Today in Madonna History

[groovyguy 63,856]

On July 22 1985, Like A Virgin was certified 5x Platinum in the US – the first solo album by a female artist to be certified for shipment of 5 million copies. The album remained a consistently strong catalogue seller well into the next decade, eventually earning a Diamond certification (the RIAA’s highest certification award) in 1998 for shipment of over 10 million copies in the US.

 

 

 

The studio where the magic was made

[groovyguy 63,856]

This is one day late = yesterday in Madonna history.

 

On July 21 1987, the “Who’s That Girl: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack†album was released.

“Who’s That Girl†was released as the lead single from the soundtrack, it became Madonna’s sixth single to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, making her the first artist to accumulate six number-one singles in the 1980s, and the first female performer to get that many number-ones as a solo act.

The album’s second single, “Causing a Commotion“, was released on August 25, 1987. In the United States, the single quickly climbed up the chart, ultimately peaking at number two in the week of October 24, 1987, the same week Michael Jackson’s “Bad†advanced to the pole position. It remained in second position for three weeks, before descending from the chart.

The third song released from the album was the European single “The Look of Love“. In the United Kingdom, “The Look of Love†was released on December 12, 1987, and entered the UK Singles Chart at position 15. The next week, it reached a peak of nine on the chart, her first single to miss the top five since “Lucky Star†in 1984.

The only Madonna song not to be released as a single from the soundtrack was “Can’t Stop“.

 

[groovyguy 63,856]

#Onthisday July 22, 2013 @Madonna received a lot of certifications by the @BPI UK Singles, DVDs, Albums

[Voguerista 11,738]

I loved the cover and the video. I also have never seen that studio pic. Thanks for posting.

[groovyguy 63,856]

*** TODAY 25 YEARS AGO *** Madonna's CHERISH video was (apparently) shot on July 22, 1989 at Paradise Cove Beach in Malibu, California! Here's the director Herb Ritts talking about it a month later when the video premiered on MTV @ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=829008077123944

 

 

[Guest]

Yeah, the studio is a gem to see.

 

And I always wonder who decides and why they decide a song to be release in limited regions. Meaning, why did "The Look of Love" only get a European release? Not that I really think it would have done well, but it's just interesting that some songs get a limited release.

[unapologeticheart 872]

On July 22 1985, Like A Virgin was certified 5x Platinum in the US – the first solo album by a female artist to be certified for shipment of 5 million copies. The album remained a consistently strong catalogue seller well into the next decade, eventually earning a Diamond certification (the RIAA’s highest certification award) in 1998 for shipment of over 10 million copies in the US.

 

Really? So there was never any female singer who succeded to sell 5M+ in the US before Madonna? wow!

There is only ONE Queen Madonna indeed

[groovyguy 63,856]

#Onthisday @Madonna attended David Collins' funeral in Monkstown, Ireland July 23rd, 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2375195/Madonna-pays-respects-attends-best-friend-David-Collins-funeral-Dublin.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Voguerista 11,738]

So much class and so gorgeous!^^

[groovyguy 63,856]

Into The Groove was released outside the US on July 23, 1985.

 

The song was a commercial success, reaching the top of the charts in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain and the United Kingdom, where it was Madonna's first number-one single. In the United States, the song was only available as the B-side of the 12-inch single of "Angel", therefore it was ineligible to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 according to the rules of the time. By the end of the 1980s, "Into the Groove" was honored by Billboard magazine as the Dance Single of the Decade.

 

 

[Voguerista 11,738]

Aww, I love Into The Groove and Angel! So snappy and fun!

[groovyguy 63,856]

Madonna is the self-titled debut studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was released on July 27, 1983 by Sire Records. The album was re-released in 1985 for the European market with a new design, photography and was renamed Madonna: The First Album. A remastered version of the original album was released in 2001 by Warner Bros. Records with bonus remixes.

 

Contemporary critics have applauded the album, but Madonna was dismissed by some critics when it was released in 1983. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly named it as the fifth of "Top 100 Best Albums of Past 25 Years." The album was successful on the charts, reaching number eight on the Billboard 200, and the top ten of the charts in Australia, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It was certified five-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipment of five million copies across the United States. Worldwide the album has sold more than 10 million copies. Five singles were released from the album, with "Holiday" becoming her first song to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Lucky Star", her first top-five hit.

 

 

[Voguerista 11,738]

Billboard is doing her up right too....

 

30 years ago today, Madonna released her first album. Here's a look at the chart success of Madge's magnificent debut

July 27 is a "Holiday" for Madonna fans: Her self-titled debut album was released on this day in 1983.

"Madonna" debuted at No. 190 on the Billboard 200 chart dated Sept. 3, 1983, and eventually climbed all the way No. 8 the following year. The Sire/Warner Bros. Records release spent a staggering 168 weeks on the chart -- the longest run of any Madonna album.

It spun off three top 20 hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and four entries on Billboard's Dance/Club Play Songs tally.

Madonna's Fashion Evolution: 50 Iconic Looks

Its first single, "Everybody," was actually released the previous year, in late 1982. The song became a hit in dance clubs, especially in Madonna's then-home of New York. The cut reached No. 3 on Dance/Club Play Songs in early 1983 and was initially embraced by the city's dance radio station, WKTU. The outlet was arguably the first American radio station to play the track. WKTU reported it as a new "Playlist Top Add On" in the Dec. 11, 1982, issue of Billboard magazine, reflecting their station's playlist for the week ending Nov. 30, 1982. (Fun fact: At the time, former Billboard associate publisher Michael Ellis was the music director of WKTU.)

Madonna told Rolling Stone in 2009 about hearing herself on WKTU for the first time: "I was living on the Upper West Side, 99th and Riverside, and at about 7 at night I had the radio on in my bedroom, on 'KTU, and I heard 'Everybody.' I said, 'Oh my God, that's me coming out of the that box.' It was an amazing feeling."

Madonna Accepts Top Touring Award at Billboard Music Awards

"Everybody" was followed by the double-sided single "Burning Up"/"Physical Attraction," a No. 3 hit on Dance/Club Play Songs in spring 1983. (It was common then for singles to be promoted as so-called "double-sided" singles, when a vinyl record would be sent to club DJs with a different song on each side.)

Next came another double-sided single: "Holiday"/"Lucky Star," which became her first No. 1 on Dance/Club Play Songs in late summer 1983, just as her album was starting to take off. It was the first chart-topper her storied career as the queen of Billboard's Dance/Club Play Songs survey. In her career, she's earned a whopping 43 No. 1s -- a record no other artist has neared. Her most recent No. 1 was 2012's "Turn Up the Radio," from her "MDNA" album.

"Holiday" eventually became Madonna's first major mainstream hit in America and her first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. It debuted at No. 88 on the Oct. 29, 1983, chart and peaked at No. 16 on Jan. 28, 1984.

The hits started to come fast and furious for Madonna after her breakthrough success with "Holiday." "Borderline" came next, and gave Madonna her first top 10 on the Hot 100. It reached No. 10 on the June 16, 1984, tally. "Borderline" was her first of a record 38 top 10 hits on the Hot 100. (In second-place on the all-time list: the Beatles, with 34 top 10s.)

 

While "Lucky Star" had been a club hit already, it was then time for it to be promoted to pop radio. It sailed to No. 4 on the Hot 100 the week of Oct. 20, 1984.

 

One month later, on Nov. 17, 1984, Madonna would debut her fourth hit on the Hot 100: "Like a Virgin," the title track and first single from her second album.

But, that's a chart story for another day . . .

[groovyguy 63,856]

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-madonna-became-madonna-an-oral-history-20130729

How Madonna Became Madonna: An Oral History

Three decades later, looking back on the making of the superstar's debut album

By SEAN HOWE

July 29, 2013 12:11 PM ET

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Madonna, 'Madonna'

Courtesy of Sire Records

Thirty years ago this past week, Sire Records released Madonna's debut album. Although it only created one pop icon, Madonna the album was the culmination of months of effort by diverse artists, photographers, executives and musicians. "The first new wave disco music," as one of her friends described it, carried plenty in its DNA: bouncy R&B grooves; traces of the last gasps of the pre-AIDS Downtown NYC culture; and, of course, the force of personality of the future Queen of Pop.

 

In early 1982, Madonna was 23 years old. In the four years since leaving Detroit for New York City, she'd earned her starving-artist bona fides, working at a Dunkin Donuts, sleeping in an abandoned Queens synagogue and rocking studded bracelets, ripped jeans and bleached, cropped hair. She'd traveled as a backup dancer for French disco singer Patrick Hernandez and auditioned for Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ. She'd also gone into a Times Square studio with her ex-bandmate (and ex-boyfriend) Steven Bray and recorded a demo of four songs. With her music, she hoped to capture the attention of "the kind of people who might like Grace Jones." It was that hope, and that demo, that she brought with her one Saturday night to the Danceteria nightclub.

 

The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time: 'Madonna'

Seymour Stein, founder, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins was the best DJ in New York. I followed him to various clubs – I didn't dance, but I liked the way he spun.  He could mix Portuguse and Indian music with whatever was going on in England at the time. I gave him some work to remix some things for me. One day he said, "I want to be a producer. Let me work with one of your new artists." I said, "I can't do that, Mark. You don't have a track record." But I said, "Why don't you bring me an artist. Then the artist is indebted to you." I gave him $18,000 to record demos for six artists.

 

Michael Rosenblatt, A&R, Sire Records:
Mark Kamins told me there was this girl who had a demo and was trying to get him to play it over the dance floor. And he was going to have none of that â€“ he didn't play any demos. But he said she looked amazing, so I was trying to keep an eye peeled for her.

 

A friend of mine had just signed a group called Wham! They were about to put out their first single, but before they put it out, my friend wanted them to see the New York club scene. So I was taking them to clubs on a Saturday night – I'm at the Danceteria second-floor bar with George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, and I see this girl walk across the dance floor and up to the DJ booth to talk to Mark. I figured she had to be the girl with the demo. So I walked up and introduced myself as an A&R guy, and we started talking.

She came by on that Monday and played me that demo. It wasn't amazing. But this girl sitting in my office was just radiating star power. I asked her, "What are you looking for in this?" I always ask that, and the wrong answer is "I want to get my art out," because this is a business. And Madonna's answer was, "I want to rule the world." The next step was getting her signed. I had to play [her demo] for Seymour Stein.

Seymour Stein:
I was in the hospital, hooked up to a penicillin drip. I said, "Send it over, please." I listened to "Everybody" – it was the early days of the Sony Walkman – and I loved it.

When Madonna came by, I was caught with dirty pajamas with a slit up the back of my gown. I needed a shave and a shower. But I got it together to meet with her. When she walked in the room, I could tell she wouldn't have cared if I was like Sarah Bernhardt lying in a coffin. All she cared about was that one of my arms moved, that I could sign a contract. What I saw there was even more important than the one song I heard. I saw a young woman who was so determined to be a star.

I shook hands on the deal. It was a deal for three singles and an option for albums afterward. I would have gone down to the bank and withdrawn my own money to sign her if I had to.

Michael Rosenblatt:
It was Seymour that signed Madonna. It was simple. There was no bidding war. Nobody else wanted to sign her. Cut and dry, easy and cheap.

 

Seymour Stein:
I told her, "The first night out of the hospital, let's go out to dinner, you, me and Mark." But I forgot about it. I get back to the office, I get a call, it's Madonna. She says, "Where are we going tonight?" I said, "Oh my god, the Talking Heads are in town, I'm going to see them at Forest Hills." She said, "We'll go together!" I introduced them to Chris [Frantz], Tina [Weymouth], Jerry [Harrison] and David [byrne]. David gave me a thumbs-up sign. He was impressed.

 

Fred Zarr, keyboardist:
Mark Kamins brought me in to redo all the keyboards on "Everybody." When she first walked in, I had my back to the door. I know this sounds corny, but I felt this swish of energy come into the room. I turned around, and . . . she had all the makings of a star. She had the style, the way she dressed, and she was very strong-willed.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
You had this girl coming out of the new wave scene doing dance music. I thought if we were able to do it right, we'd be able to capture a lot of audiences. We'd get the new wave kids, we'd get the pop people, and the dance community. We'd be able to get everybody.

I didn't want her picture on the cover of the "Everybody" single, because I thought I could get a lot of R&B play on that record, because a lot of people thought she was black.

Lou Beach, designer, "Everybody" 12":
I'd never heard of Madonna before then, and I didn't get to listen to the music. Warner Brothers told me, "Do a scene of everyday people in the street." So I clipped images from magazines, and threw them together for the collage. I do remember being a little nervous about using the photo of the black-and-white dog from LIFE magazine, but finally I said, "Fuck it, it'll be fine."

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
Madonna needed somebody who could really help her with her vocals.  Mark Kamin's strength was grooves, not working with a girl who's never been in the studio before. That's when I hired Reggie Lucas, with an eye to giving an R&B feel to this dance/new-wave artist. He was having a lot of success with Stephanie Mills and Roberta Flack.

 

Reggie Lucas:
When Warner Brothers called me about working with Madonna, I was the big score. It seems ridiculous in retrospect, but I was an established professional and she was a nobody. I met with her at a tiny little apartment she had in the Lower East Side. I thought she was vivacious and sexy and interesting, and had a lot of energy.

 

I signed on to do the record, and then "Everybody" came out and it made a little noise. It sold 100,000 copies, so I was like, "All right! This artist became a somebody before I even started on the album." So that was nice, that was encouraging. 

Most of the people around Madonna at the corporate level did not get her and for the most part did not like her. You could see them recoil from her bohemianism. Everybody thought she was crazy and gross. I would never say she was a punk rocker, but she used to wear little boys' shorts, and white t-shirts with holes in them, and then she had little ring things in her ears. She wasn't the weirdest person I'd ever met, you know? I'd worked with Sun Ra! So after hanging out with the Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra, Madonna didn't seem particularly avant-garde.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
While Reggie was making the record, nobody at Warner Brothers gave a shit at all. Madonna was just a little dance girl.

 

Reggie Lucas:
She was poor. She borrowed Jean-Michel Basquiat's apartment while he was in Paris, and so I spent a good hour and a half during the record meeting with her at Basquiat's place. He had his art up there, nobody knew who he was.

 

We had a fun experience. There was no committee rendering judgment from on high, because she was brand new and frankly nobody cared about her that much. And she had a sense of direction.

Michael Rosenblatt:
It was great â€“ there wasn't any infighting or any of that kind of shit. Reggie wrote two of the songs, "Borderline" and "Physical Attraction." The rest were Madonna songs.

Reggie Lucas:
"Borderline" has a stylistic similarity to "Never Knew Love Like This Before" [the 1980 Grammy-winning Stephanie Mills song that Lucas co-wrote and co-produced], particularly in the front, with Dean Gant's electric piano introduction.

This was the first record I ever used a drum machine instead of a drummer. And the bass on "Borderline" is an ARP 2600 synthesizer, but the great Anthony Jackson – who did that intro on the O'Jays' "For the Love of Money" – is playing along on an electric bass guitar, and they're playing so tight you can't tell the difference.

Michael Rosenblatt:
I remember telling Seymour, when he was giving me grief for being in the studio every day, that Madonna was going to be the biggest act he ever worked with. He laughed and said, how big is she going to be? My line was "Seymour, she's going to be bigger than Olivia Newton-John!"

 

Seymour Stein:
I dared to believe this was going to be huge beyond belief, the biggest thing I'd ever had, after I heard "Borderline." The passion that she put into that song, I thought, there's no stopping this girl. All of her energy – my God, I never saw anybody work this hard in my life. And then make it look so easy.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
During the making of the album, we would walk down the street and people would just stop and gawk. This is before she was famous. She just had that look and that vibe; there was no stylist working with her. It was all her. We'd walk into a restaurant and people would stop eating and just stare.

 

Reggie Lucas:
There's no way to get around it, Madonna exudes a lot of sexuality. She would curse a lot, talk about sexual things a lot in a joking way. She was more liberated. So you picked up her energy when you were around her. You could tell this was somebody who was going to work with being a celebrity well if she was able to achieve it. That's what she wanted more than anything. She would always come into the studio with biographies of famous movie stars from the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. She spent time studying what she was thinking about doing.

 

She'd really put it out there in the studio, and not in a self-conscious way. It wasn't crude, it wasn't coarse, it didn't seem like she was just selling a little sex to sell a few more records. So working with her, you could play off that. She's a pretty good improviser, on the tags – you know, the ends of the records â€“ and on "Burning Up" when she's like "I'm burning up, "Unh! Unh! Unh!" me and the engineer were like "This is great, man!" So we're just like, "Madonna, do it one more time!" So we kept making her do it over and over, just to get off on it. But you hear it on the record; it's a very erotic record.

 

We had this really fun guitar thing on "Lucky Star," and then she had a meltdown about guitarists â€“ she related an experience where a rock guitarist she was sharing the stage with turned up his guitar, and upstaged her with volume. So we never completed that version.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
We finished the album, and I wanted another song. Something much more uptempo. I needed to get more money to finish the record. So Seymour said, "Take her down to L.A., have her meet the executives at Warner Brothers."

 

Reggie Lucas:
At Warner Brothers, when they first met her – Mo Ostin, Michael Ostin, Lenny Waronker – they said, "She wants to sing black music, so just have her go promote her singles at the black radio stations." Which is what she did. But they didn't have a vision of, "Oh my god, she's going to be an enormous pop star." Because she expressed an interest in black music, they said, "Oh! Go sell it to the black people, then." That's how she was visualized.

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
But once she went out to L.A., everybody started buzzing. I said to Lenny Waronker, "I need an up-tempo song; will you give me 10 grand?" He said yes.

 

That trip to L.A., Madonna didn't have a manager. We decided to get somebody based in L.A. to deal with Warner Brothers. So we met with Freddy DeMann. At the time, Freddy was managing Michael Jackson. So we go into Freddy's office and we're having this great meeting, his assistant comes in, and says, "Freddy, you have a call. Can you take it?" He says, "You guys stay here, watch this video, let me know what you think. It's premiering on MTV in about two weeks." Freddy puts in a video, presses play, shuts the door. Madonna and I watch the "Beat It" video. As soon as the video ends, I say, "This guy's your fucking manager." She says, "Yeah."

So I went back to New York with the money in hand and went to Jellybean [benitez] and Reggie Lucas and maybe two other guys, and said, "Whoever comes up with an up-tempo dance song gets to produce it." Literally three days later, Jellybean comes into the office and plays me a demo of "Holiday," and it's like, "You win."

Lisa Stevens, co-writer, "Holiday":
Curtis Hudson and I wrote "Holiday" for the group we were in, Pure Energy.

 

Curtis Hudson, co-writer, "Holiday":
Lisa was playing [sings opening chords], but she was playing it like a ballad. It wasn't even in the rhythm of "Holiday," but I heard something. The whole melody came together in my head over a couple days before I wrote anything down. Then it just poured out of me. We played it for everybody we knew, producers, artists – everybody was excited. Kool & the Gang were like, "Wow, that's a smash."

 

Lisa Stevens:
 We went into Mix-O-Lydian Studios in New Jersey and cut "Holiday." Our record company said it wasn't a hit.

 

Curtis Hudson:
We already had songs that were doing well in the clubs, we just never did break as a pop act. We played the Funhouse, the Paradise Garage, Studio 54. Jellybean was DJing at the Funhouse, so we met Madonna through him. When I first saw her, she had all these rags tied around her dress and all these accessories. I was like "What is she wearing?"

 

Lisa Stevens:
Jellybean told us Madonna was looking for one more song for the album.  He asked us if we had a song for her, and we said, here – we have "Holiday."

 

Curtis Hudson:
So we went into Sigma Sound in New York with Jellybean, and we had the demo tape in the studio, and matched everything to that. I played guitar on it, my brother played the bass, and we brought Bashiri Johnson in to do percussion.

 

Fred Zarr:
Jellybean hired me to put my own touch on it. I was using new equipment at the time. The Oberheim System, which was the OB-X synthesizer, the DMX drum machine, and the DSX sequencer. I was reading the manual while I was programming in the studio. It was very primitive, but it was state of the art at the time. It allowed me to sort of have 12 hands at one time – to program the drums and sync it to the OB-X and some other keyboards – a bass part on the Moog, some string sounds. Jellybean and Madonna came to my house, I pressed play, the computer played part of the track. They loved it. We went in the next day, and I overdubbed the piano solo. Madonna played the cowbell. A couple of days and it was done.

 

Curtis Hudson:
We weren't there when she did the vocal sessions, because she wanted privacy or whatever, so Jellybean said, "Would you guys mind?" We said, "No, if that's the way she likes to record." She didn't know us that well, so maybe with Lisa doing the vocal on the demo, Madonna didn't want to be influenced. When I first heard it, I was like, "Wow, okay, I've got to get used to hearing it without all the soulful riffs that Lisa did." But once I'd really listened to it, I realized it was going to be more universal. Since she was pretty much sticking to the melody, it was all about the song. 

 

Michael Rosenblatt:
At that point the jig was up. Everyone knew she was a little Italian girl. We originally had a drawing of her. But it was a little too soft, so we decided to go with a photo shoot.

 

Carin Goldberg, art director:
When I heard the name Madonna, my eyes just sort of rolled back in my head. I thought, "Just what we need, another gimmicky one-name girl singer who will have one album."

 

We had a meeting, and she showed me her new loft.  we talked a little bit. Even at that time, she was not warm and fuzzy, she was very focused, very clear about the parameters that this was business and not a friendship. There was no pretense or bullshit, and I really liked that.  She knew what she wanted.

There was no discussion of what she would wear. On the day of the shoot, she showed up at the studio in her "Madonna outfit" and danced to her music while the photographer, Gary Heery, shot. I zeroed in on her bracelets, and borrowed more from Gary's girlfriend, added those to her wrists and told Gary to focus on them. They were clearly her unique trademark. The shoot took no time at all.

Michael Rosenblatt:
As soon as we saw the proofs, that it was it. It was just perfect.

 

Madonna

Peter Noble/Redferns/Getty Images

 

Sire Records released 'Madonna' on July 27th, 1983. It entered the Billboard 200 chart at Number 190 over a month later. The album has since been certified five times platinum.

 

[Fighter 28,797]

Those articles are from last year, but it's a nice read. 

 

Here's a new one: 

 

This Is How Madonna Was Introduced To The World 31 Years Ago

http://www.queerty.com/this-is-how-madonna-was-introduced-to-the-world-31-years-ago-20140728

[groovyguy 63,856]

OnthisDay July 30, 2010 @Madonna on the set of W.E., Villefranche-sur-Mer (France)

http://www.

[Voguerista 11,738]

Such a "visual" director. I loved that quality in her for what we saw in W.E.

[groovyguy 63,856]

On this day July 31, 2009 "Celebration" (Single) is released.

 

"Celebration" peaked at number one in Bulgaria, Finland, Israel, Italy, Slovakia and Sweden, while reaching the top five in other nations, including Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom where it debuted at number three on the UK Singles Chart. It became Madonna's 55th entry on the US Billboard Hot 100, where it debuted and peaked at number 70, and her 40th number-one song on the dance chart.

 

The music video used the Benny Benassi remix of the song. It portrayed Madonna and her tour dancers solo dancing to the song. Cameo appearances were made by model Jesus Luz and in an alternative video by her daughter Lourdes. At the 2010 Grammy Awards, the song received a nomination in the Best Dance Recording category. The song was the closing for The MDNA Tour in which Madonna energetically danced in a glittery outfit, and at one point put on a pair of headphones and scratched records with colored cubes falling in the backdrop.

 

[Voguerista 11,738]

LOVES Celebration and the Video!!

[groovyguy 63,856]

Happy 25^th, Cherish!

 

On This Day, Cherish was released on Aug 1^st, 1989 with B-side “Supernaturalâ€.

 

"Cherish" was released as the third single from her fourth studio album Like a Prayer on August 1, 1989. The song was also included on the 1990 compilation album The Immaculate Collection and the two-disc edition of her 2009 compilation Celebration.  Musically constructed as a doo-wop style pop song.

 

"Cherish" was also a commercial success, reaching the top-ten of the charts in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Italy, United Kingdom and the combined European chart. On the Billboard Hot 100, "Cherish" became Madonna's 16th consecutive top-five single, setting a record in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

 

A black-and-white music video of the song was directed by photographer Herb Ritts at the ParadiseCoveBeach in Malibu, California. In the video, Madonna played herself, while three co-actors who were dressed as Mermen swam in and out of the sea. Academics noted that the Mermen became symbols for the homosexual community and the oppression it faced. Madonna performed "Cherish" on her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, where the performance included her dancers dressed up as Mermen. The symbolism was seen to de-sexualize men, relegating them to objects of desire.

 

A merman gets fitted with his tail for Madonna's Cherish music video at Paradise Cove Beach in Malibu, California.

 

[groovyguy 63,856]

*** TODAY 25 YEARS AGO *** Madonna's CHERISH video was (apparently) shot in Malibu, California! Here's the director Herb Ritts talking about it a month later when the video premiered on MTV.

 

 

 

 

[Voguerista 11,738]

Aww I love Cherish. I remember watching this video over and over and over when I first saw it.

[groovyguy 63,856]

Today in Madonna History: August 1, 1990:

 

On August 1 1990, “Madonna In Concert†was taped by SACIS-RAI at Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, Spain on the second to last date of Madonna’sBlond Ambition Tour.

 

The special was broadcast in Spain, Italy, the UK and Australia. It also aired on Canada’s MuchMusic on September 10, 1990. After being heavily promoted by the channel in the weeks leading up to the broadcast, the special aired in an edited version during its prime time slot, followed by an uncensored airing at midnight.

In addition to its intended use for broadcast, the recording also served as an unused safety net for her HBO special from the final date in Nice, France a few days later.

[madgefan 10,137]

 

[groovyguy 63,856]

On August 3 1985, Madonna’s â€œInto The Groove†hit #1 in the UK and “Holiday†hit #2 in the UK – Madonna is the only female artist ever to occupy the top 2 positions simultaneously on the UK charts.

 

In the United Kingdom, "Holiday" has been released three times as a single; in January 1984, reaching number six, re-issued in August 1985 reaching number 2 (only being kept from number one by her own "Into the Groove" single). It was re-released with new artwork in 1991 to promote The Immaculate Collection with a limited edition EP titled The Holiday Collection, which contained tracks omitted from the compilation; this version reached number five.