On January 9 1999, Madonna began filming the music video for Nothing Really Matters at Silvercup Studios in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens in NYC.
The imagery in the video was inspired by Arthur Golden’s 1997 bestselling novel, Memoirs Of A Geisha. It marked Madonna’s first collaboration with Swedish director Johan Renck, who had been introduced to Madonna by Ray Of Light video director, Jonas Åkerlund.
On January 7 1995, Take A Bow slid to #21 on the UK Singles chart after reaching a peak of #16 on December 24th, 1994.
While Take A Bow remains her longest-running #1 hit in the US, its disappointing UK chart performance marked an end to Madonna’s spectacular run of 35 consecutive top-ten UK singles from 1984’s Like A Virgin to 1994’s Secret. Take a bow, indeed!
On December 24 1995, Oh Father was released as the second UK single from Madonna’s ballads retrospective, Something To Remember.
Warner had initially declined the option to release Oh Father in most European markets when it became the fourth North American single from Like A Prayer in late 1989, instead opting for a more by-the-numbers portrait of childhood innocence with the release of Dear Jessie. Why it was determined to be a better idea in 1995, following its poor showing on the U.S. charts, is anyone’s guess. One possibility is that Oh Father‘s brilliant preexisting music video provided an easy, cost-free means of promoting the song while Madonna remained unavailable due to her recording commitments for the Evita soundtrack.
While I would personally rank Oh Father among Madonna’s very best musical and lyrical efforts, and its music video an underrated classic – it never had the makings of a commercial hit. And history repeated itself when the song’s dark subject matter once again stunted its ability to gain momentum on radio for its British release. It became only her third UK single at the time to peak outside the top-ten when it stalled at #16 in its first charting week. It fared better in Finland and Italy, however, reaching #6 in both countries.
On December 20 2005, Madonna’s official website confirmed that Jamie King would direct the music video for Sorry, the second single from Confessions On A Dance Floor.
The video was conceived as a sequel to the album’s first single, Hung Up.
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 November 24 1992, the music video for Deeper And Deeper premiered on MTV.
The clip was directed by Bobby Woods, who was an Executive Producer at Madonna’s companies Boy Toy Inc. and the film division of Maverick. The Warhol-inspired trip down memory lane featured many familiar faces from Madonna’s life, including Seymour Stein, Debi Mazar & Guy Oseary.
Woods recalled the video and shared Madonna’s handwritten concept notes for the shoot in an interview with fansite Madonna New Era:
Madonna wanted to do an Andy Warhol/Edie Sedgwick styled video. She believed, and I think this is accurate, that there was a similar feel to the times of America in the Roaring ’20’s and the Disco ’70’s. A wildness. The video was made very quickly. Deeper and Deeper is a great song, one of her best dance records for sure, thanks to Shep Pettibone. The dance sequences in the video are 100% spontaneous. We loaded a dance floor with people, put her record on, and the dancing began. I have danced with Madonna many times. So I can understand why those people wanted to dance with her as well. It’s a thrill. She also brought along Udo Kier and Holly Woodlawn who were part of the original Warhol crowd. Her pal Sofia Coppola (who I adore) came along, too, as well as Debi Mazar and Ingrid Casares… For me, working with her was a lot of fun. First off, she’s extremely smart. Secondly, it’s all her doing. Thirdly, nobody is more professional. And most importantly, she has the great ability to bring together very talented people, and make them want to do their very best for her. This is true of all the stylists, musicians, dancers, filmmakers, photographers, everybody. Many of them do the best work of their careers during their time with her. It’s a great and rare talent. It is my belief that this spirit carries over to the fans, who are also lifted up by this talent.”
On October 21 1995, the music video for I Want You by Madonna with Massive Attack hit #11 on VH1’s weekly chart in the U.S.
The video for I Want You is somewhat of an anomaly in Madonna’s career. The song was initially intended to be a joint release to promote both Inner City Blues (a Marvin Gaye tribute album on Motown Records) and Madonna’s own Something To Remember ballads collection on Sire/Maverick. Naturally, a music video was commissioned to accompany the planned single.
Unfortunately, legal wranglings between the two record companies ensued when Motown insisted on releasing the tribute album ahead of Madonna’s album. Concerned that the move could negatively impact sales of Something To Remember, Madonna’s label apparently backed away from plans to fully promote I Want You.
Fortunately for fans, the song’s excellent music video, which had already been completed by director Earle Sebastian, was not shelved. It was serviced to video channels ahead of the release of both albums and received moderate support despite the song’s absence from radio.
The video quickly faded into obscurity, however, once Madonna’s You’ll See single and its accompanying video were given a full promotional push from her label less than a month later.
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