so memorable and we are only half way through the 1980s.
The next song on the album is
Get into the Groove, which came from Madonna's film
Desperately Seeking Susan. This is a cracking song filled with dance moves and gave Madonna her first number one in the UK in 1985, staying at the top of the charts for four weeks. Some critics say that this was Madonna's first great single, but if I knew anyone who thought this I would ask them whether they had heard any of the songs I have already mentioned. Next on the greatest hits is
Live to tell, the first single from the
True Blue album. A powerful ballad with haunting lyrics. This would be followed up with
Papa Don't Preach, which although was slated by some in the music industry, gave Madonna her second number 1 in the UK.
Open your heart comes next, Madonna's tribute to Liza Minnelli and Marlene Dietrich
The next track
La Lsla Bonita was first offered as an instrumental to Michael Jackson in 1987, but after he turned it down, Madonna took it and wrote the lyrics for it. Her ability to pick a good tune would give her her fourth number one in the UK. (
True Blue was Madonna's third UK number 1 but didn't appear on the album.) I remember vividly this song being number one and the amazing red Spanish dress that was worn by Madonna. When this song became her fourth number one single, Madonna broke the record for the most number ones achieved by a female artist.
The next set of hits on the album came from Madonna's
Like a prayer album that was released in 1989.
Like a prayer saw Madonna's song writing move towards a more adult audience and touched on her Catholic upbringing, which has been inspiration for a number of songs. The song and video won critical acclaim throughout the music industry and gave Madonna another number one single in the UK.
Like a prayer open the doors for hits of
Express Yourself &
Cherish.
On some albums, it is fair to say there are some tracks that aren't as strong as others, but when it comes down to Madonna's there is no such thing as a bad track.
Vogue was the first single off her
I'm Breathless album.
Vogue is a classic Madonna's track and is probably the only one where you can run the quiz of which movie stars are named in the song. When it was released in 1990, it reached number one worldwide and became the best selling single throughout the world selling over 6 million copies. Following on the success of
Vogue, Justify my love & Rescue me, were the two singles from
Immaculate Collection and each performed really well as single but received mixed reviews.
Madonna is an artist that has done it all, reinvented and restyle herself in a quest to keep herself relevant with her friends. When I was growing up, my sister was the bigger Madonna fan as my sister was slighter cooler than me, but Madonna's music has always been present in my life and reminds me of growing up.
Hear it for yourself and I hope you have a good dance:
Madonna's The Immaculate Collection
Released: 1990
Written by Madonna, Curtis Hudson, Lisa Hudson, Reggie Lucas, Stephen Bray, Patrick Leonard, John Bettis, Jon Lind, Brian Elliot, Gardener Cole, Peter Rafelson, Bruce Gaitsch, Shep Pettison, Lenny Karvitz, Ingrid Chavez.
The album of the week has to be Purple Rain by Prince, following the sad announcement of his death yesterday at age 57. If I had been writing my blog daily this week, Purple Rain, the single, would have followed Manic Monday. I am not going to say paragraph on paragraph about each song as I feel that Social Media, News sites and Twitter are doing that already. I am to give you two bits of trivial that I have on Prince.
