On May 19 1990, Madonna’s single Vogue hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA.
Vogue reached number one in over 30 countries worldwide, becoming Madonna’s biggest hit at that time. It was also the best-selling single of 1990 with sales of more than two million, and has sold more than six million copies worldwide to date.
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.
On March 25 1991, Madonna performed Sooner Or Later from Dick Tracy at the 63rd annual Academy Awards at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. Sooner Or Later won the Oscar for Best Original Song by Stephen Sondheim; her escort at the awards was Michael Jackson.
Sooner or later you’re gonna be mine
Sooner or later you’re gonna be fine
Baby it’s time that you faced it
I always get my man
On December 19 1990, the film Dick Tracy was released on home video.
Here’s a video I put together for one of our favorite songs from the film, Stephen Sondheim’s More.
On July 21 1990, Madonna’s second single from I’m Breathless, Hanky Panky, debuted at #14 in the UK.
Check out the beautiful images above of Madonna performing Hanky Panky during her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour.
On June 28 1990, Madonna’s Vogue single was certified double platinum (2 million units) – the biggest-selling single by a female artist ever at the time.
On September 19 1990, Madonna’s Hanky Panky was certified gold (for shipment of 500,000 units) in the USA.
During an interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna talked about getting a good “spanky”:
The spanking thing started because I believed that my character in Dick Tracy liked to get smacked around and that’s why she hung around with people like Al Pacino’s character. Warren Beatty asked me to write some songs, one of them, the Hanky Panky song, was about that. I say in the song ‘Nothing like a good spanky’, and in the middle I say, ‘Ooh, my bottom hurts just thinking about it’. When it came out everybody started asking, ‘Do you like to get spanked?’ and I said: ‘Yeah. Yeah, I do’.
