On May 10 1986, Live To Tell peaked at #2 on the Top 100 Singles chart in the UK.
Tag Archives: Live Videos
Today in Madonna History: April 24, 2007
On April 24 2007, Liz Rosenberg posted an article on Madonna.com remembering Madonna’s very first single that started it all:
It may seem like only yesterday but 25 years ago on April 24, 1982, Sire Records honcho Seymour Stein released a single called Everybody on Warner Bros. Records by an unknown singer from Rochester, Michigan by the name of Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. To say the world would never be the same is an understatement. The song went on to become a huge dancefloor hit and was heard all over the radio in the Summer of 1982. That little girl from Michigan would go on to become one of the most famous entertainers and cultural icons in history – selling close to 200 million records and remaining a star of enormous magnitude and influence for the next 25 years. She’s just getting started. Long Live the Queen and Happy Anniversary to Madonna.
The announcement came as a surprise to many fans who had always understood the release date of Everybody to be October 6, 1982. While the erroneous April date was likely just a simple mistake on Liz’s part, the lack of any official retraction/correction to the post has led to much confusion about the single’s release date in the years since, with the press often assuming the April date to be factual given its reputable source. However, the sequencing of the catalogue numbers for both the promotional and commercial releases of Everybody, as well as its charting chronology, offer clear evidence that its originally reported release date of October 6, 1982 is in fact the accurate one.
Today in Madonna History: April 23, 2015
On April 23 2015, Tori Amos came to Madonna’s defense when questioned about the ageist undertones on social media – and by the media at large – in reaction to her “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2015 Brit Awards:
Madonna is an entertainer. There are very few people who could’ve gotten up off that floor. It wasn’t because of her that she fell, but it was because of her that the performance carried on. Some of the vilification comes from women as much as men. She’s making choices and she’s able to do things physically that a lot of people 25 years younger can’t; she got up and refused to allow that to shame her. I think people want her to be shamed into a role that they find acceptable for her age. It makes me sad that we can’t embrace Madonna and say, Wow, this is an artist who’s expressing herself in a certain way.”
— Tori Amos
Tori often incorporates one or two cover songs by other artists into her live shows, but there are only a handful of artists whom she has covered multiple songs, and Madonna is one of them. She has performed both Live To Tell and Like A Prayer at numerous concerts, with the most recent Madonna composition to join her live repertoire being Frozen, which made its debut in Amsterdam in 2014.
(Many thanks to YouTube user LittleQueenbee77 for the great live footage of this performance!)
Today in Madonna History: March 29, 1988
On March 29 1988, Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour home video was certified multi-platinum for sales of over 100,000 units in the U.S.
Today in Madonna History: March 28, 1987
On March 28 1987, the final single from Madonna’s True Blue album, La Isla Bonita, was briefly reviewed in Billboard magazine.
The now-classic song was Madonna’s first sonic exploration into her love of Latin music and culture which would become a recurring inspiration in her body of work. Written by Madonna, Patrick Leonard, and frequent Leonard collaborator, guitarist Bruce Gaitsch, it has been reported that the instrumental demo of the song was initially offered to Michael Jackson, who passed on the track.
While Madonna has said that La Isla Bonita took inspiration from “the beauty and mystery of Latin American people,” she has remained more elusive about the song’s geographical references. Years later, she teasingly commented in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine:
“I don’t know where San Pedro is. At that point, I wasn’t a person who went on holidays to beautiful islands. I may have been on the way to the studio and seen an exit ramp for San Pedro.”
Today in Madonna History: March 27, 1993
On March 27 1993, Bad Girl peaked at #20 on the Canadian Top 100 Singles chart (RPM).
Although the single fared better in Canada than it did south of the border (it peaked at #36 on the Hot 100), Bad Girl nevertheless earned the undesirable distinction of being Madonna’s lowest charting Canadian single since Borderline at the time, which had peaked at #25 in September, 1984.
The Bad Girl single was backed with the album version of Fever in North America (both songs were released separately in Europe), while the Bad Girl maxi-single focused primarily on remixes of Fever along with an extended version of Bad Girl. Strangely, a music video for Fever was produced only after the single had run its course on the European charts, set to a remix that was not issued was not included on the North American maxi-single of Bad Girl or the Fever 12-inch promo set that was serviced to DJ’s in the U.S.
Despite the unusual promotion, Fever managed to top the U.S. Club chart and the video was put into regular rotation on MTV and MuchMusic in Canada.
Today in Madonna History: March 1, 2015
On March 1 2015, Madonna visited Italian talk show, Che tempo che fa, as part of her promotional tour for the Rebel Heart album. In addition to an interview with host Fabio Fazio, she performed Devil Pray for the first time, along with the album’s second single, Ghosttown.
Madonna’s appearance on the show aired on March 8th.
Today In Madonna History 