On July 28 1990, Hanky Panky hit its peak position of number-ten on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S.
The rarely seen official video for Hanky Panky was recorded at the May 27th 1990 concert in Toronto, Canada. Rather than use live audio from the tour, Warner opted to overdub the live performance with the album version. The video was broadcast for a few weeks and then withdrawn from rotation in most countries. Although no official reason was given, it is assumed that due to the low-budget nature of the video, it was only ever intended to serve as an initial promotional push for the song, with its subsequent withdrawal from rotation being part of the plan.
On July 27 1992, Madonna was featured on the cover of People magazine and in a feature article about the previous 50 years of teen idols.
Here’s a snippet of what People had to say about Madonna in 1992:
Not Just a Mirror of the Times, Madonna Is a Hall of Mirrors: Temptress, CEO, Atomic Blonde, Fatal Attraction—She Struts a Multitude of Selves Across the Stage – From Brando to Axl, the boys have always had somebody to act out their fantasies of rebellion and stand in for their forbidden selves. Then, in 1984, the girls got Madonna. So what if she had a Betty Boop voice and a smidgen of fat around her navel? She also had lyrics that would have made a black-and-white cartoon blush scarlet. “Unlike the others, I’ll do anything,” she sang in the video Burning Up: “I’m not the same/ I have no shame.” No wonder the nuns at her Michigan grade school used to tape her smart mouth shut. Top it off with clothes that seemed hijacked entirely from Frederick’s of Hollywood. Madonna was the material girl all right, and the material she paraded was spandex, Lycra and nylon net. For millions of teenagers, Madonna was the girl of their disobedient dreams. She had power; they had none. She was free, while they still needed Mom’s permission to stay out past 10. Madonna could afford to call herself a boy toy. This was one puppet who pulled her own strings. Her ambition had muscles; her will had the glint of chrome. Susan Seidelman, who directed Madonna in her first hit film, Desperately Seeking Susan, understood her appeal: “Funkiness mixed with amazing confidence—that’s a real powerful combination, especially for teenage girls.” For some big boys too. Did Sean Penn give her trouble? She dumped him like a smart cookie shaking off a crumb. Warren Realty was the permanent playboy? A few months with Madonna and he went running for the quieter life of wedded bliss—with another woman. “I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want,” Madonna once said. “If that makes me a bitch, OK.”
On July 26 1999, Beautiful Stranger hit #1 for the first of two weeks on the Top 100 Canadian Singles chart published by RPM.
In the U.S. a commercial single had been withheld for Beautiful Stranger to drive sales of Maverick Records’ Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack album, limiting the song’s chart potential on the Hot 100 despite favorable support from radio. In a rare move, Warner Music Canada opted against following the lead of its U.S. counterpart and instead released the song as a CD maxi-single on July 20th, 1999.
During the week of its release, Beautiful Stranger was spending a second week at #4 on the Canadian singles chart based on the strength of its airplay alone, however the loss of its bullet indicated that it had likely peaked at radio. Fortunately, the added boost from sales of the domestic maxi-single was enough to earn Madonna her 17th #1 single in Canada – her first since 1995’s Take A Bow, despite having achieved three Canadian top-5 hits in the interim between 1996 and 1998.
On July 23, 2024, the press posted photos of Ryan Reynolds, Madonna, and her 11-year-old twins, Stella and Estere, joining Hugh Jackman at the premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine at the David H. Koch Theater in New York City on Monday.
Ryan Reynolds and his Deadpool & Wolverine director, Shawn Levy, revealed during an interview on Andy Cohen’s SiriusXM radio show (via People) that they personally met with Madonna to secure the rights to use “Like a Prayer” in the upcoming Marvel film. The music icon agreed, and the song ended up playing a prominent role in both the film and its trailers.
“It did involve a personal visit to Madonna, where we showed Madonna the sequence where ‘Like a Prayer’ would be used,” Levy said.
“Also, let’s preface it with the fact that they don’t license — that Madonna doesn’t just license the song, particularly that song,” Reynolds added. “It was a big deal to ask for it and certainly a bigger deal to use it… We went over and met with her and sort of showed her how it was being used, and where, and why.”
Not only did Madonna allow Reynolds and the Deadpool & Wolverine team to use “Like a Prayer,” but she also provided a note on how it should be used. While Reynolds isn’t revealing specifics just yet, he said, “She gave a great note. She watched it, and I’m not kidding, [she said], ‘You need to do this.’ And damn it, if she wasn’t like spot on.”
“We literally went into a new recording session within 48 hours to do this note. … It made the sequence better,” Levy added.
In addition to Madonna, the Deadpool & Wolverine soundtrack includes songs from *NSYNC, The Goo Goo Dolls, Fergie, Avril Lavigne, Aretha Franklin, Green Day, and The Greatest Showman soundtrack, among others.
On July 22 1985, Like A Virgin was certified 5x Platinum in the US – the first solo album by a female artist to be certified for shipment of 5-million copies. The album remained a consistently strong catalogue seller well into the next decade, eventually earning a Diamond certification (the RIAA’s highest certification award) in 1998 for shipment of over 10 million copies in the US.
Today In Madonna History 