Tag Archives: Music Videos
Today in Madonna History: October 3, 1985
On October 3 1985, Geffen Records released Gambler as a single in Europe. It was the second Madonna single released from the Vision Quest soundtrack.
Concerned about potential overexposure, Warner Brothers successfully managed to suppress a North American release of the track, although the music video was serviced to MTV. It was issued as a single in most other major markets – including Japan, Australasia & South America.
Gambler was written by Madonna, produced by Jellybean Benitez and arranged by Stephen Bray. Extended and instrumental remixes by Benitez were also issued commercially outside North America.
Today in Madonna History: September 28, 2005
On September 28 2005, Madonna’s official website confirmed that Johan Renck would direct the music video for Hung Up, the lead single from Confessions On A Dance Floor.
Photographer David LaChapelle had initially signed on to direct but dropped out of the project during pre-production after a disagreement with Madonna over the video’s creative direction.
Renck had previously collaborated with Madonna in 1999 when he directed the video for Nothing Really Matters.
Today in Madonna History: July 25, 1998
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
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 11, 1993
Today in Madonna History: May 6, 1995
On May 6 1995, the first of a two-day shoot for the music video for Human Nature took place at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California.
The video was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino while the work of S&M comic artist Eric Stanton provided inspiration.
Mondino found this book by this illustrator named Stanton who did kinda S&M drawings and stuff, but we didn’t want to go with the straight S&M; we wanted to have it be more about making fun of it.” – Madonna
All I know is…my main problem is I don’t like videos when somebody’s dancing, that the camera is moving a lot. I’m more like an old-time, classic guy, because I remember most of the video you had shot with the crane, some Steadicam, plus some panning. So you have about five different cameras shooting a performance, and after they edit like crazy. It gives you a lot of freedom, but I feel very frustrated because I like to see somebody dancing. I hate when there’s too much editing. I like the steadiness of the performance because then you can really enjoy the movement of the body. You see the skill. I like to shrink — as much as I can — the stage because I can grab her. If not, everyone is running around and I’m not good with this. So I came up with the boxes [laughs] and I knew that with the boxes I had to do with something quite un-expect-able because there’s not too much stage to dance in. So there’s something beautiful about it and they looked like bees or something. And the rest of it was how to create some kind of choreography and some graphic imagery with the S&M outfits, but with humor. So she has a little dog and she has some funny moments where she drops down, there’s some Charlie Chaplin-esque moments into in it. Because S&M is a game, you know? It’s dark, it looks dark, but I think people have fun. When you wear rubber like this, you better have fun. If not, you stop using it for sex and you become a diver, you know?” – Jean-Baptiste Mondino












