On March 23 1985, Madonna’s Material Girl hit #2 in the USA.
The US and UK 12″ singles included:
Side A: Material Girl (Extended Dance Remix) 6:05
Side B: Pretender 4:28
Material Girl also appeared on the 1990 greatest hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection, and on the 2009 greatest hits compilation, Celebration. The song was written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans, and Nile Rodgers produced the track.
On February 1 1985, Madonna’s music video for Material Girl premiered in the U.S. on MTV.
The Mary Lambert-directed clip was a tongue-in-cheek homage to Marilyn Monroe’s performance of Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend from the 1953 film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
On January 23 1985, Madonna’s Like A Virgin album was certified 2x platinum (for sales of 2 million units) in the USA.
On November 22 1984, Madonna graced the cover of her very first Rolling Stone magazine with issue 435. Playing with the success of Like A Virgin, the headline read: Madonna Goes All The Way. Madonna went on to achieve the most covers of any female between 1984 and 2009.
On July 30 1985, Madonna’s Angel/Into The Groove 12-inch single was certified gold (for shipment of 1,000,000 units) in the USA.
On March 19 1996, Madonna’s cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore was released as the fourth single from her Something To Remember greatest ballads collection.
The song originally appeared on the Like A Virgin album.
The idea to cover the song was Michael Ostin’s (head of the A&R department at Warner Bros. Records).
In author Warren Zane’s book Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records, the First 50 Years, he recalled:
“I had the good fortune of finding material that Madonna really responded to, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore for instance, which was the old Rose Royce record. I was driving into work one day and heard it on the radio, I called producer Nile Rodgers and Madonna, they were in the studio. I said, ‘I have an idea, you know the old Rose Royce record, ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore‘? Why don’t you try and record a version of it for Like a Virgin?” Initially both Rodgers and Madonna were apprehensive of tackling an already well-known ballad, but in the last minute they decided that if Madonna wanted to bring diversity to the album, there could be no better song than ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’.
On February 5 1985, Madonna’s Like A Virgin was certified 3x platinum (for sales of 3 million units) in the USA.
