On January 19 1985, Madonna reached #1 on the RPM Canadian Top 100 Singles chart for the very first time with Like A Virgin.
For the 1985 year-end chart, Like A Virgin was #35 (RPM Canadian Top Singles).
A promotional-only 7″ single was released in Canada on white vinyl. The 7″ included the album versions of Like A Virgin and Stay.
Hear an unreleased early rough mix of the underrated track, Stay, from the Like A Virgin album sessions below.
On December 26 1987, RPM magazine – Canada’s definitive music industry publication at the time – issued its year-end singles tally.
All four of Madonna’s eligible Canadian singles charting in 1987 made the list:
On December 4 2011, shoe designer John Fluevog told the Calgary Herald’s Theresa Tayler that he never expected that Madonna would pay her respects by whipping out a pair of shoes he had gifted to her, putting them on during a scene in her infamous, documentary Truth Or Dare.
“Yah like ‘em?!” she said, as she flirted with the camera, showing off the “Munster” platforms. At the time, it was a massive publicity break for the respected, but still little-known, Canadian designer.
Fluevog told Tayler that he rarely tells the story of how Madge ended up with a pair of his kicks:
“I don’t really like giving away shoes. It’s not what I do. This is a business. One night I was watching Madonna on one of those American talk shows. She was being very naughty, talking about spankings and saying all of these silly things. I thought, this is a game player. Her whole thing is a game. She needs a pair of my shoes.”
Fluevog then sent one of Madonna’s stylists a pair of his shoes and he never heard back.
“Not a thank you, not anything. Then, someone told me she wore them in the movie . . . I didn’t like Madonna’s game. I found it annoying, but I respected what she was doing. The movie moment was a game-changer for Fluevog. Things exploded for us. It was all a bit of shock to me.”
On July 18 2004, Madonna played the first of three sold-out dates at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre during her Re-Invention Tour. Playing to a combined total of over 52,000 fans, the shows were the only Canadian stop on the tour and marked her first concerts in Canada in eleven years.
During the second show Madonna proclaimed to those in attendance that they were the best audience of the tour thus far, while the final Toronto date saw Madonna in an uncharacteristically playful mood. Interrupting the show’s normally swift progression between Papa Don’t Preach and Crazy For You, she joked about the infamous 1990 threats of arrest and whipped the audience into a cheering frenzy with her self-described “unprofessional” behavior.
Clearly the audience (myself included) didn’t mind one bit! 🙂
On June 29 1998, Madonna’s Ray of Light single peaked at #3 on RPM’s Top 100 Canadian Singles chart.
As with all the Canadian singles from the Ray of Light album, the title track was issued by Warner Music Canada as a 2-track CD single and as a CD maxi-single. In the U.S., the album’s CD singles were issued in cardboard sleeves with “draw pack” trays and the CD maxi-singles in “FLP digipak” cases, while in Canada the two configurations for each of the album’s four domestic singles were packaged in standard CD jewel cases with printed inserts.
On June 16 1990, Vogue hit #1 on the Canadian Top 100 Singles chart by RPM magazine.
Vogue would top the chart for three weeks in Canada and would earn a platinum sales certification – a fairly unusual distinction in Canada, where singles are rarely certified.
Starting April 22 1989, and continuing for the weeks of April 29, May 6, May 13, May 20 and May 27, Madonna’s Like A Prayer album became and remained the number-one album in Canada!
