Okay, she's my girl!.. You either love her or
hate her, but chances are you have some
strong opinion of Madonna. If you've read
my other chartopper columns
it comes as
no surprise that, for the past 20 years, I've
adored her! And she continues to inspire me
with each new album. For the next few
months, in celebration of the twentieth
anniversary of the release of her very first
record, I'll be looking back at Madonna's
amazing career and talking about each
release! We'll have some fun trivia with
great prizes so stay tuned and please keep
reading Chartoppers: Madonna! Email me
at chris@fredflare.com. I'd
love to hear your stories
about Madonna! Xxoo, Chris Click here
for Chartoppers:
the 80’s!
This is a story about a girl and a boy.
She’s a Leo and he’s a Scorp. She’s from Bay City, Michigan
while he’s from Joliet, Illinois. Her dad was an engineer at Chrysler and
his owned a carnival. Her mom stayed at home while his taught first grade. She
had tons of brother and sisters but he only had one brother, Scooter. Her dad
was religious and super strict but his liked to party and was kinda mean. Her
mom passed away. His mom is still alive but cries a lot.
She loved to dance. He preferred to draw. She dropped out of college and he became
an architect. They both had a dream. She went to NYC with $35 and he went there
with a
U-Haul truck and his boyfriend. She did all this crazy stuff and ended
up making great music that everybody loved. He did all this crazy stuff too and
ended up starting a little company that people thought was real cute. She became
Madonna and he’s half of fred flare. She doesn’t know him at all
but he really loves her.
Our story begins with Madonna’s very first studio release, her namesake.
Madonna – the original title was Lucky
Star – debuted in the summer
of 1983. It featured a stunning black and white cover portrait of a pouty-faced
blonde with tons o’ rubber bracelets and a chain round her neck. But the
inside displayed her softer side with a playful shot of this cutie showing off
her midriff and gazing at the stars.
Madonna really
was the little record that could. It smoldered in the background, hanging out
in the far regions of the Top 200
for months, and took a whole year
after its release before reaching the Top 10. The rest is
history. Or rather, herstory. I’ll give ya a quick recap…
In the late 70’s, while I was changing my baby brother’s diapers
and playing Barbies with my neighbors, Madonna was studying dance at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor. There she met her b-friend and soon-to-be power collaborator
Steven Bray. She also had a mentor named Christopher Flynn. Good ole Chris was
one of Madonna’s dance instructors at that time and a huge catalyst in
teaching her the ways… the ways of the gays! He made her feel beautiful
and talented and essentially told her to drop out of school and head for the
Big Apple where she belonged. In 1979, she did.
According to legend, Madonna asked her first NYC cabbie to drop her off in "the
center of everything." He took her to Times Square and there the excitement
really began for our girl! Tons happened to her in New York in those days as
she started to build her career… so many bars, boyz and bands! Oh, that
must have been such an exciting time to be in NYC: Debbie Harry and CBGB’s
and Keith Haring and Basquiat and Danceteria and Max’s Kansas City and
on and on…
But it was also pretty tough for Mo for a while. She was picking garbage and
squatting to survive. Hey, you do what ya gotta do… After a couple of years
of naked ambition, she managed to record a small 4-track demo that showcased
a little ditty titled "Everybody". This was the first song she ever
wrote and she proudly schlepped it to local clubs in her cute New Wave looks. "Everybody" caught
the interest of Danceteria’s DJ Mark Kamins. He loved it and ended up producing
the song to put in front of Sire Record’s founder Seymour Stein who signed
Madonna immediately. "Everybody" was the start of something big.
Though it became the last track on Madonna, this
was actually her very first commercial release in a long career of hits. While
Mo worked on her first album, "Everybody" was
released as a 12" dance single. (Have you ever seen the cover?) Though it
never registered on the Hot 100, this Casio jam became a club sensation as it
peaked at #3 on the Dance charts. With "Everybody" Mo really began
to heat up the 80’s dance pop craze with her infectious idealism, a signature
for much of her career. "Everybody" is all about lettin’ loose
on the dance floor, you know, where "you can do your thing" but here,
as in so many songs to follow, Madonna was also inviting us to take risks, daring
us to boogie woogie.
Have you ever seen the video? I didn’t think so… I’ve only
seen it once but I’ll never forget it. It’s super low
budget, costing a mere $1500, which is probably at least what her Gaultier bras
ended up costing
apiece. The vid is just a simple performance number with Mo in her cute street
urchin look with spiky brown hair and heavy eye makeup. Think Pat Benatar meets
Bananarama. She does a little dance routine on stage in a dark club with two
background dancers, her brother Christopher Ciccone and friend Erica Bell. Sound
familiar? Maybe the "Everybody" video was a sort of testing ground
for another video soon to be released. More about that later.
In 1983 Mo’s next release, also before the record dropped, was the 12" of "Burning
Up" and its B-side "Physical Attraction". Hmm, isn’t this
just the little carnal energy happy meal? "Burning Up" is a real rockin’ jam
with a great 80’s electric guitar solo. (Hey, someone needs to bring that
back!) But, seriously, my 13 year-old ears had rarely heard such sexual energy
in a song before. It very nearly toppled Olivia’s "Physical" from
its scandal shelf…
The video for "Burning Up" is hot hot hot and totally 80’s. This
was Mo’s first studio vid and she got Steve Baron to direct and star as
her b-friend. Baron is best know for his direction of Michael’s "Billie
Jean". Here we’ve got chains, smoke, lasers and freeze frames as Mo
plays a siren in a belted white hoodie dress with major roots! It’s great.
She’s writhing around in the middle of the road at night while the b-friend
is driving in his powder blue Nancy Drew convertible. But take a guess on who
ends up in the driver’s seat?
The next single, "Holiday", is really where Madonna’s road trip
goes cross-country. Produced by our fave toyboy Jellybean, this was Mo’s
first Top 40 hit that climbed to #16 on the charts. Her first record had finally
been released and people were really beginning to take notice. Oh wow, here’s
some crazy numerology for ya… Mo’s latest song, "Me Against
the Music", the duet with Britney, is her 50th entry on the Hot 100. And,
believe it or not, it entered the charts at #50 exactly 20 years to the week
that "Holiday" had first entered. I love when stuff like that happens!
Did you know that it almost didn’t even make it onto Madonna?
Crazy, I
know! In the 11th hour they ended up pulling the song "Ain’t No Big
Deal" from the tracklist and replacing it with "Holiday". And
thank god they did! "Holiday" is a song that really ended up defining
Madonna as a one-of-a-kind solo performer. I’ll never forget how cute she
was lip-synching it on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand when she said she
wanted to "rule the world". It’s a real crowd-pleaser and the
one and only song that Mo has performed in all five of her concert tours.
"Holiday" has such a cute message, too. Chock full of awesome beats,
tambourines, that fierce piano solo and Mo herself on the cowbell, this jumpy
jam always takes
me higher as our girl calls for a much-needed day off… How I can relate
to that! But it’s actually kinda weird if ya think about it. Madonna seems
like
such a darn workaholic… I mean does Mo really ever take a holiday?
Okay people, ready to get pushed over the "Borderline"? Yeah, I thought
so. "Borderline" is a super duper cute song and Mo’s first Top
10 hit. It spent a whopping thirty weeks on the Hot 100, a feat matched only
by "Take a Bow". This feel-like-I’m-going-to-lose-my-mind jam
is also one of my favorite videos. Directed by the great Mary Lambert – this
is the first of a long series of collabo’s between Mo and Mary – this
was also the first time many got to see what this girl Madonna looked like… And
boy, was she cute!
It goes a lil’ something like this… While breakdancing, Madonna gets
discovered by this very Paul McCartney-esque photographer. This really sets off
her cutie pie Johnny Depp-esque
b-friend! So he’s all mad and pouting while
Madge is at her photo shoots. She gets a taste of the sparkling champagne of
the good life but, unfortunately, kinda screws things up by accidentally spraypainting
on Paul’s sports car during a shoot. So he kicks her out and she runs back
into the arms of her new wave boy and they smooch! The end.
The story is captured in amazing black and white scenes during the photography
sessions and color ones when she’s back in the hood with her girlz. I’ll
never forget that scene when she kicks that lamppost in her tangerine pumps… That
was life changing for me! In fact, it was the video for "Borderline" that
really, truly fostered my obsession with Madonna. When I was a kid, me an my girlz,
my neighbors Tracy and Becky, would pause from playing dolls only to soak in
Madonna’s hot "Borderline" looks. We’d paint Madonna
moles on Barbie’s face and sketch Mo’s fashions on paper.
Madonna’s
final scorcher single "Lucky Star" went on to become
Mo’s first Top 5 hit as it clocked in at #4. Also written by Madonna, "Lucky
Star" is an insanely catchy little number that borrows its chorus from a
nursery rhyme. I love the song, but again here it’s the video that moves
me. Shot against an all-white background, the "Lucky Star" video picks
up where the "Everybody" video left off as Chris and Erica return once
again as background dancers in this completely irresistible dance performance
video.
And Madonna really nails down the look: the mesh tank, the giant satin bow in
her hair, the barrage of bracelets, the lace gloves and the dangling star earring.
Then, oh yeah, there it is, yes… The belly button! How weird is it that
everyone seemed completely mesmerized by this? I suppose we had just fallen under
the spell of a lucky star. We were completely and utterly captivated by this
little girl from Michigan who winked at us through that mop of a hairdo… Another
funny thing about this video is that it opens and closes with Mo putting on a
pair of sunglasses. Her future’s so bright she’s gotta wear shades!
Have you seen the 1985 video for Mo’s Virgin Tour? She says this funny
yet meaningful thing at the end in a Betty Boop voice. "I went
to New York. I had a dream. I wanted to be a big star. I didn’t know anybody.
I wanted to dance. I wanted to sing. I wanted to do all those things. I wanted
to make people happy. I wanted to be famous. I wanted everybody to love me. I
wanted to be a star. I worked really hard and my dream came true."
A huge thanks to Keith and Lulu here at fredflare.com for
listening to me read
these columns aloud all the time… Thanks to all of you who have read these
columns and enjoyed them. And, of course, the biggest thanks to Madonna for being
who she is, a true Chartopper and such an incredible inspiration to me. Thanks,
Mo!!!
