On August 17 1960, Sean Justin Penn was born.
In the film, Truth Or Dare Madonna is asked, “Who has been the love of your life for your whole life?” Madonna replies without hesitation, “Sean. Sean.”
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Today in Madonna History: August 16, 2021
On August 16 2021, Madonna re-signed with Warner Bros. Records, the label controlling the bulk of her catalogue of music. This follows a thirteen-year period that essentially saw Madonna releasing her new music independently with distribution through Interscope Records, via her 360 deal with Live Nation. She retained the rights to the masters of the three albums released since her departure from Warner, and the new deal sees licensing rights for these albums revert to Warner in 2025.
Also announced are plans for Warner Rhino to reissue Madonna’s albums as deluxe editions – something fans have long requested and is frankly long overdue considering her stature and influence on popular music over the past 39 years, not to mention the wealth of unavailable and unreleased material in the vault.
Congrats to Madonna and Guy Oseary for recognizing the value and support that Warner has consistently brought to Madonna’s recording career; having all of her recorded works on the same label is as much a score for fans as it is for both Madonna and Warner Bros.
Today in Madonna History: August 16, 2015
On August 16 2015, singer/songwriter Joe Henry shared a touching birthday tribute to his sister-in-law, Madonna:
This is the young woman I met shortly after our family’s move to Michigan in 1975 – as I entered my sophomore year of high school and, she, her senior one. Together, we were in the Thespian Society; and in that winter’s first production, we were cast as mother and son – the wife and child of Ralph Waldo Emerson – in a play about Thoreau.
She was whip-smart and short on patience; and to tell the truth, she scared me more than a little, but along with her sister Paula, her presence upon my landscape nudged open a door through which I would pass and find my life utterly and forever changed…that unusual and sprawling family becoming, years later, my own.
No one is more surprised than I by the way our lives have expanded; by the way that our journeys have diverged and become entangled. Like anyone, I can sometimes forget to see the flesh and blood/heart and mind behind the parade float that is her public persona. But then I will find myself across the kitchen table from her, sharing a martini, and be additionally shocked to recognize anew the compact, terse-yet-compassionate human at the switches.
I have told this tale before, but it bears repeating: when Elvis Presley died on this date in 1977, this upstart professed in real-time that she felt his spirit had passed out of his body and through her own in exodus.
I laughed at her then for such outrageous self-possession, at the arrogance that I assumed must allow her to declare such publicly.
Today, when there is laughter, it is the laugh of recognition I hear – and it begins somewhere high above me, where things that once seemed implausible play with wild abandon and in broad daylight.
Happy Birthday, Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone.
Today in Madonna History: August 8, 1992
On August 8 1992, Madonna’s This Used to Be My Playground (and the theme song for A League of Their Own) hit number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA, becoming Madonna’s tenth chart-topping single, breaking her tie with Whitney Houston to become the female artist with the most number-one singles at that time.
The song was written and produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone, and recorded prior to final sessions for Madonna’s 1992 studio album Erotica. Together with Rain and In This Life, This Used To Be My Playground is one of three Pettibone collaborations from the Erotica sessions that was not co-written with Tony Shimkin, according to the ASCAP database.
Today in Madonna History: August 7, 1991
On August 7 1991, Madonna attended the Paris is Burning premiere in Los Angeles.
According to IMDB, the film is about:
A chronicle of New York’s drag scene in the 1980s, focusing on balls, voguing and the ambitions and dreams of those who gave the era its warmth and vitality.
Today in Madonna History: August 6, 2009
On August 6 2009, Madonna performed her Sticky & Sweet Tour in Helsinki, Finland. Madonna performed for a sold-out crowd of 85,354 fans, generating $12,18,455 in ticket sales.
Did you like the changes made to the 2009 version of the tour?
Today in Madonna History: August 5, 2008
On August 5 2008, Madonna’s Give It 2 Me was released as a CD maxi-single by Warner Bros. Records in the U.S. It included amazing club remixes by Eddie Amador, Paul Oakenfold, Fedde Le Grand, Tong & Spoon, Jody den Broeder, and a ragga mix by Sly & Robbie.
The single was also issued in the U.S. as a double-vinyl 12-inch set, a 12-inch vinyl picture disc and as a double-vinyl 7-inch set coupled with her previous single, 4 Minutes. Though no Canadian pressings of the single were issued, the U.S. CD maxi-single was distributed to Canadian retailers with a Warner Music Canada special import sticker.
Give It 2 Me was the second single from Hard Candy. It was written by Madonna & Pharrell Williams with production by Madonna & The Neptunes. An early demo version of the song with alternate lyrics, titled Infinity, would eventually surface online.
Today In Madonna History 