On February 20 1986, Madonna and Sean Penn attended the premiere of his film At Close Range at the Berlin Film Festival in Berlin, Germany.
Madonna contributed Live To Tell to the At Close Range soundtrack. Live To Tell was written by Patrick Leonard and Madonna, and was released as the first single from her True Blue album in March 1986.
On February 14 1987, Open Your Heart reached number-one on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.
On February 3 1987, Madonna’s True Blue album was certified 4x platinum, for sales of 4 million units in the USA.
On December 12 1986, Open Your Heart was released in North America as the fourth single from True Blue. The song was written by Madonna, Gardner Cole & Peter Rafelson and produced by Madonna & Patrick Leonard.
The single’s worldwide b-side, White Heat, an album track from True Blue, developed a relatively high profile due to its inclusion as the flip-side to two of Madonna’s #1 hits–the aforementioned Open Your Heart and 1987’s Who’s That Girl, released only six months apart. Gaining further exposure as a set-list staple during the Who’s That Girl Tour, the live performance of White Heat foreshadowed some of the dramatic elements that Madonna would expand upon in future tours.
White Heat’s original submission for copyright was registered to Madonna & Leonard under the working title Get Up, Stand Tall with a 1985 date of creation. Notes from the registration on file also list the title Dangerous–but it is likely just another working title that was being considered rather than a separate recording. White Heat is thought to have been among the earliest songwriting collaborations between Madonna & Leonard to be completed, coming shortly after their first composition, Love Makes The World Go Round, surfaced during Live Aid in the summer of 1985. The sequence of the registration numbers for the two songs suggests that they may they have been completed within a month or two of each other. Madonna’s version of Open Your Heart (which she revised from the Cole/Rafelson demo) is also thought to have been recorded with Leonard during the same time period.
The liner notes of True Blue dedicated White Heat to actor James Cagney, who in 1949 played ruthless, deranged gang leader Arthur “Cody” Jarrett in the Warner Brothers film, White Heat. Several clips of Cagney’s dialogue from the original motion picture were used in the song for dramatic effect.
On November 18 1986, Madonna’s True Blue album was certified 3x platinum, for sales of 3 million units in the United States. The album was released on June 30 1986.
Here’s what Madonna had to say about the album track, Where’s The Party?
“It’s my ultimate statement about what it’s like to be in the middle of this Press stuff with everybody on my back, my world about to cave in. Whenever I feel like that – and it does get to me sometimes – I say ‘Wait a minute, I’m supposed to be having a good time here, so where’s the party?’ It doesn’t have to be this way. I can still enjoy life.”
On May 31 1986, Madonna’s Live To Tell hit #1 for 3 weeks on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary singles chart in the USA.
On April 21 2018, Rhino Warner released two limited edition Madonna albums for Record Store Day:
Today In Madonna History 