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 * An Alignment of the Stars in a Plea for Green Heard Round the Planet; [Review] Jon Pareles. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jul 9, 2007. pg. E.5 ISSN 03624331
 * A concert for a cause is more and less than a concert. It's public relations and proselytizing for the cause, while for the musicians it's exposure, validation and a sop to a star's conscience. Live Earth, the biggest international rock event so far -- with shows on every continent, including a small one in Antarctica -- was presented as an attempt to save the human race from global warming. Previous international concerts like Live Aid and Live 8 were about helping other people, while Live Earth, speakers insisted, was in everyone's self-interest. There's no need for altruism when your own survival is threatened. And in an era when pop is spectacularly self-absorbed, from the bragging of hip-hop to the whining of emo, Live Earth was perfectly pitched as an appeal to self-preservation...Some musicians had songs perfectly suited to the occasion. Madonna wrote a charity song, Hey You, for the event, though its lyrics -- Don't you give up/it's not so bad -- aren't exactly eloquent.


 * REVIEW // Live Earth comes off as infomercial for greens BEN WENER. Orange County Register. Santa Ana, Calif.: Jul 9, 2007. pg. 1 ISSN 08864934
 * That's who was sorely missed here: Bono. In my book the only performances that rose to his gold standard of activist-pop were Keys' robust turn (kicked off by the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money") and Madonna's dramatic set, deftly balancing no-nonsense statements (like her new song "Hey You") with multi-culti playfulness (her revamp of "La Isla Bonita" with help from the gypsies of Gogol Bordello).


 * Live Earth Rocks the World Clive Young, Steve Harvey. Pro Sound News. (International). New York: Jul 2007. Vol. 29, Iss. 7; pg. 1, 3 pgs
 * Half of Metallica, along with all the Beastie Boys and bassists from Foo Fighters, Bloc Party and Madonna's band, all graced the stage together, for the last song in a set by another legendary metal band, albeit one that doesn't really exist: Spina Tap, which held a "bass off" during its signature tune, "Big Bottom." The members of Tap sang through a trio of Shure Beta 58s on vocals, and used Shure wireless on guitar and bass; Snow Patrol was likewise spotted with various Shure mies, including a Beta58A for vocals. Meanwhile, acts like Madonna and Foo Fighters sang into a slew of Sennheiser mies, with Madge herself going into a guitar feedback solo during "Ray of Light." The Material Mom certainly took her share of risks, debuting a new song ("Hey You," which got mixed reviews) and reportedly running no less than 24 channels of RF at the high-profile show before 2 billion people.


 * Material Woman, Restoring Her Brand; Jon Pareles. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Apr 27, 2008. pg. AR.1 ISSN 03624331
 * Madonna was getting mighty serious on her 21st-century albums "American Life" and "Confessions on a Dance Floor." It's something that happens to songwriters in their 40s. Their perspective changes as they settle into home life, raise families and start worrying about the news. During last year's "Confessions" tour, Madonna melded her longtime hobby of Christianity baiting with her newer charitable cause. She sang "Live to Tell" from a crucifix with disco-ball mirrors, wearing a crown of thorns, while video images of suffering Africans were shown. Last year at the Live Earth concert she introduced a would-be environmental anthem, "Hey You," that tried and failed to be her equivalent of John Lennon's "Imagine." The song came and went, raising some corporate donations, but does not appear on the new album.


 * Falling Stars Michael Hirschorn. The Atlantic Monthly. Boston: Nov 2007. Vol. 300, Iss. 4; pg. 171, 4 pgs ISSN 10727825
 * For more than two decades, Madonna was the consummate celebrity-image manipulator, a changeling nonpareil, a coolhunter's coolhunter. That is, until she agreed to perform at this past July's Live Earth concert, an all-star worldwide event designed to increase awareness about global warming. She had even written a song, "Hey You," expressly for the event. A straightforward mid-tempo number, "Hey You" was proof, she must have felt, that her heart was in the right place. The lyrics boldly preached that purifying one's own soul can open the way to changing the minds of others, and the accompanying video was classic celebrity agitprop: a procession of glossy images of environmental devastation (fires, nuclear power plants, suffering animals), alternating with images of visionary leaders (Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Gandhi) and current hacks (George W. Bush, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy). The video culminated in an image of underdressed but nonetheless festive African children tossing a globe into the air, where it resolved into an image of the Earth seen from space. During her appearance in London, Madonna exhorted the crowd: "If you want to save the planet, I want you to start jumping up and down. Come on, motherfuckers! If you want to save the planet, let me see you jump!" What was to have been a standard act of drive-by do-gooderism became a PR muddle, when Fox News revealed that Madonna's charitable foundation had invested in a host of ecologically offensive car, oil, and timber companies. Worse, the BBC subjected her to an "environmental audit" in which her carbon footprint was found to be roughly 100 times that of the average U.K. resident (six cars, nine homes, a global concert tour with at least 100 people in tow, etc.). Hordes of bloggers called her out as a hypocrite. And worse: Some began examining footage of the concert to determine whether the star's raging ax work during her performance of "Ray of Light" had been pantomimed.
 * Sounding the Global-Warming Alarm Without Upsetting the Fans Alessandra Stanley. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jul 9, 2007. pg. E.1 ISSN 03624331
 * There was some green revolution hyperbole onstage, but very little sanctimony in the green room, where artists like Keith Urban described their own contributions -- using bio-diesel fuel and recycling bins -- but also conceded that it wasn't nearly enough. Even the Live Earth anthem, Hey You, written by Madonna, who sang it in London alongside a group of schoolchildren who looked like the Hogwarts Choir, had a modest message. (Don't you give up/it's not so bad/there's still a chance for us.)

Get Together
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1529646/20060427/madonna.jhtml

Hard Candy
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1582357/20080226/madonna.jhtml http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1586788/20080502/madonna.jhtml

Ipsita
http://maillogout.indiatimes.com/articleshow/33852692.cms Nona Walia

She's been serenaded by Elvis Presley, been sought out by politicians and has even found a way to remain ever-young. What she wants now, is to beat death. Ipsita Roy Chakraverti tells Nona Walia why its so good to be a witch Black, the colour of Wicca, had attracted Ipsita Roy Chakraverti from childhood. She remembers those years in Montreal and her Wiccan friends Carlotta, Karen, Corinne, Lorraine and Julia. Then she was just a young girl who had wanted to study witchcraft. Her guide, Carlotta, had warned her that they'd call her a witch one day. Her parents, Bepin and Roma, didnt mind that their beautiful daughter had chosen the forbidden path. Destiny had decided Wicca would be her fate. Now, as she writes her second book, Good and Evil, she admits: I have conquered the materialistic world. But on the mystical level, she still yearns to discover the deepest mystery of life death. Ive been researching life after death for quite some time now. Its a subject thats intrigued me. I want to know what lies beyond. She follows the original pagan school of Wicca. In India, I was the first to study witchcraft. The knowledge of Wicca can help you possess material pleasures. I can help a woman become ever-young. I can tell you the Wiccan secrets of getting the man you desire. But I cant help you ward off death. She still remembers the summer of her first love. It was Elvis Presley. She met him through a friend, and he sang for her in Graceland: You look like an angel, you talk like an angel, you walk like an angel... but I got wise. Youre the devil in disguise! She met her husband Joyanta Roy at her friends house in Kolkata. He was not like the others Id met. There was something detached about him. He was working with the Railways. I married Joyanta on a rainy August day. I wore my mothers saree, an exquisite red Benaras silk embroidered with gold. Now, her daughter Deepta, enjoys the mystery of her mothers secret punch. In her autobiography, Beloved Witch, she writes: I thought of Wicca as a martial art involving the mind as well as body. Its from the live elements that Wicca derives its energy. I know Im not a goddess but Im a superbeing. The truly diligent witch always maintains A Book of Shadows, which records her experiences with the ordinary and the extraordinary. My Wiccan meetings are about communicating with the elements. Wicca is a form of revolt. Ipsitas political stint in the Congress in 98 taught her a lot about people. Soniaji wanted a strong woman candidate from Bengal. I stood from Hooghly, an area where I had been doing social work. There had been many cases of witch-hunting. Though I lost, the cases of witch-hunting were reduced. So, I really won. And about 200 young boys and girls formed a group on the Wiccan lines. Because in the end, I know, only the ways of Wicca win.

Something to Remember

 * Madonna sports a new, new look; [Daily Edition] TIRZAH AGASSI. Jerusalem Post. Jerusalem: Nov 28, 1995. pg. 07


 * LET'S face it: love her or hate her, Madonna is part of our lives. There is simply no escaping her. A year-and-a-half ago, in a small town in central India, I even found myself discussing her with a sweet, young man who was on the verge of entering an arranged marriage. He liked Madonna, but only watched her in private, "not in front of my mother or sisters." Madonna has been a pop star, or rather the pop star, for over 10 years, longer than the Beatles survived as a band. But will we be resurrecting her 25 years after she quits? Surely not, probably because she'll never quit. The surgeon's knife will keep her perky and her performance art will go on and on, featuring her looking fresh as a daisy when she's as old as Mick Jagger, 52, is today. The question is, will she have become a true musician by then? Something To Remember (Hed Arzi) is a collection of ballads recorded over the years that is supposed to prove once and for all that Madonna is a vocal artiste. There is no crotch-grabbing here, just Madonna as a softly feminine strawberry blonde. I first saw this new look in Paris Match a few months ago illustrating an interview in which she said that she wanted to have a child. The white flowers all over the CD booklet open to reveal their reproductive core. But Madonna's vocals on her three new songs are only inching towards the kind of emotional nakedness that truly touches the soul. Ms. Ciccione is the queen of discipline, and you can tell that she has invested much in improving her vocal technique. The arrangements on the new songs also show a great leap in sophistication. Trip-hoppers Massive Attack, for example, contribute a great deal of depth to her cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Want You," and "You'll See," which she co-authored, is also a moving song. But in the nightingale department, she is still just embryonic. On "You'll See" one can actually hear something akin to that piercing "see me, feel me, touch me" look that gives her best videos such solid presence, but "One More Chance" is much more shallow. I must admit to having gotten bored after only four of the album's 14 tracks, though there are plenty of solid songs here. She's not there yet, but Madonna, the world's most determined woman, may still catch up with the superlative musicians she is now playing with. Wouldn't it be refreshing to witness Madonna living up to her loaded name, opening up her heart and coming up with a product fit for the whole global family?


 * Meat Loaf's rock theater still in his Neighborhood JOHN WIRT. Advocate. Baton Rouge, La.: Nov 24, 1995. pg. 7.


 * A collection of Madonna's ballads, Something To Remember reveals the dance diva's softer side. It's an attractive side at that. Madonna, the singer and songwriter, can craft slow songs as effectively as she knocks out dance numbers. There's also an unaffected simplicity and sincerity in her ballad singing. Something To Remember features familiar Madonna songs - "Crazy For You," "I'll Remember" and "Oh Father" among them - her recent hit collaboration with Babyface, "Take A Bow," and three new songs.


 * Stones' `Stripped' solid; Madonna `Something' to savor; [FINAL Edition] Anne Ayers, Edna Gundersen, James T. Jones IV, David Patrick Stearns, David Zimmerman. USA TODAY (pre-1997 Fulltext). McLean, Va.: Nov 21, 1995. pg. 10.D
 * Madonna, Something to Remember (\#\#\#\#) - The sobriquet Material Girl speaks more to Madonna's wealth of love songs than her love of wealth. Set apart from her more familiar dance hits, this compilation of best-selling ballads flaunts the less sizzling, though equally galvanizing, highlights of her career. Live to Tell, a moody heart-tugger, may be her best song ever. This Used to Be My Playground, available for the first time on a Madonna album, and Crazy for You are also touching and beautifully arranged, but none matches the vocal and aching emotional power of You'll See, one of three new songs and the clearest proof that the ambitious blonde is more singer than celebrity. - E.G.


 * POP CD RELEASES Madonna Something To Remember (Maverick) CAROLINE SULLIVAN. The Guardian (pre-1997 Fulltext). Manchester (UK): Nov 10, 1995. pg. T.016
 * MADONNA wants this ballad compilation to be taken on its own merits - she even removed her nose ring for the cover shot. Most of it is familiar fare dating back to 1986's Live To Tell; new songs include the album's hotspot, a melting trip-hop collaboration with Massive Attack on Marvin Gaye's I Want You. This collection spotlights Madonna's major strength and weakness simultaneously: the gentler side invoked is by far her more appealing, but the slow tempos expose her great limitations as a vocalist. Not that this would normally matter, but in the sleeve note she asks to be judged as a musician for a change. Happy to oblige.

Ray of Light
J.D. Considine. The Sun. Baltimore, Md.: Dec 30, 1998. pg. 1.F "1998 Swan Song; Trumpeting the high notes of a musically so-so year, the island in a sea of bland"
 * "Forget the Hindu garb and trendy veneer of mysticism. What makes this Madonna's best album of the '90s is that it reflects her roots in dance culture even as she reinvents her approach to dance music. Working with ambient guru William Orbit, Madonna emphasizes mood and groove in these songs, so that what comes across is the music's overall flow, instead of just a few obvious hooks. Yet at the same time, the album also boasts some of the strongest singing she's ever done, from the cool reserve of "Frozen" to the bacchanalian frenzy of the title tune."

Craig Birkmaier. Videography. New York: Oct 1998. Vol. 23, Iss. 10; pg. 120, 3 pgs "Fozen?"
 * "Frozen, a recent music video from Madonna's latest album, Ray of Light, reminds us just how rapidly the world can change. In the video we watch a thinly clad Madonna in flowing black robes, as she morphs into a snarling doberman, then a flock of blackbirds (my teenage son claims they were ravens, but this story is about blackbirds, therefore I only see what my eyes want to see)."

ANNETTE CARDWELL. Boston Herald. Boston, Mass.: Sep 12, 1998. pg. 035 "MUSIC; Madonna's `Ray of Light' shines at MTV awards"
 * "Having made her mark as music video queen with her appearance on the first MTV Video Music Awards show 15 years ago, Madonna reclaimed her throne Thursday night, walking away with six of the man-on-the- moon statuettes for her videos "Ray of Light" and "Frozen." Madonna rewarded fans with another memorable MTV Awards performance, cranking out "Ray of Light" with help from guitarist Lenny Kravitz, an entourage of traditional Indian dancers, and break- dancing club kids."

Edna Gundersen. USA TODAY. McLean, Va.: Dec 29, 1998. pg. 01.D "Music biz floats on titanic sales From Lauryn Hill to the Beastie Boys, pop hit mostly high notes"
 * "Madonna, Ray of Light. This technoisy pop arrived after the heralded emergence of mainstream electronic music, but Madonna is the first to successfully weave machine-made beats and warm, confessional lyrics into a coherent soundscape. William Orbit's muted computerized rhythms and silky psychedelia mesh nicely with her pert melodies and mystical messages. Her voice has never sounded prettier."

Michael Paoletta. Billboard. New York: Dec 26, 1998-Jan 2, 1999. Vol. 110, Iss. 52; pg. 40, 2 pgs "Madonna helps shine mainstream 'Light' on dance genre"
 * TO PARAPHRASE Deborah Cox, things just ain't the same in dance music-and that's a good and bad thing. Who'da thunk that in 1998 four pop superstars would create bona fide dance records? Certainly not us! But that's precisely what Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Cher, and Bette Midler did. At a time when several club artists were trying to distance themselves from dance music, here were four divas unabashedly embracing the genre. For Madonna and Estefan, it was an opportunity to return to their club roots; for Cher and Midler, it was a chance to delve into rhythmic grooves that both had only dabbled in on earlier recordings. Collectively, the four singers injected much-needed energy and enthusiasm into a genre that has been sorely lacking in both departments. Madonna's Maverick/Warner Bros. "Ray Of Light" album, produced by the singer and William Orbit, continues to astound with its brilliant merging of electronica beats, lush string arrangements (courtesy of musician/electronica maestro Craig Armstrong), and empathetic lyrics. In the course of 13 songs, Madonna took us on a spiritual journey to the center of her heart. Along the way, we learned that we have more in common with her than we've previously believed. We all have excess baggage, we all love, we all lose, we all hurt . . . and we all have the power to move on. Months after the album's release, we still can't help but get goose bumps listening to songs like "Sky Fits Heaven," "Little Star," "The Power Of Good-bye," "Nothing Really Matters," and "Drowned Love/Substitute For Love."

David Browne. Entertainment Weekly. New York: Dec 25, 1998-Jan 1, 1999. , Iss. 464/465; pg. 138, 5 pgs "1998 The best & worst: Music"
 * "RAY OF LIGHT Madonna (Maverick) Is the sudden spirituality, the striking of the latest market-aware pose, easy to swallow? Of course not. Are the electronica baubles that producer William Orbit threads through these tranquilizing meditations occasionally corny? Sure enough. Does any of it make Madonna's techno-lite overhaul, its blend of insinuating hooks and automatic-brew throb, any less intoxicating? Not in the least."

Madonna
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?_r=1&res=9F0CE5DF103AF93AA25752C1A965958260&scp=2&sq=Dangerous%20Game%20film&st=cse


 * Dangerous Game (1993)
 * November 19, 1993
 * Review/Film; A Movie Within a Movie, With a Demure Madonna
 * By JANET MASLIN
 * Published: November 19, 1993

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B02E0D91E31F936A15751C1A960958260&scp=1&sq=film%20review%20Evita%20madonna%20as%20chic&st=cse


 * Evita (1996)
 * December 25, 1996
 * Madonna, Chic Pop Star, As Chic Political Star
 * By JANET MASLIN
 * Published: December 25, 1996

Like a Virgin
Madonna Like a Virgin (Sire) Release Date: 01/01/1985 12:00 Reviewed by Tony Power Madonna destroys Rose Royce’s soul ballad “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.” Ambition (“Material Girl”) and Madonna as victim of love (“Pretender”) are the emerging themes, and thanks to Reservoir Dogs, we’ll always debate whether the title track is about a guy with a big wang.

STANDOUT TRACK: “Like a Virgin”

Like a Virgin [Sire, 1984] If a woman wants to sell herself as a sex fantasy I'll take a free ride--as long as the fantasy of it remains out front, so I don't start confusing image with everyday life. But already she's so sure of herself she's asking men and women both to get the hots for the calculating bitch who sells the fantasy even while she bids for the sincerity market where long-term superstars ply their trade. And to make the music less mechanical (just like Bowie, right?), she's hired Nile Rodgers, who I won't blame for making it less catchy. B

The Girl Material EW looks at the Music maker's extensive body of work By Jim Farber | Jul 20, 2001

LIKE A VIRGIN (1984) In addition to raising the madonna/ whore ante with songs like the title cut, Virgin cradled the kind of '80s hits (Dress You Up) built to transcend the Dynasty era. But she's still trying to live down Material Girl. It gave ammunition to her critics and has remained a thorn in her side ever since. A

Madonna Like a Virgin (Remaster)

by Sal Cinquemani on September 9, 2001 Jump to Comments (0) or Add Your Own

Like a Virgin, the record that launched Madonna into unearthly super-stardom and went on to sell over 10 million copies domestically, defined a generation with hits like "Material Girl" and the now-classic title track. Though not as innovative as her debut, the album stands as one of the most definitive pop artifacts from the indulgent Reagan Era. The mid-tempo ballad "Shoo-Bee-Doo" and a soulful cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" proved Madonna could churn out more than just novelty hits, while the sugary "Angel" and the irresistible "Dress You Up" contributed to the singer's record-breaking list of consecutive Top 5 hits (16 in all). The retro-infused "Stay" and the percussive "Over and Over" are the album's hidden gems; a frenetic remix of the latter resurfaced on 1987's You Can Dance.

The Diamond Madonna - Like a Virgin / The Immaculate Collection

the Diamond is an apt name for albums certified for 10 million + sales by the Recording Industry Association of America. The hardest substance on earth: insoluble, impervious to penetration, secure in itself. "The formation of natural diamond requires very specific conditions," Wikipedia says. The aim of this feature is to define what made Cracked Rear View, Come On Over, Boston and The Lion King soundtrack not just sales benchmarks of their respective artists' careers, but inexplicable loci at which shrewd marketing and the inscrutability of mass market taste met to produce high-quality entertainment no one breathing could escape. This column will also study why artistic peaks like Rumours, Born in the U.S.A., Thriller, Can't Slow Down, and Hysteria deserved their sales. Each entry in this series will pose the question: why should we separate art from commerce?

Since my parents didn't get cable until 1999 I never dismissed Madonna as a videos-yes-songs-meh Camille Paglia-promoted pleasure as lots of frivolous people did too long into her career. I knew her as a radio force. I first became aware of Madonna's power to confound listeners on Memorial Day, 1985: driving home from the mall with my parents, my mom and five-year-old sister starting singing "Into The Groove" when it came on the radio. I didn't sing—why should I? I was ten years old, already conscious of the fact that boys don't duet with their parents; and, at any rate, I was a boy, and boys don't sing Madonna.

Boys don't sing Madonna. A month later my parents bought Adriana a tape copy of Like A Virgin and me, um, Wham!'s Make It Big. An act of madness—my parents thought that an album with two guys as macho as George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley was more appropriate for a boy. Since we didn't have much money I was attracted to songs about money, and although we never traded notes, Adriana must have agreed. That summer "Material Girl" and "Everything She Wants" blasted from dueling boom boxes, which showed how smart we both were: who is the Material Girl if not the "you" in the Wham! song, indifferent to how hard George Michael works to get her money?

Boys don't sing Madonna. Two years later, Licensed to Ill ruled our worlds. The guys' worlds, that is. My seventh grade crush kept her cassette of True Blue in heavy rotation; the title song, she said, reminded her of what she felt for her best friend. At twelve years old, I imagined a link between "Open Your Heart" and "She's Crafty" that would become as obvious to everyone else as it was to me. My musical segregation continued long past discovering Shadoe Stevens' "American Top 40" the following year; students in a boys' Catholic high school didn't admit to loving "Like A Prayer," even though it was exactly the kind of thing that boys Catholic high school students could understand. In an increasingly mechanized hit parade its wobbly lead vocal and guitar-bass-drums arrangement were curious choices, closer to what Guns N Roses were attempting and pitched at a similar level of operatic fervor. It was the most indescribably sexy thing I'd ever heard, filthy and gross from its synth bass to the singer's decision to croon the line, "You are a muse to me" in a British accent. "Like A Prayer" was not the Incarnation; it was Pentecost, tongues of fire setting my heart aflame with imprecise longings, although when the tempest passed I was the only one left in the room. Tipper Gore was right: pop music is subversive, a terrible influence on youth. But I was still the only one in the room.

Boys still don't sing Madonna. Visit a karaoke bar. Imitate the glide from low-sung husk to full-throated belt on "Open Your Heart." You can't. I've tried, and been booed. The prom ballad "Crazy For You" is a triumph because no singer has essayed a vocal performance so indifferent to its own nakedness, to its indecision; she can't decide whether to croon or growl, sometimes, as in the "slowly now we begin to move" section, in the same bar. She's so overcome with desire that she doesn't care how embarrassing she sounds. Proms may be fantasies, but the emotions they enact aren't. If not quite Carrie and the pig blood, they're vastating experiences for those who don't belong there, whose longings threaten to destroy this most ritualistic of adolescent courtship rites. At its core, "Crazy For You" is a song about loneliness; she's dancing with the guy she loves, but he can't match her love, and they both know it. We know it when, as the song starts to fade, Madonna mutters the three-word title without affect, sounding much older than she did ten seconds ago. It's one of the most subversive moments in any Madonna song, indeed the best proof of her unwavering faith in a Catholic god, and no one's noticed it. She understands the absurdity of loving someone who keeps mum.

The only sign of intelligence shown by the Matthew Modine-Linda Fiorentino romance Vision Quest is the way in which Madonna's appearance during the crucial slow dancing scene between the lovely couple serves as a proxy for the audience. With her jelly bracelets, skirt, bad makeup, and teased hair, she's the only normal person in the room—would you rather talk to a track star and Linda Fiorentino? Since I haven't seen the film since 1994, I can't remember if "Gambler" follows "Crazy For You"; I like to remember it this way. Best described as disco-punk, Flashdance edition, it's the most aggressive track of Madonna's career, never collected despite being a Top Five hit in England (more on The Immaculate Collection's sins later). The music is keyed to her vocals—insistent, strident, hip-thrusting; she slurs the line "You're just jealous 'cuz you can't be me" like it's a shot of Rumplemints; meanwhile Animotion synths blow up her skirt. "Gambler" is the only possible response to a slow dance in which you were left as unfulfilled as you were five minutes earlier. It deserves immortality beside "Into The Groove," which itself is as much wish-fulfillment as "Crazy For You" (the Pet Shop Boys' "Domino Dancing" was the last great song about Puerto Rican boys). The only mystery: why it's the last self-written Madonna single to date. She says she got too lazy to write songs without help, which I hope is a true story.

This is why I've never forgiven Madonna for the voice and locution lessons. The transformation reminds me of that horrifying scene at the end of The Breakfast Club when Ally Sheedy is made up to look like Molly Ringwald. Lots of critics think something similar occurred when Madonna followed her eponymous debut with Like A Virgin, helmed by Nile Rodgers with all the fixin's—too calculated next to the "raw passion" of the debut. This is nonsense; it misses how Madonna conflated notions of spontaneity and calculation (one of its producers worked with Roberta Flack). Rodgers is the ideal collaborator: this was the last time he recorded a contemporary Chic record. "Like A Virgin" is practically a Chic track, what with bassist Bernard Edwards and drummer Tony Thompson on-the-one as usual. Five years earlier, Diana Ross complained that Rodgers-Edwards treated her like a session singer on the only solo studio album for which she'll be remembered; Madonna may lack Ross' poise, but she's incapable of subsuming her personality, for better or worse. A cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Leave Here Anymore," Like A Virgin's one outright disaster, is the sort of anonymous showtune, requiring floodlights and hand gestures, that she handled with considerable finesse ten years later, when the inevitability of the gesture mitigated its ghastliness. Chalk it up as a sop to the detractors who think she was Eva Peron.

Fans keep The Immaculate Collection around the house because of its peerless sequencing and punchy remastering; but as a compilation it's a botch. The remixed versions of "Like a Prayer" and "Express Yourself" aren't even the best ones extant. More importantly, Madonna had had so many Top Tens in so few years that TIC actually ignores several essential to understanding her complete mastery of the pop single as a medium for self-expression and conduit for our emotions. Like A Virgin's Top Five absentees "Dress You Up" and "Angel" do a better job than the two big singles of delineating the boundaries of Madonna's determined shallowness, an act that confounds Philistines today and made the appreciation of her musical skills a lot harder than it took these critics to dismiss Cyndi Lauper as the real charlatan. "Angel" is a particular stunner, certainly the apex of Rodgers' post-Chic skills. Note the ear-catching opening: pizzicato Rodgers guitar, canned Madonna laughter, doomy keyboard; it's surprisingly moody for so giddy a lyric, until Maddie dips in and out of her lower register, only to explode in the "I can see it in your e-e-e-eyye-e-s" lyric that she no doubt lifted from PiL's "Death Disco"—a title whose implications, by the way, Madonna understood better than any disco practitioner in history (1992's Erotica could have been titled Death Disco).

Lots of men admit to singing along to Madonna now. They were boys when "Live To Tell" hit Number One in early 1986. Despite many later triumphs, this set of lyrics remain her best, matched by co-writer Patrick Leonard's sophisticated chord changes (relisten to the "If I ran away, I wouldn't have the strength to go very far" bit) and a vocal that seethes with a lifetime's worth of hurts which she nevertheless refuses to share. Still, who doubted in 1986 that she wouldn't live to tell—that she would live long enough to sing it onstage while strapped to a giant cross? We're all older, and more ridiculous, haunted by memories of proms past.

By: Alfred Soto Published on: 2007-10-23 Comments (2)

Like A Virgin

01/01/1984 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music Bill Holdship

This was where Madonna became Madonna--the scandalous one who soon ruled the world--though the best tracks here can all be found on the Immaculate Collection compilation