Today in Madonna History: March 20, 2012

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On March 20 2012, Madonna’s Girl Gone Wild video was released.

The black-and-white music video was directed by Mert Alan and Marcus Piggott. The video featured Madonna and a number of male models in different looks, dancing with the Ukrainian group Kazaky. It received critical acclaim for the editing and the visuals, while reviewers noted that it took inspiration from several past videos released by Madonna, such as Erotica, Justify My Love, Human Nature and Vogue.

Artur Gaspar from Kazaky recalled:

“By the end of the day on set, our feet were bleeding and we had blisters… But if Madonna can repeat the dancing for the 50th time, why can’t we?”

Today in Madonna History: March 19, 1996

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On March 19 1996, Madonna’s cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore was released as the fourth single from her Something To Remember greatest ballads collection.

The song originally appeared on the Like A Virgin album.

The idea to cover the song was Michael Ostin’s (head of the A&R department at Warner Bros. Records).

In author Warren Zane’s book Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records, the First 50 Years, he recalled:

“I had the good fortune of finding material that Madonna really responded to, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore for instance, which was the old Rose Royce record. I was driving into work one day and heard it on the radio, I called producer Nile Rodgers and Madonna, they were in the studio. I said, ‘I have an idea, you know the old Rose Royce record, ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore‘? Why don’t you try and record a version of it for Like a Virgin?” Initially both Rodgers and Madonna were apprehensive of tackling an already well-known ballad, but in the last minute they decided that if Madonna wanted to bring diversity to the album, there could be no better song than ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’.

Today In Madonna History: March 18, 1995

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On March 18 1995, Madonna celebrated the premiere of her Bedtime Story video by throwing a Pajama Party at Webster Hall in New York. The event was broadcast live on MTV in the U.S. and was hosted by Kurt Loder.

Today in Madonna History: March 17, 1994

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On March 17 1994, the music video for I’ll Remember (Theme From With Honors) premiered on BBC1-TV’s Top Of The Pops in the UK.

I’ll Remember began as a collaboration between Richard Page (of 80’s band Mister Mister) and Patrick Leonard. Leonard had been asked by Madonna to score Alek Keshishian’s film With Honors, and had also been collaborating with Page on an upcoming Toy Matinee album. When Leonard played an early demo of I’ll Remember for Madonna, she loved it and decided to record it with new lyrics she had written. The song was produced by Madonna & Patrick Leonard, with Page providing additional backing vocals.

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Madonna had previously crossed paths with Richard Page when he presented her with a trophy at the 1987 American Music Awards (pictured above).

Today in Madonna History: March 16, 1995

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On March 16 1995, Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection was certified 6x platinum (6 million units) in the USA.

Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com):

On the surface, the single-disc hits compilation The Immaculate Collection appears to be a definitive retrospective of Madonna’s heyday in the ’80s. After all, it features 17 of Madonna’s greatest hits, from Holiday and Like a Virgin to Like a Prayer and Vogue. However, looks can be deceiving. It’s true that The Immaculate Collection contains the bulk of Madonna’s hits, but there are several big hits that aren’t present, including Angel, Dress You Up, True Blue, Who’s That Girl and Causing a Commotion. The songs that are included are frequently altered. Everything on the collection is remastered in Q-sound, which gives an exaggerated sense of stereo separation that often distorts the original intent of the recordings. Furthermore, several songs are faster than their original versions and some are faded out earlier than either their single or album versions, while others are segued together. In other words, while all the hits are present, they’re simply not in their correct versions. Nevertheless, The Immaculate Collection remains a necessary purchase, because it captures everything Madonna is about and it proves that she was one of the finest singles artists of the ’80s. Until the original single versions are compiled on another album, The Immaculate Collection is the closest thing to a definitive retrospective.

Today in Madonna History: March 15, 2014

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On March 15 2014, Madonna attended a Purim party dressed as Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, a fictional character from the Game of Thrones television series.

Madonna shared some photos of her costume on Instagram.

The cast from Game of Thrones reacted this way:

Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen):

“Oh my goodness. It’s insane. I thought I was asleep, I thought I was dreaming. It’s a huge moment. And, damn! She looks good.”

Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth):

“I got really, really excited. Madonna’s always been a favorite of mine. I love her strength and her transformative nature and the idea that she might be dressing up as a brilliant character in the TV show I’m in is pretty exciting.”

Kristian Nairn (Hodor):

“I kind of freaked out, slightly. That’s kind of a sign how big ‘Game of Thrones’ has got. The Queen of Pop is wearing a Daenerys costume. I completely freaked out.”

John Bradley (Samwell Tarly):

“She looks delighted, doesn’t she? Look at that. Things like this are just amazing. It’s when you know that you’re really kind of pressing the right kind of cultural buttons.”

Today in Madonna History: March 14, 2008

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On March 14 2008, the cover for Madonna’s Hard Candy album was revealed on People.com.  The photo was taken by longtime collaborator Steven Klein.