On March 24 2005, Madonna completed a photoshoot at Farley’s Prop House in London with photographer Lorenzo Agius. The photos later appeared in Ladies Home Journal.
According to Agius, the concept of the shoot was “to see the subject steeped in the mystery and magic of an old world library where one can get lost in the discovery of knowledge.”
On March 23 1991, Madonna’s Rescue Me jumped from #11 to #9 in its fourth week on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the USA.
Rescue Me was released as the second single from Madonna’s first greatest hits package, The Immaculate Collection.
On March 22 2017, The Huffington Post published an article titled, “Why Madonna’s Like A Prayer Is The Most Important Album Ever Made By A Female Artist.”
Here are some of the highlights from the article:
28 years ago this week, Madonna released what is not only her best album to date, but also what could be the most important release ever by a female artist. That’s not to say that Like a Prayer is the best album ever by a female artist, but it’s pretty close. After six years of being considered pop fluff and a disco dolly, Madonna was finally taken seriously by most music critics in 1989. Still, Like a Prayer deserved even more than bewildering critical acclaim.
If Madonna and misogyny weren’t practically synonyms, Like a Prayer would have not only won several Grammys in 1990 (it didn’t even earn any major nominations), but it would be widely praised for its songwriting and production 28 years later. If a man delivered the same type of vocals Madonna did on Like a Prayer, critics would note that his voice isn’t technically perfect, but distinct, melodic, and full of emotion. When it comes to Madonna, who certainly could never hit the notes of Aretha Franklin or Whitney Houston, it’s just easier for people to say that she “can’t sing.”
For people (especially millennials) to understand how important Like a Prayer is to culture and music, they have to comprehend the repressive environment Madonna’s album arrived to in March of 1989. The late 1980s was ruled by the religious right, who believed AIDS was a curse God gave to the gay community. Women who were outspoken or wore revealing clothes were referred to as sluts, whores, bitches, etc. Police brutality among African Americans was still widely accepted without much of a backlash. And interracial dating was still considered a taboo.
The pamphlet on AIDS Madonna included with each copy of Like a Prayer alone proves that the notion of Madonna being a bad role model and having a bad influence on Generation X (especially women and teenagers) just isn’t true. Madonna educated many about AIDS and safe sex at a time when schools, the media, and religious institutions stayed away from the topic. A move like this in 1989 could have hurt a showbiz career, but Madonna survived and thrived by doing the right thing and, possibly, helping to save lives at the same time.
On March 16 2001, MTV and VH1 networks announced that Madonna’s new video for What It Feels Like For A Girl would be broadcast only once on March 20 at 11:30 pm because of the controversy over its violent content.
Madonna later released What It Feels Like For A Girl as a DVD single.
Madonna biographer Andrew Morton had this to say about the video:
“The video is entirely consistent with the themes that she has been exploring for the last twenty years, namely the relationship between the sexes, the ambiguity of gender, and the unresolved conflict, for women in a patriarchal society of being fully female and sexual while exercising control over their lives.”
On March 15 1999, Madonna’s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, confirmed to MTV News that a tour in support of Ray Of Light had been canceled. Instead, Madonna would be working on a number of other projects including:
Liz had this to say:
“The starting date of the movie was postponed, and it created such a small window to turn things around and get into total tour mode and put together the kind of show Madonna does, with no stone unturned, that she thought it would be better to wait until 2000.”
On March 14 2015, Madonna was interviewed by Jonathan Ross for The Jonathan Ross Show on ITV. Madonna was in the UK to promote Rebel Heart. Jonathan had interviewed Madonna once previously in 1992, during the promotion of her Erotica album.
Watch the interview here:
On March 13 2012, Interscope released a preview of Madonna’s Superstar from her forthcoming MDNA album.
Superstar was written and produced by Madonna, Hardy “Indigo” Muanza and Michael Malih.
During the recording session, Madonna asked her daughter Lourdes if she would sing on the song and agreed. Madonna had this to say about Lourdes’ voice:
She has a very good voice. She’s quite shy about it and won’t admit it. Lots of people are knocking on my door to meet her about everything, movies, what-not. But she’s not really interested in any of it. She just wants to go to school. She says to me, ‘Mum, I just want to be a normal kid. I’m not ready for any of that.’ I respect that, and if she ever wants to work with me on any level, I welcome it. But otherwise, I leave her to homework and school.
On December 3 2012, Superstar was issued as a special edition free CD for the Brazilian newspaper, Folha de S. Paulo.
