On August 30 1985, Madonna’s Like A Virgin album spent a third week at #2 on the UK Albums Chart.
Category Archives: 1985
Today in Madonna History: August 10, 1985
On August 10 1985, Into The Groove spent the first of four weeks in the #1 position on the UK Singles Chart. It was Madonna’s first chart-topping single in the UK, where she has collected a total of thirteen #1 hits to date.
As an added validation, Into the Groove was Madonna’s first self-produced release (co-produced with Stephen Bray). While artists co-producing their own work is common today, it was relatively unusual at the time, particularly for female artists. The immense success of the single undoubtedly helped convince the powers at Sire/Warner to grant Madonna the artistic freedom to co-produce her next album, True Blue, together with her collaborators Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard.
Today in Madonna History: August 3, 1985
On August 3 1985, Madonna’s Into The Groove hit #1 in the UK and Holiday hit #2 in the UK – Madonna is the only female artist ever to occupy the top 2 positions simultaneously on the UK charts.
Today in Madonna History: July 8, 1985
On July 8 1985, Madonna was featured on the cover of People magazine with the caption: “Can Madonna get Sean to the alter?”
Today in Madonna History: May 25, 1985
On May 25 1985, Madonna performed The Virgin Tour at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. The show was filmed by Daniel Kleinman, and released by Warner Music Video and Sire Records on November 13 1985.
Here is the dialog from Madonna’s famous Virgin Tour introduction (filmed by James Foley for the video release, it was not present during the concerts):
“I went to New York. I had a dream. I wanted to be a big star, I didn’t know anybody, I wanted to dance, I wanted to sing, I wanted to do all those things, I wanted to make people happy, I wanted to be famous, I wanted everybody to love me. I wanted to be a star. I worked really hard, and my dream came true.”
Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour was an enormous success. The home video release was the top selling music video cassette of 1986 in the USA, and the video was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of 100,000 copies.
Today in Madonna History: May 11, 1985
On May 11 1985, Crazy For You hit number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S. for one week. The track had spent the two previous weeks in the runner-up position behind the all-star single, We Are The World. In Canada, Crazy For You took a few weeks longer but also managed to displace USA For Africa’s charity track to become the county’s number-one single on May 25th.
The song was Madonna’s second chart-topping hit, and her first ballad to be released as a single.
Today in Madonna History: March 29, 1985
On March 29 1985, Desperately Seeking Susan was released. The American comedy-drama was directed by Susan Seidelman and starred Rosanna Arquette and Madonna.
The New York Times film critic Vincent Canby named the film as one of the 10 best films of 1985.
Interesting facts: The filmmakers had initially wanted Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn to play the roles of Roberta and Susan, but the director decided to cast newcomers Rosanna Arquette and Madonna instead and the studio wanted the film to have younger actors in order to appeal to younger filmgoers. Bruce Willis was up for the role of “Dez” and Melanie Griffith was up for the part of “Susan”. Madonna barely beat out Ellen Barkin and Jennifer Jason Leigh for the part of Susan. Suzanne Vega also auditioned for the role of Susan, but was passed over.
