Madonna: "Justify My Love" / MC Tunes: "Primary Rhyming"

14 November 1990

"And the video will no doubt be riddled with sauciness and we'll probably never get to see it. Hmf."

"Tunes himself sounds as menacing as usual, and as usual you can't make out a word he's saying but who cares when he comes out with tracks as vicious as this one?"

— Miranda "Boon-Eh" Sawyer

Two new releases in this issue of Smash Hits came with arty black and white videos that my mum would describe as "racey". One of them includes a gentleman naked right down to his bare ass going for a swim, a couple getting up to all sorts of capers in a bubble bath and another amourous pair getting it on outside in the rain, their bodies covered in leaves and dirt but not in any clothing to speak of. The other has a narrative of a troubled woman wandering about in a hotel corridor who quickly gets seduced by a handsome fellow. Only one these promos was deemed unfit for TV and it wasn't the one featuring pools and baths and rain. Everyone was upset about Madonna's "Justify My Love" while no one seemed to care about Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring". Curious.

Sex and nudity in music videos has long been issue — and one that has long been beset by double standards. George Michael's supposedly controversial short for "I Want Your Sex" is surprisingly free of titillation yet it ended up being censored. Meanwhile U2's promo for "With or Without You" managed to escape the wrath of the prudes in spite of shots of a naked woman. But it was in 1990 and '91 that this reached its peak. Not much of a fuss was made over Chris Isaak's vid for "Wicked Game" which made prominent use of a clothing-deprived Helena Christensen. In Canada, Francophone singer Mitsou got into some trouble when she and some models disrobed for her hit "Dis-mois, dis-mois". Not only did people get way too upset about some pop videos but they managed to do so in such a maddeningly selective fashion. In the early part of '91, Canadian music video channel MuchMusic did a panel discussion centred around Madonna and Mitsou that only mentioned Pet Shop Boys in passing and failed to bring up Chris Isaak at all.

It should go without saying that the release of a new Madonna single was an event. This wasn't always the case — I don't recall anyone being excited by "Hanky Panky" hitting the shops the previous summer — but it certainly was at the tail end of 1990. Not only did "Justify My Love" come with a very naughty video but it came out to promote The Immaculate Collection, her hotly anticipated greatest hits set. While new tracks off a best of are generally unremarkable, the sort of recording that artists fart out with minimal effort since it's intended to be tacked on to a compilation that is meant to sell like crazy either way, but to Madge's credit, she certainly tried to do something new in this instance. (Not so much with the other new track, the forgettable "Rescue Me" which shouldn't have been good enough for inclusion since "Who's That Girl" and "True Blue" both got left off)

"Justify My Love" is the kind of single that is better as a concept than as a listening experience. Madonna had long been a sex symbol and I like the idea of her throwing it all back in the face of her critics with such a steamy recording (and, indeed, video). Played once, it's a startling experience but on subsequent listens it just sort of glides by. The Immaculate Collection is full of hits that my generation had grown up with and it's only right that she would do something so explicit at a time when we were also getting interested in sex. With AIDS panic all over the place, it was also refreshing to hear someone crying out for a good, hard shag. It just ain't much fun to listen to. Not a blot on her discography but by no means a highlight.

Thus, the ultra pervy Madonna had arrived. She had already exposed plenty of skin in the "Express Yourself" video a year-and-a-half earlier but this was a whole new level of sexual naughtiness. The Truth or Dare (aka In Bed with Madonna, a much better title even if it was also a shameless rip off of In Bed with Chris Needham) documentary would come along the following year, as would her notorious Sex book. She looked to be going family friendly with her appearance in the women's baseball movie A League of Their Own but that was swiftly followed by the Erotica album and her starring role in the pitiful Body of Evidence. Once formidable, now a bit of a joke. But she'd be back — possibly even in this space though that remains to be seen.

But hey, isn't Madonna clever?

~~~~~

Meanwhile on the fully-clothed end of the spectrum, MC Tunes is Miranda Sawyer's other Single of the Fortnight. Given that they've already taken home SOTF honours on five occasions (with at least one more to come!), I'm not terribly upset by the injustice of denying Pet Shop Boys. Sure, "Being Boring" is their finest moment and it buries both "Justify My Love" and "Primary Rhyming" (not to mention everything else on offer here, even the worthy contender below) but I will say that Sawyer is correct in one sense: it never had to be a single and is better off as an album cut. "So Hard" aside, Behaviour is an LP that might as well not have any 45's culled from it. Fans adore it but Sawyer's indifference was reflective of the public's reaction to it. It only just limped into the Top 20, ending their streak of Top 10 hits going all the way back to "Suburbia" in 1986.  

"Primary Rhyming" isn't up to much, even by Tunes' modest standards. "The Only Rhyme That Bites" (pretentiously credited to 'MC Tunes vs. 808 State'; apparently dance and hip hop artists don't collaborate so much as they are in a fight to the death with one another) was a pretty nice stab at that early-nineties lightning-fast rap style with some seriously scary 808 State production work backing it. The novelty wears off quickly and it's distracting the way he gasps for breath between lines but it was potent for a time. Tunes and 808 slowed things down considerably for follow-up "Tunes Splits the Atom" but that only gave away that he was a third rate rapper and that they had better things to do on their own (or "vs." UB40). Two singles in an everyone was already sick of him.

A good thing, then, that he doesn't factor much into "Primary Rhyming". The pointless 'vs.' credit was done away with but replaced by 'MC Tunes presents...', an acknowledgement that he was stepping aside and let others annoy the public with their raps rather than his. Oh Paul, don't be such a bitch! Okay, let me say that the first part helmed by 'The Microphoness' (aka 'The First Mancunian Lady; "snatching the title from Modom Vera Duckworth", as Sawyer amusingly notes) is rather good. She handles herself well, finding her way around a rap with an easy, effortless style. Had she not wound up on such an otherwise useless record she might well have had a chance at a recording career of some note. Sadly, much of "Primary Rhyming"'s running time is taken by a very youthful, very horrible Dewiz. Young boys never rap well and he proves to be worse than normal. Somehow, he returns for more near the end, with The Mircophoness not heard from again (she must've ducked out of the studio as soon as she heard who'd she be guesting with). Tunes himself only pops in for a twenty second appearance midway through. Sawyer may well be frightened but I am disinterested by the results. The appeal of MC Tunes was narrow enough but having some youngsters spell for him clearly wasn't helping.

You know what? Forget it. Sawyer made a huge mistake passing up on Pet Shop Boys' "Being Boring". That song kills. It's like "In My Life" only more mature and individual. I wish I could have been blogging about it this week. I could've even gone into how much the video turned me on, especially the couple rolling around in the rain. Hmf indeed.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

The Farm: "All Together Now"

Lad culture was just starting and the football terraces were being phased out so I suppose it makes sense that it never occurred to either The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays to create an anthem for mobs of youths to sing along with. A shame since the indie-dance of baggy was suited to just such a number. Luckily those silly sods The Farm were there to pick up the slack. I wonder if everyone who has chanted it in stadiums and in pubs in the thirty-plus years since has realised that it's about First World War troops laying down their lives in no man's land. Then again, football players all about sacrifice so they're no different than canon fodder at the Somme, right? All kidding aside, "All Together Now" is a stirring tune that does its job as well as can be expected. Amazingly, it didn't soundtrack an international tourney until the horribly boring Euro 2004; Greece improbably won by putting their opponents to sleep but at least there was a great song to sing while welcoming Rooney and Ronaldo to the scene. And, alas, bidding a fond farewell to Luis Figo.

Madonna: "Express Yourself"

31 May 1989

"She doesn't hold up for one second as she bellows the advice that every girl should immediately dump their boyfriend if he's an uncaring slob or a dirty two-faced rotter."

— Tom Doyle

"Do you have a message for your young fans?"

Their 1991 single "Where the Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off You" returned the Pet Shop Boys to the UK Top 10 and trolled everyone in pop — if Tennant and Lowe really are the grand ironists they're purported to be, they would have considered this to be the ultimate coup. It got the airtime, appeared on their amazing greatest hits Discography and is still spoken of either lovingly or with derision to this day but it shared space with another song. "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" was originally a new jack swing track on the Pet Shops' 1990 magnum opus Behaviour (a certain humble blogger's favourite album of all time) but it had been remixed to appear on a double A-side with the unique mash-up of a U2 hit and a Four Seasons classic.

"How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" is one of a lone line of ironic numbers from Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, stretching from "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" on 1986's Please to "Your Early Stuff" and "Ego Music" from their overlooked 2012 album Elysium. Tennant chafed at the claim that they made "pop records about pop records" but his track record typically failed to back him up. Nevertheless, their attempts at ironic pop resulted in some brilliant songs, the best of which (the B-sides "Miserablism" and "Shameless") even manage to evoke some empathy with the subjects they were mocking.

There isn't much empathy in "How Can You Expect to Be Taken Seriously?" and fans have often wondered who it's about. Given their open disregard for U2, it could easily be assumed to be about the Irish foursome but there were others hinted at. I've always thought it was about Bros, who were the inspirations the song's line about "longevity". At any rate, it's about the do-gooder nature of pop stars at the end of the eighties — and how everyone was expected to have a message for their young fans.

It started off with Live Aid and it would only snowball from there. Because of abject poverty in Africa, because of the rainforests, because of Apartheid, because of, because of, because of. Pop stars became expected to have a cause and, as such, they were all supposed to have a message for their young fans. Hip hop artists were quick to jump on this, prompting fans to self-righteously proclaim that rap had a "message", while implying that other genres didn't.

Madonna never fully embraced the idea of having a message or a fashionable cause to get behind — unless, of course, you count her later embrace of Kabbalism as a "cause" — but the new found maturity of her late-eighties work had her more invested in issues. While it was clear to see that the likes of Suzanne Vega, Tracy Chapman, k.d. lang and Cyndi Lauper were all feminists to one extent or another, few would have thought to use the term to describe Madonna. That is until "Express Yourself".

"Like a Prayer" had been a mammoth single both in terms of its success and the way it positioned Madonna as a creative force. The album of the same name proved to be a breakthrough (even if I personally see it as no better than predecessor True Blue) but it wasn't exactly packed with potential hit singles. (A curiosity of the time is that she never managed to pull off the extravagant seven-or-eight-singles-off-the-same-album approach that Michael Jackson had perfected) In truth, there were only two to choose from and they would follow one another back into the higher reaches of the charts around the world. One was a magical song that demonstrated her innate understanding of current pop and the other was "Express Yourself".

In fairness, it did well at the time and remains a firm favourite among her fanbase. And it's nothing to be ashamed of, even if its message remains much more potent than the song itself. Sonically, it's a return to the "wave pool pop" of "Open Your Heart" and "Papa Don't Preach" albeit lacking their catchiness and charm. It doesn't help that Madonna relies way too much on her husky vocal style, never one of my preferred characteristics of her's. Still, I'm not crazy about it but I suppose it works in the context of a song about female empowerment. The David Fincher-directed video is one of the more memorable promos of the time but the image of a chained up Madge starkers on a bed doesn't really wash with the wise, big sisterly advice in the lyrics.

As I said above, Madonna wasn't one for heavy-handed message songs and "Express Yourself" is a good example of why. The message is a positive one but there's not much to the record otherwise. And that's the trouble with getting caught up in having a message for your young fans since the pop music typically suffers. Luckily, Madonna pushed through and she followed with "Cherish", a magnificent single that displayed all of her patented pop flash while leaving the message well behind. A good move.

 

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Baby Ford: "Children of the Revolution"

The idea of fusing glam rock with acid house is a good one but how well did Baby Ford pull it off? Cover versions of classic pop and rock songs were notoriously dodgy during this time, though the success of S'Express' "Hey Music Lover" (originally by Sly & The Family Stone, though it was a relatively obscure number) must have been encouraging. So, what of Baby Ford's interpretation of T-Rex's "Children of the Revolution"? Well, it's better than it deserves to be and ver Babe expertly mimics Marc Bolan's sultry whispered style of singing. Yet, why would anyone bother with this facsimile when they could put on the original instead? Or listen to something else? Or doing something else? Or get on with your life?

Madonna: "Like a Prayer"

8 March 1989

"Madonna returns triumphantly. Gasp in amazement."

— William Shaw

It was in the early part of 1989 that Madonna was back (BACK!!) after what seemed like a lengthy sabbatical of making movies no one liked (or so I've been told: I'm quite sure that I've never seen a single Madonna picture) and breaking up with Sean Penn. The hits from Michael Jackson and George Michael's blockbuster albums were finally beginning to dry up, people were starting to tire of U2, Prince was losing the plot a bit and the time was right for a Madonna comeback. The public was ready to welcome her back with open arms and, as William Shaw implies, she could've offered up a steaming pile of dung for a single and the punters would've been pleased to have her back (BACK!!).

A slew of singles followed over the course of the year but it wouldn't be long before she was back (BACK!!) yet again in 1990. I'm Breathless was a relatively low-key release used to promote the Dick Tracy movie (a rare Madonna vehicle that critics didn't despise) but the "Vogue" single quickly became one of her career defining moments. A long-awaited greatest hits, The Immaculate Collection, was released closer to the end of the year and it was an event. She didn't take the easy road of titling it The Very Best of Madonna or The Singles or something similarly trite and she even took the bold step of leaving some of her biggest hits off of it. (It is probably for this reason that records like "Gambler", "Angel", "Causing a Commotion" and "Dear Jessie" have felt like second division Madonna songs)

Those fifteen established tracks that made the cut for The Immaculate Collection were all remixed. While the likes of "Lucky Star" and "Into the Groove" sounded pretty much the same as they always had, a pair of more recent hits, "Like a Prayer" and "Express Yourself", were radically different from what they had been like just a year or so earlier. Then, in a bout of collective amnesia, everybody seemed to forget all about the originals and accepted that these revamped cuts had never been changed at all.

Therefore, it comes as something of a shock to discover that the 1989 "Like a Prayer" is an altogether different beast from what ended up on The Immaculate Collection eighteen months later. (We'll get to the sorry state of "Express Yourself"'s status before long) It should be said that as remixes go, it isn't awful. The song is too good for Shep Pettibone or whoever it was to ruin it completely. The acid house-esque squelching suits the tune well enough and there's a nice dramatic build up that is a little harder to identify in the original. Nevertheless, there's far too much hi-hat, the 'Yea! Whoa!' is cliched and the breakdown is utterly pointless.

There's nothing to quibble over with the original single version though. Prince pounds out a mad guitar riff to open before the ethereal sets in. But that soon gets swept away by a chugging and infectious gospel beat. It could almost be a Motown song and Madonna's debt to sixties' black pop is emphasised by quoting from Wilson Pickett ("in the midnight hour, I can feel your power") and Dionne Warwick ("like a little prayer" and "I say a little prayer") Rising to the challenge she set for herself, Madonna sings as beautifully as she ever has. She smartly avoids the vocal tricks that frequently grate (her occasional husky-voiced bursts can be funny but they do her no favours) and manages to employ a fine balance of feeling and joy. She isn't typically regarded as a technically brilliant singer or anything but it would be hard for anyone to top her performance here.

Then there's the choir. I would soon get sick of the use of gospel choirs in pop (it often felt like they were there to provide meaning in otherwise meaningless songs) but "Like a Prayer" shows how effective they can be in the right hands. As I just mentioned, Madonna doesn't have the strongest voice and she rightly stays out of their way perhaps knowing that she'll be exposed in their presence. ("Let the choir sing" is a lyric that doesn't need to be there but it's a good way for a woman with a supposedly gigantic ego to shine the spotlight elsewhere; the 1990 remix undercuts this a bit by featuring the choir prior to Madonna's introduction)

"Like a Prayer" became a massive hit around the world but it doesn't sound like much else from 1989. Being a masterful hybrid of black pop, it has a timelessness about it that you don't come across everyday. Yet, it was too timeless a year on and had to be transformed into a product of the late-eighties to fit better with Madonna's vision for her first greatest hits set. It's not everyday you get someone taking something timeless and willfully choosing to make it dated.

What the revamped version of "Like a Prayer" ended up doing is that it unknowingly opened the door to the second phase of Madonna's career. She was no longer translating the sound of the New York clubs that was in her heart into her records, nor traces of new wave, disco and glam rock she grew up on; from here, she was content to let her producers and remixers take the lead. This being Madonna, it still worked though not on as consistent a basis as in her eighties' imperial period. Ironically, it was in the nineties that people started praising her for being "clever Madonna" but I'd say she was much smarter back before everyone began figuring her out.

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Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Roachford: "Family Man"

It had only been thirty years since the heyday of Chuck Berry, Larry Williams and Little Richard but somewhere along the line the idea of black rock music had become a novelty. Andrew Roachford had as soulful a voice as anyone (and probably still has; he now sings with Mike + The Mechanics which makes me wonder how nice his delivery of "you can whistle as well as you hear" must be) which makes his decision to rock out admirable when he could've easily gone the R&B Romeo route. The power of his voice works well with the rockist sounds of his band but "Family Man" has always felt more like an album cut than single material to me. "Cuddly Toy" had hooks aplenty and it rightfully gave him a memorable Top 5 hit at the start of the year. Its follow-up was more of the same but less immediate and more forgettable. Good stuff but there's a reason it stalled outside the Top 20. And with that, Roachford's career seemed to stall a bit. He's had a fine career but it always seemed like he was going to be bigger. But how about a second opinion?

Jellybean: "Sidewalk Talk"

15 January 1986

"This, though sung by one Catherine Buchanan, is a Madonna song and bloody damn good it is too, my hearties."

— Dave Rimmer

It's a new year and a time to take stock. A time to look back at the chart busters and those who came up short. A time to look ahead to some future chart hopefuls and a chance to think about who might be in for a big year. And a time to be looking at who might be heading towards the dumper.

Madonna was coming off another big year. Not as a quickly taken to heart as in America, she made up for lost time in Britain with eight Top 10 hits and a remarkable sixty-nine weeks spent in the Top 40. Granted, she only managed one chart topper but it's quite possible that this glut of product actually prevented certain singles from doing better. Plus, this wasn't a run of eight absolutely brilliant singles. Sure, "Like a Virgin", "Into the Groove" and a reissue of "Holiday" have always been terrific but there's a reason "Angel", "Gambler" and "Dress You Up" have largely been forgotten and it's because they aren't much cop. That's an Imperial Period: when even your duff records stand a good chance.

She entered 1986 on the quiet since she was holed up in a studio in LA working on what would become the True Blue album. Or she might have done had it been up to her. The record label spotted a gap and decided that this was the perfect opportunity to give "Borderline" it's long overdue place near the top of the charts. And they weren't the only ones looking for an opportunity. Ex-boyfriend John "Jellybean" Benitez had previously cut a Madonna composition which also looked to capitalize on her fame.

"Sidewalk Talk" gives us a glimpse of a Madonna Louise Ciccone who never had decades of hits, never played box office smash concert tours, never became an icon and — mercifully — never churned out all those crap films. She still may have made a decent living off of singing and songwriting but only on records spun in New York and London discotheques and purchased by dance music fanatics on overpriced 12" import. Few would have even known her name even if they happened to kick it to her latest record down at the Funhouse. And she may have ended up at the mercy of male DJs, club empresarios and producers which wouldn't do at all.

It doesn't seem at first to be wildly different from her current run of hits: it's a bouncy pop song heavy on funk-synth riffs of the time. It might not even seem out of place on The Immaculate Collection, Madonna's essential 1990 compilation. But while her early hits document an ambitious young woman chasing stardom, "Sidewalk Talk" is about being stuck in the doldrums of a nowhere life, of walking the streets of Manhattan with no place to go, of being paranoid that others are whispering about you even if you're a nobody. Not exactly mid-eighties Madonna material, is it? Then there's her voice. "Holiday" has her singing like a girl and the sweetness continues for the most part on her early run. Here, however, we're "treated" to those deep, husky pipes that became one of her trademarks. Dave Rimmer offers a postscript on his review by saying that she "does actually sing a bit in the background". A bit? "One" Catharine Buchanan does the proto-raps on the verses but the rest is so clearly Madonna. Who did he think the deep-voiced lady was?

So, why no artist credit to Madonna? Well, apart from her record company being potentially in conflict with Jellybean's over such a matter, it's possible she was just returning the favour to her former paramour. She credited Benitez with tidying up the mess that had been made of her debut album (as well as bringing "Holiday" to her attention) and gifting him with an original seems like a fair trade off. While others may have had reason to be unhappy with this arrangement, there's no reason to think that she objected (a tough businesswoman like her would've seen to it that the single never got released if that's what she really wanted).

Madonna's success was taking its toll. Not on her, mind you, but on pop journalists. The Smash Hits staff couldn't agree on her records or her style and were in conflict as to where they thought she'd be headed in '86. Dave Rimmer loves what she and Jellybean have cooked up here but he also considers "Like a Virgin" to be "boring" and isn't especially impressed by the reissue of "Borderline" that's also on offer this fortnight. Chris Heath likes a lot of her stuff — even if he offers some backhanded praise of her records as "trashy dance music with simple catchy tunes and disposable trite lyrics" — but foresees her effervescent hits giving way to a more adult sound before long (say what you will about Madonna but that has still yet to happen). William Shaw is disappointed by "Into the Groove" and misses the fun of her earlier work. Sorrel Downer thinks party's just about over. They couldn't have known that there was a lot more to her even if "Sidewalk Talk" provides some clues.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Whitney Houston: "How Will I Know"

Already looking like she could give Madonna a serious run for her money, Whitney Houston seemed made for light and shiny pop and not the tough R & B that she later tried her hand at and couldn't pull off at all. Written by songwriting couple George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam (later to form their own act Boy Meets Girl), "How Will I Know" was initially rejected by Janet Jackson before being scooped up by Houston's people, thus depriving us of a 'what if' that we should all be glad never happened. Had Houston's singing career not taken off, she could have done worse than doing jingles for TV: who else was able to make such fluff seem so convincing? Yes, Dave, you're very much mistaken.

Madonna: "Crazy for You"

22 May 1985

"After this she may be taken seriously and not just ogled at by moronic men (such as me)."

— Simon O'Brien

In a largely negative retrospective look at Blur's Parklife, critic Taylor Parkes mentions a quote from fellow Quietus writer Luke Turner that "you can't trust a band whose best songs are their ballads". Now, I disagree somewhat with the group he's talking about (I'd say it applies more to someone like Neil Young) but I have to say there's something to the overall point. I dig "The Universal" and "To the End" but I'd sooner listen to "There's No Other Way" or "Caramel". I'm glad The Beatles had room for the likes of "And I Love Her" and "Something" but I'd opt for "Eight Days a Week" or "I Am the Walrus" any day. Abba's mastery of romantic fallout in a glossy pop hit is much more effectively done in "Knowing Me, Knowing You" than in their supposed classic "The Winner Takes It All".

But what about the opposite, artists who are unable to do a passable romantic softy and stick to dancefloor favourites and/or rockin' anthems? (This may or may not apply to a group like New Order but at least they deserve props for not bothering with something that they either weren't capable of or not interested in doing) Should they be knocked for lacking a standout slurpsome tune?

So-called ballads have long been the refuge of those seeking acclaim and/or a potential hit single but they're not to be overdone and are best avoided if if they can't be pulled off well. I grew up in the early-nineties when all that dying breed of heavy metallers had left was a "More Than Words", a "Silent Lucidity" or a "To Be with You" just to stay afloat. They all stunk, as did power ballads, r & b smoochers and all that crap that soundtracked films at the time — but more on that later. And, yet, this stuff makes a pop star legit?

It's strange to imagine a time when Madonna wasn't taken seriously but it stands to reason that in the midst of her early run of buoyant pop hits that she'd be dismissed as a passing fad with inconsequential songs and a sexed-up image smacking of desperation. Frequently described as a most calculating songstress, it's likely that she had to feel her way around the machinations of stardom before she could begin to manipulate the industry. How to be taken seriously? Well, slow songs can do the trick - and what about a nice movie career on the side too! (But, again, more on that in a bit)

The only trouble was Madonna's voice was never able to pull off a good love song the way someone like Anita Baker did effortlessly. Simon O'Brien is impressed by her vocal chops on "Crazy for You" but I respectfully disagree. This is where her irritating habit of using that deep, almost guttural inflection begins ("...you feel it in my kiss"), a quirk which smacks of her being unable to hit a more appropriate note. Her limitations aren't as obvious on "Lucky Star" and it's something I think she even began to make a virtue out of as she really hit her stride: I'd argue that one aspect of "Cherish" that makes it so adorable is that she sounds so normal and relatable and it's easy to convince yourself that you're singing along with it just as well as she is. But the slower numbers really do expose what a mediocre singer she's always been.

The other problem here is that it all feels very generic and not from the singer's own life. Previous singles all tapped into that old disco trope of leading a depressingly ordinary life before becoming a star in the clubs at night (Madonna even expanded upon it by becoming the one disco urchin who then made something of herself by day) but "Crazy for You" is just another love song. She didn't meet this guy at The Fun House and they didn't light the place on fire with as they cut a rug; he's just some dude she's hung up on. Well, good for her but I'm not convinced that the material here matters to her.

Appearing in the eighties film Vision Quest (not a sci-fi flick, much to my surprise) starring a very mid-twenties Matthew Modine playing a high schooler and a supposedly older Linda Fiorentino in a very unflattering perm, "Crazy for You" probably does a good job of providing some pathos for the doomed lovers. (I say "probably" because I haven't actually seen it but I think the accompanying video gives away enough clues) It even got Madonna a role as a singer in a bar, perhaps enhancing her film ambitions. But it also had the effect of putting a record at the service of a film, a trend we'll see a lot more of going forward.

Madonna would quickly figure out the key to be taken seriously but she couldn't quite shake the desire to do more ill-considered love songs. "Crazy for You" is poor when held up against the likes of "Into the Groove" and "Borderline" but it's actually superior to future wheepies "Live to Tell", "Dear Jessie" and "This Used to Be My Playground". Ballads and films weren't going to do the trick and it's only right that such an unconventional pop star would have to take an unconventional route to legitimacy. Time to start thinking about being ambitious and clever, Madge.

~~~~~

Also Reviewed This Fortnight

Orchestral Manoeuveres in the Dark: "So in Love"

Long unique both for being an act not widely known for hailing from Liverpool (O'Brien doesn't seem aware of it as he praises both China Crisis and The Icicle Works due to local "bias" but is dismissive of this: is Wirral not Merseyside enough?) and being pilloried for becoming less pretentious (this is the group that had two singles in tribute to Joan of Arc), OMD were entering the mid-eighties having gone through some ups and downs but seemed to be weathering the changes in pop better than most. "So in Love" deserved better than its modest top thirty position but it could be that many agreed with O'Brien's take that they needed another "Enola Gay". On the other hand, it earned them their first American hit, setting them up for a breakthrough the following year. It's no "Souvenir" but a worthy single nonetheless.