On June 9 1990, Madonna performed her Blond Ambition World Tour at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland.
Category Archives: 1990
Today in Madonna History: June 1, 1990
On June 1 1990, Madonna was controversially featured grabbing her crotch and breast on the cover of Interview magazine.
Madonna was interviewed by Glenn O’Brien at the Disney Studios, where she was rehearsing the Blond Ambition Tour. Here’s a snippet from the interview:
Glenn: Let’s talk about your show.
Madonna: Let’s not. Today was a horrible day. That was the worst rehearsal.
Glenn: Well, I liked it, but I haven’t seen it when you thought it was good. I loved the number where you’re lying on the piano singing a torch song.
Madonna: You saw only one segment of the show. I’ve created five different worlds, and the set is all based on hydraulics. One is going down and another is coming up. The world changes completely. I think of it more as a musical than as a rock concert. There is a straightforward Metropolis section, like my Express Yourself video – that set with all the gears and machinery; it’s very hard and metallic. That’s the heavy-duty dance music. Then the set changes and it’s like a church. We call it the temple ruins. It’s all these columns, trays of votive candles, a cross. I do Like a Virgin on a bed, but we changed the arrangement, so it sounds Indian. Then I’m being punished for masturbation on this bed, which is, as you know, what happens. Then we do the more serious, religious-type material – Like a Prayer, Papa Don’t Preach… Then it changes to what you saw, this Art Deco ’50s-musical set. That’s when we do three songs from Dick Tracy, and then after that we do what I call the camp section. Then it gets really serious again and we go into our Clockwork Orange cabaret set.
Today in Madonna History: May 14, 1990
On May 15 1990, Brenda Lee was quoted in the LA Times, talking about how Madonna got her involved in the Dick Tracy soundtrack:
“Madonna asked specifically that I sing the songs–which are brand-new numbers. I had no idea she was a fan of my singing, but I’m delighted she is.”
Brenda recorded two songs for Dick Tracy, but only one made the final cut: You’re in the Doghouse Now, written by Ned Clafin, Mike Kernan, Jeff Lass and Andy Paley.
Brenda is best known for Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (recorded when she was just 13).
Today in Madonna History: May 7, 1990
On May 7 1990, Madonna graced the cover of People magazine.
The headline: Madonna’s new tour: her most outrageous act yet
A sample of the article by Montgomery Brower and Todd Gold:
After routinely violating almost every taboo about sex, sacrilege and the public display of underwear, what’s a girl to do for new material? Madonna revealed her answer in Japan, where she kicked off a four-month tour that will no doubt delight fans, fetishists, cross-dressers and topic-starved conservative columnists the world over. Mimed masturbation? Madonna’s got it, during “Like a Virgin.” Topless guys in foot-long pointy brassieres? They pop up a third of the way through the show. A hint of discipline? “You may not know the song, but you all know the pleasures of a good spanking,” Madonna cooed after “Hanky Panky,” an ode to the joy of the slap. Granted, there are quieter moments—Madonna as housewife in curlers, Madonna with fish-tailed mermen—but before you know it, there she goes again, confessing in song to a guy dressed as a priest. The 105-minute hullabaloo is amazing for its breadth of controversy. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that, so far as can be determined, not one of the show’s seven dancers has been sidelined with a groin injury.
“She said, ‘Let’s break every rule we can,’ ” says choreographer Vince Paterson. “She wanted to make statements about sexuality, cross-sexuality, the church and the like. But the biggest thing we tried to do is change the shape of concerts. Instead of just presenting songs, we wanted to combine fashion, Broadway, rock and performance art.”
Today in Madonna History: April 6 1990
On April 6 1990, Madonna’s Vogue maxi single was released.
Here is the allmusic.com review of the maxi single:
Vogue, the first single from Madonna’s Dick Tracy-inspired 1990 album I’m Breathless, was arguably one of her crowning artistic achievements (both song-wise and video-wise), one of the biggest all-time house music hits (spending three weeks atop the U.S. pop charts), and her second proper U.S. maxi-single release. The single includes four versions: the single version, the 12″ version, the Bette Davis Dub, and the Strike-A-Pose Dub. The song’s most definitive version, that being the album/video version, is not on the single. The single version, where she asks “what are you looking at,” begins with drumbeats and goes straight into the song, as opposed to the album version’s minute-long introduction. Besides the different intros, however, the rest is the same. The 12″ version is, naturally, quite longer, and just as good. The “Bette Davis Dub” begins with the extended album intro, but, save for the chorus and the “rap,” is virtually instrumental, as is the last mix, which cleverly uses samples from Like a Virgin. This disc’s main selling point is the fact that it’s a collection piece, and for collectors and diehards, it’s nice to have the single edit and 12″ mix. But if one is a casual fan, go with the album version.
Today in Madonna History: March 31, 1990
On March 31 1990, Keep It Together hit its peak position of number-eight on the Billboard Hot 100.
While it is possible that it reached its natural peak on the charts, some have speculated that the single’s ascent may have been prematurely interrupted by the sudden release of Madonna’s next single, Vogue.
Today in Madonna History: January 30, 1990
On January 30 1990, Keep It Together was released in North America as the fifth and final single from Like A Prayer. It also received a commercial release in Japan, Australia, Ecuador and the Philippines, while some European markets opted to include it as the b-side to Madonna’s next single, Vogue.
As fate would ironically have it, Madonna’s soulful ode to remembering ones roots would turn out to be the last Madonna-performed single co-written and co-produced with longtime collaborator Stephen Bray, whom she had befriended (or by some accounts, dated) during her days as a student at the University of Michigan. A final collaboration written by the pair, Get Over – which is speculated to have been written as a potential new track for The Immaculate Collection but was instead given to fellow Warner recording artist Nick Scotti – was released as a single in 1993, after first appearing on the Nothing But Trouble soundtrack in 1991.
Although no music video was produced for Keep It Together, the maxi-single – jam-packed with memorable remixes by Shep Pettibone and DJ Mark “The 45 King” with Stephen Bray – made the single a must-have for fans around the world. And despite its exclusion from her greatest hits releases, Madonna’s show-closing (and show-stopping) performance of the song during her legendary Blond Ambition Tour – and its accompanying documentary Truth Or Dare – has also served to keep the song alive in the hearts and minds of fans.
Today In Madonna History 