On May 24 1991, Madonna’s Rescue Me single was certified Gold by the RIAA for shipment of over 500,000 units in the U.S.
Tag Archives: Remix Videos
Today in Madonna History: May 13, 1983
On May 13 1983, Madonna performed Physical Attraction during a track date at the FunHouse in New York City.
Located at 526 West 26th St, the FunHouse (1979-1985) was a breeding ground for the new electronic sounds of the street and helped to make its resident disc jockey, Jellybean Benitez, one of dance music’s first superstar DJ’s.
Of course, Jellybean’s close association with Madonna certainly didn’t hinder his growing popularity either. His first working collaboration with Madonna was to remix Physical Attraction, the b-side to her sophomore single on Sire Records, Burning Up/Physical Attraction, which may explain why it was chosen over the more frequently performed lead track for her performance at the FunHouse. The same remix of Physical Attraction was later used on her debut album, together with new remixes Jellybean provided for Burning Up and Lucky Star alongside his first full production for Holiday.
Today in Madonna History: April 30, 1983
On April 30 1983, Madonna’s second single – the double A-side Burning Up/Physical Attraction – moved into the Top 10 on Billboard’s Dance/Disco Top 80 chart (now known as Hot Dance/Club Play), leaping from #18 to #9.
Interestingly, the release charted as Physical Attraction/Burning Up throughout its run on the Dance chart. When two songs are promoted together to dance clubs, Billboard will generally position the track that earns the higher number of spins first in its Dance chart entry.
The same Billboard issue also saw some early radio support for Madonna, as New York City’s WKTU-FM featured Physical Attraction among their top playlist adds for the week.
Today in Madonna History: April 25, 1998
For the weeks of April 25, and May 2, 1998, Madonna’s Frozen was the #1 dance single on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.
Today in Madonna History: April 24, 1993
On April 24 1993, Fever/Bad Girl hit #1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart in America. It remained at #1 for two weeks.
Despite being marketed as Bad Girl, the release charted as Fever/Bad Girl on the Maxi-Singles Sales chart due to its b-side being the primary focus of the release in terms of content. Wisely, Bad Girl was left off of the accompanying promotional single that was serviced to clubs (on beautifully pressed transparent red vinyl), allowing it to top the Hot Dance/Club chart solely as Fever.
Today in Madonna History: April 20, 1991
On April 20 1991, Rescue Me peaked at #3 on the UK Singles Chart after making its debut at #4 the previous week. It slid to #5 in its third week before falling out of the Top 10.
Rescue Me was the third single release from The Immaculate Collection in the UK, where it was issued in between re-releases of Crazy For You and Holiday.
Because the photo on international pressings of Rescue Me had already graced the cover of the Crazy For You reissue, Warner UK chose to market the single using an alternate shot taken from Jean-Baptiste Mondino’s June 1990 spread in Harper’s Bazaar. Ironically, the international Rescue Me cover photo was snapped on the set of the Mondino-directed music video for Justify My Love, although not by Mondino himself. It was instead photographed by another (future) Madonna music video director, Stephane Sednaoui.
Today in Madonna History: April 3, 1993
On April 3 1993, Fever entered the UK Singles Chart at its peak position of number-six. Without the support of a proper music video at the time of its release (Warner UK instead issued a rarely seen compilation video of previous clips), the single spent only six weeks on the UK charts, dropping to number-seven the following week.
Strangely, Madonna did eventually decide to film a video for the song in late April – nearly a month after its release in Europe. By the time the video premiered during the second week of May, Fever was spending its final week on the UK Singles Chart.
In North America the remixes for Fever had been issued commercially on Madonna’s previous international single, Bad Girl. Fever was also serviced to clubs as a promotional single in its own right, but it was not promoted to radio despite the video being added to into rotation on MTV and MuchMusic. While the release of the music video managed to coincide with Fever’s single week atop the Hot Dance/Club Play chart, its number-one status had already been confirmed several days prior to the clip’s debut, making the video’s intended purpose and the timing of its release all the more puzzling.
Today In Madonna History 