Today in Madonna History: July 25, 1998

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On July 25 1998, the music video for Drowned World/Substitute For Love premiered in Europe. The video was directed by Walter Stern and was filmed on June 26 & 27 1998 at London’s famous Claridge’s Hotel and Piccadilly Circus.

The video caused some controversy when the British press reported that it would feature scenes of Madonna’s car being chased by paparazzi on mopeds, concluding that it was a reference to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the previous year. Liz Rosenberg responded by denying that the scenes were intended to draw comparison to Diana’s death and insisting that the video was about Madonna’s own relationship with fame.

Sadly the video was not serviced to video channels in North America, and with online steaming and downloadable videos not yet prevalent at the time, most fans outside of Europe were only able to enjoy the video for the first time when it appeared on the 93:99 video collection over a year later.

Today in Madonna History: June 14, 2006

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On June 14 2006, the music video for Get Together premiered in North America and Europe.

Fully devoted to the preparation and launch of the Confessions Tour, Madonna was unavailable to shoot a video for the third single from Confessions On A Dance Floor. Warner Bros. Records and Madonna’s management instead commissioned several animation studios to combine live performance footage of Madonna’s 2005 promo show at London’s Koko with computer animated graphics. The original video that was released to music video channels (and is featured below) was directed by Logan.

Oddly, Madonna’s 2009 music video collection, Celebration, featured an alternate submission from 2006 directed by Eu­gene Riecan­sky (this second version had initially been streamed on Madonna’s official website in 2007). The original broadcast version by Logan, however, remains unavailable commercially.

Today in Madonna History: May 19, 1995

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On May 19 1995, the music video for Human Nature premiered on MTV.

Madonna had initially planned to have friend and collaborator Alek Keshishian direct the video for Human Nature. Keshishian had even been named as the director in ICON Magazine, but for unknown reasons this shoot was cancelled during pre-production. Madonna later called in another recurring collaborator – Jean-Baptiste Mondino – to direct the clip instead.

The video marked Madonna’s first collaboration with Jamie King, who can be spotted as a dancer in the video.

Today in Madonna History: May 9, 1991

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On May 9 1991, a new music video for Like A Virgin featuring live and behind-the-scenes footage was released exclusively to MTV in the U.S. to promote the film Truth Or Dare. Outside the U.S., video channels were instead serviced with a live video for Holiday (which was eventually issued within the U.S. as well).

The Truth Or Dare clip for Like A Virgin was nominated for two MTV Video Music Awards in 1991: Best Choreography and Best Female Video. It marked the third time that a video for Like A Virgin had been nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography. The original video received three nominations in 1985 including a nod for best Choreography, and another live clip (which was also released exclusively to MTV) to promote the home video release of The Virgin Tour was also nominated in the category in 1986. Despite the numerous nominations, none of the three videos for Like A Virgin garnered any trophies from MTV.

Today in Madonna History: April 24, 2019

On April 24 2019, Madonna’s music video for Medellín, featuring Maluma, premiered during an MTV special. The music video was directed by Diana Kunst and Mao Morco.

During the intro to the video, Madonna whispers:

“I will never be what society expects me to be. I have seen too much… I cannot turn back. I have been kidnapped, tortured, humiliated and abused. But I still have hope. I still believe in the goodness of humans. Thank god for nature. For the angels that surround me. For the spirit of my mother, who is always protecting. From now on, I am Madame X. And Madame X loves to dance… Because you cannot hit a moving target.”

Today In Madonna History: March 20, 1991

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On March 20 1991, Madonna’s Madonna VHS video collection was certified multi-platinum (100,000 units) in the USA.

The home video included Madonna’s music videos for: Burning Up, Borderline, Lucky Star and Like A Virgin.

Today in Madonna History: February 16, 1998

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On February 16 1998, the music video for Frozen premiered on MTV at 4 p.m. Directed by Chris Cunningham, the video was filmed in the Mojave Desert in California from January 7th to 10th.

Initially Madonna had considered filming the video in Iceland but decided that a barren desert would create a similarly desolate backdrop, without the added difficulty of filming in extreme cold temperatures. As it turned out, filming in the desert at dusk in January was far from the warm location she had envisioned; low temperatures and an accompanying rainstorm left much of the crew under the weather.

In an interview with MTV News, Cunningham stated that Madonna became interested to work with him after seeing his Aphex Twin-directed music video, “Come to Daddy” (1997). The black goth gown outfit Madonna wears in the video was designed by Olivier Theyskens, and provided by then-new collaborator, designer Arianne Phillips.