Billboard's note on Live to tell

[dll_ar 10]

Hi everyone

 

Many years ago billboard edited a book with comprehensive information on all n° 1 hits on thier chart. Can anybody post the note it had on Live to tell?

 

Thanks!

[Xander 430]

Hi everyone

 

Many years ago billboard edited a book with comprehensive information on all n° 1 hits on thier chart. Can anybody post the note it had on Live to tell?

 

Thanks!

 

Do you know what the book is called?

[dll_ar 10]

Do you know what the book is called?

I really can't tell for sure, but as part of that info is "quoted" in wikipedia, I would say it is: 

• Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits. Billboard Books. ISBN 0-8230-7677-6.

[Xander 430]

 

I really can't tell for sure, but as part of that info is "quoted" in wikipedia, I would say it is: 

• Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits. Billboard Books. ISBN 0-8230-7677-6.

 

 

My library has it, you've got me curious too, so I've requested it. 

[Xander 430]

Live to Tell

 

------------------------------------------

Writers: Madonna, Patrick Leonard

 

Producer: Patrick Leonard

 

June 7, 1986

1 week

------------------------------------------

 

     Patrick Leonard had just finished the Jacksons' Victory tour when his manager asked if he was interested in being musical director for Madonna's Virgin tour. At first he said no, but then he talked to Madonna on the phone, found her charming and agreed to do the two-month tour. 

 

     By the time the tour was over, Madonna had asked Leonard and Stephen Bray to write songs with her and co-produce her next album, True Blue. 

 

     "Madonna agreed to write some lyrics for a song I was going to write for a film that Paramount was doing," Patrick explains. "My managers represented the guy who was directing the film; it was his first film. I saw a little piece of the movie and I had the script. I wrote a theme, and I said, 'What if I could get Madonna to write the lyrics for it?' "

 

     The movie was called Fire With Fire. "It was a love story (set at) a girls' school and a boys' prison, somewhere in the mountains around Vancouver," Leonard remembers, although he never saw the completed film. Paramount passed on his music. "They just didn't think that this theme was any good. (They thought) I wasn't going to be capable of (scoring) the film."

 

     Leonard told Madonna that the people at Paramount didn't want the theme. "She said, 'This song would be great for Sean's new movie.' She wrote the lyrics--she just wrote them on the spot, which is what we always do. I don't think we've ever taken more than three hours to complete a song from start to finish. She sang it on the demo only once and left with the cassette. That day I went to work with Michael Jackson on some transcriptions for material he was writing for the Bad album. The phone rang at Michael's and it was Sean (Penn). He said, 'I'm over at the director's house and Madonna just brought the song over. We love it and we'd like to talk to you about it.' "

 

     Patrick finished his work with Michael and drove to the home of Jamie Foley, director of At Close Range. When he arrived, Foley and Penn told him that Madonna had suggested he write the score for the film. She had also asked who was going to sing the song, since it was written for a man to sing. But there was no question in Leonard's mind that she was the only person who should sing "Live to Tell."

 

     "We recut the song, but we used the (same) vocal. She only sang it once (for the demo) and that was the vocal we used because it was so innocent and so shy. She had a legal pad in her hand and . . . you can hear the paper. It's as raw as raw can be and that's part of what gave it all its charm."

 

     "Live to Tell" was released prior to True Blue. When it went to number one, it was only the fifth single in eight years to top the Hot 100 and not be available on an album, according to Paul Grein's Chartbeat column in Billboard. (The others are: "Too Much Heaven," the Bee Gees; "Pop Muzik," M; "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," Queen; and "Say You, Say Me," Lionel Richie. As with "Live to Tell," all appeared on albums that were released after the singles were number one.) "Live to Tell" was also Madonna's second number one single from a motion picture, following "Crazy for You" from Vision Quest.

 

     "Live to Tell" was a showstopper on Madonna's True Blue tour, and at a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden to raise money for medical research for AIDS, she dedicated the song to the memory of her friend, artist Michael Burgoyne.

 

------------------------------------------

@@dll_ar and anyone else, I happened to notice the book also had write ups for Like a Virgin, Crazy for You, Papa Don't Preach, Open Your Heart, and Who's That Girl; if there is interest in those I can post them too.

[danMfan 1,362]

Thank you @@fiercemighty!!

[dll_ar 10]

Live to Tell

 

------------------------------------------

Writers: Madonna, Patrick Leonard

 

Producer: Patrick Leonard

 

June 7, 1986

1 week

------------------------------------------

 

     Patrick Leonard had just finished the Jacksons' Victory tour when his manager asked if he was interested in being musical director for Madonna's Virgin tour. At first he said no, but then he talked to Madonna on the phone, found her charming and agreed to do the two-month tour. 

 

     By the time the tour was over, Madonna had asked Leonard and Stephen Bray to write songs with her and co-produce her next album, True Blue. 

 

     "Madonna agreed to write some lyrics for a song I was going to write for a film that Paramount was doing," Patrick explains. "My managers represented the guy who was directing the film; it was his first film. I saw a little piece of the movie and I had the script. I wrote a theme, and I said, 'What if I could get Madonna to write the lyrics for it?' "

 

     The movie was called Fire With Fire. "It was a love story (set at) a girls' school and a boys' prison, somewhere in the mountains around Vancouver," Leonard remembers, although he never saw the completed film. Paramount passed on his music. "They just didn't think that this theme was any good. (They thought) I wasn't going to be capable of (scoring) the film."

 

     Leonard told Madonna that the people at Paramount didn't want the theme. "She said, 'This song would be great for Sean's new movie.' She wrote the lyrics--she just wrote them on the spot, which is what we always do. I don't think we've ever taken more than three hours to complete a song from start to finish. She sang it on the demo only once and left with the cassette. That day I went to work with Michael Jackson on some transcriptions for material he was writing for the Bad album. The phone rang at Michael's and it was Sean (Penn). He said, 'I'm over at the director's house and Madonna just brought the song over. We love it and we'd like to talk to you about it.' "

 

     Patrick finished his work with Michael and drove to the home of Jamie Foley, director of At Close Range. When he arrived, Foley and Penn told him that Madonna had suggested he write the score for the film. She had also asked who was going to sing the song, since it was written for a man to sing. But there was no question in Leonard's mind that she was the only person who should sing "Live to Tell."

 

     "We recut the song, but we used the (same) vocal. She only sang it once (for the demo) and that was the vocal we used because it was so innocent and so shy. She had a legal pad in her hand and . . . you can hear the paper. It's as raw as raw can be and that's part of what gave it all its charm."

 

     "Live to Tell" was released prior to True Blue. When it went to number one, it was only the fifth single in eight years to top the Hot 100 and not be available on an album, according to Paul Grein's Chartbeat column in Billboard. (The others are: "Too Much Heaven," the Bee Gees; "Pop Muzik," M; "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," Queen; and "Say You, Say Me," Lionel Richie. As with "Live to Tell," all appeared on albums that were released after the singles were number one.) "Live to Tell" was also Madonna's second number one single from a motion picture, following "Crazy for You" from Vision Quest.

 

     "Live to Tell" was a showstopper on Madonna's True Blue tour, and at a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden to raise money for medical research for AIDS, she dedicated the song to the memory of her friend, artist Michael Burgoyne.

------------------------------------------

@@dll_ar and anyone else, I happened to notice the book also had write ups for Like a Virgin, Crazy for You, Papa Don't Preach, Open Your Heart, and Who's That Girl; if there is interest in those I can post them too.

Thank you fiercmighty! Thank you very very much

[Enrico 15,823]

@@fiercemighty yes we are very interested! thanks!

[Rebel Hugo 17,057]

ty

[dll_ar 10]

 

------------------------------------------

@@dll_ar and anyone else, I happened to notice the book also had write ups for Like a Virgin, Crazy for You, Papa Don't Preach, Open Your Heart, and Who's That Girl; if there is interest in those I can post them too.

I think it would be great to have all of that posted, it is actualy very interesting to read! 

 

This all started when a friend of mine (the same one who showed me this note when the book was released) kept arguing with me that the song was never written for a guy to sing. the excerpts from this book in wikipedia don't show that part... 

[Xander 430]

@@fiercemighty yes we are very interested! thanks!

 

 

I think it would be great to have all of that posted, it is actualy very interesting to read! 

 

This all started when a friend of mine (the same one who showed me this note when the book was released) kept arguing with me that the song was never written for a guy to sing. the excerpts from this book in wikipedia don't show that part... 

 

 

I'll work on putting them up later today!

[Xander 430]

Like A Virgin

 

------------------------------------------

Writers: Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly

 

Producer: Nile Rodgers

 

December 22, 1984

6 weeks

------------------------------------------

 

     Nile Rodgers did not want Madonna to record "Like a Virgin." "I liked the melody a lot, because the tune was catchy, but I didn't think that the lyric 'like a virgin' was such a terrific hook," the producer told Steve Pond in the Los Angeles Times. "It just didn't seem like, you know, the all-time catch phrase. But after about four days I couldn't get the song out of my head, and I said, 'You know, Madonna, I really apologize, because if it's so catchy it stayed in my head for four days, it must be something. So let's do it."

 

     The song was not only not written for Madonna, it was not even written for a female singer. "The idea for that song came from personal experience," lyricist Billy Steinberg said in the Los Angeles Times. "I wasn't just trying to somehow get that racy word virgin in a lyric. I was saying . . . that I may not really be a virgin--I've been battered romantically and emotionally like many people--but I'm starting a new relationship and it just feels so good, it's healing all the wounds and making me feel like I've never done this before, because it's so much deeper and more profound than anything I've ever felt."

 

     Steinberg, who wrote Linda Ronstadt's top 10 hit from 1979, "How Do I Make You," penned "Like a Virgin" with Tom Kelly. Michael Ostin of Warner Brothers Records' A&R department was invited to Kelly's house to hear their demos.

 

     "It was a fluke" is how Ostin described the fateful events that led to Madonna hearing the song. "I was there mostly to hear what Billy and Tom were up to in their own career, and they played me four or five tunes, all really nice," Ostin told Pond. "Then they said, 'Listen, we've got this other tune, and we don't really know what to do with it--it's not right for us, and we don't know what artist would be appropriate.' They played me 'Like a Virgin,' and it just so happened that the next day I had a meeting with Madonna to discuss her next album. The lyrics, the groove of the song--I just thought it would be perfect for her, and it was an uncanny coincidence that I was going to be seeing her the next day and she was on my mind. When I played it for Madonna she went crazy, and knew instantly it was a song for her and that she could make a great record out of it."

 

     Madonna's biggest hit prior to "Like a Virgin" was "Lucky Star," number four in October, 1984. She had also charted with "Holiday" and "Borderline," but it was "Like a Virgin" that established her as a major artist, debuting on the Hot 100 at number 48 on November 17, 1984, and moving to number one five weeks later.

 

     Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born August 16, 1958, in Detroit, Michigan. The number one song in America was "A Big Hunk O' Love" by Elvis Presley. Named after her mother, who died when Madonna was five, the singer moved to New York City and worked in a Times Square doughnut shop before winning a dance scholarship with Alvin Ailey. She fled to Paris to pursue a singing career and sang back-up vocals for Patrick Hernandez ("Born to Be Alive"). Home again, she was aided by New York DJ Mark Kamins, who helped remix a demo tape that got her signed with Sire Records. 

 

     Winning rave reviews for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan, Madonna dominated the Hot 100 in 1985, charting as many as three singles at once. Before "Like a Virgin" fell of the chart, "Material Girl" went to number two and "Crazy for You" from Vision Quest was moving up fast. Waiting in the wings were "Angel" and a dance number, "Into the Groove."

 

------------------------------------------

[dll_ar 10]

This is gold! thank you!

 

I wish they did this with all her singles (at least up to erotica's) 

[Xander 430]

Crazy For You

 

------------------------------------------

Writers:  John Bettis, Jon Lind

 

Producer: John "Jellybean" Benitez

 

May 11, 1985

1 week

------------------------------------------

 

    Lyricist John Bettis and his song-writing partner Jon Lind were more than a little shocked when they found out who was going to sing the ballad they had written for the film Vision Quest.

 

     "I was on vacation out in the desert, and Joel Sill (then an executive in charge of music for Warner Brothers Pictures) called and said Phil Ramone was in love with the song and wanted to cut it on Madonna," Bettis recalls with a laugh. " 'Borderline' was out at the time and I said, 'Excuse me? This is for Madonna? Really? Can she sing a song like this?' Jon and I were surprised at the choice of artist at the time, if you want to know the truth."

 

     Bettis and Lind had written "Crazy For You" after receiving a copy of the Vision Quest script from Sill. "In reading the script, the place I wanted to write a song for was the first time that the two main characters, a young boy and girl who's a boarder at the house, dance together at a club," Bettis elaborates. "We were noodling around and ('Crazy For You') was something that Jon was singing over that section of the song. It was really descriptive of the scene in the film."

 

    Some time elapsed before they received the call from Sill letting them know that Madonna was going to sing their composition. "We went to one of the sessions, and, to be honest, that particular session didn't go all that well" Bettis continues. "Jon and I were depressed about the way the song had come out. We heard nothing else about it, and we were a little nervous the song was going to be dropped from the picture."

 

     "I went to England to work on the film Legend with Jerry Goldsmith," says Bettis. "When I got home, Jon Lind called me and said, 'Have you heard the new record of "Crazy For You"? I've got a single here for you.' I said, 'What are you talking about? A single? What?' So I went over to his house and he played me a brand new version of it (with) a new arrangement. We owe a big debt of gratitude to a guy named Rob Mounsey, because he completely rearranged the original track and added the background vocals and really made a hit record out of it."

 

     The man who brought Mounsey in to arrange the new recording was the producer John "Jellybean" Benitez. "It was the first time I ever produced a ballad," Jellybean says. "Prior to that I had only produced dance/pop songs or dance songs. It was the first time I ever produced a live session, as opposed to having synthesizers and drum machines do everything.

 

    "I was tense because I had never done a record like this," admits Jellybean, who produced "Holiday" on Madonna's first album. "Everything I did was totally on instinct. I tried to make the song stand on its own, but at the same time work in the two scenes (in which) it was used in the movie." 

 

     Jellybean notes that the song was important to Madonna. "She had just (charted with) 'Like a Virgin' and 'Material Girl.' This song really opened up radio as far as Adult Contemporary was concerned. I think people saw that she could really do other things."

 

     Bettis was happy to collect his second number one song ("Top of the World"), but he had his doubts that "Crazy For You" would make it to the top after being stuck at number two for three weeks in a row. "(Going to number one) surprised me very much because we were out at the same time 'We Are the World' was out. Jon and I (said), 'If you gotta lose to something, it might as well be that. Luckily enough, the final week of the upward surge of the record, we topped 'We Are the World,' which lets you know how hot the song and how hot the artist were."

 

------------------------------------------

 

I'll post the other three tomorrow--enjoy all!!

[dll_ar 10]

Another great one, though this song really bores me to death 

[me1981 1,358]

Fantastic, thanks for sharing all these. I look forward to the others.

[sonicboy 2,058]

I love these. I remember reading them at my local book store when I was young and couldn't afford to buy the book. Haven't read them in years so thanks for posting them! I'm looking forward to reading the others.

[Madame Madonna 4,107]

OMG this is fantastic to read!!

 

Thanks to dll_ar for brought this interesting topic up and Thanks to fiercemighty for sharing these fantastic article!

 

 

[Madame Madonna 4,107]

  "We recut the song, but we used the (same) vocal. She only sang it once (for the demo) and that was the vocal we used because it was so innocent and so shy. She had a legal pad in her hand and . . . you can hear the paper. It's as raw as raw can be and that's part of what gave it all its charm."

 

 

I'm wondering that I understand this correctly.

 

So We actually can hear the sound of the paper from Live to tell single?

 

if we can then which part?  Anyone know this?

[dll_ar 10]

  "We recut the song, but we used the (same) vocal. She only sang it once (for the demo) and that was the vocal we used because it was so innocent and so shy. She had a legal pad in her hand and . . . you can hear the paper. It's as raw as raw can be and that's part of what gave it all its charm."

 

 

I'm wondering that I understand this correctly.

 

So We actually can hear the sound of the paper from Live to tell single?

 

if we can then which part?  Anyone know this?

That's what's been said for many many years... but I have never been able to hear a paper sheet. And, in the last year or so, a different vocal cut has been release like a demo, so I'm guessing it is not true with the album version of the song. 

 

Maybe, MAYBE, it is a situation like Into the groove, in which the "don't touch this demo this song is perfect" situation is in the movie, but when it comes to comercial release, they re-recorded the vocals?

[Xander 430]

Papa Don't Preach

 

------------------------------------------

Writers: Brian Elliot, Madonna

 

Producers: Madonna, Stephen Bray

 

August 16, 1986

2 weeks

------------------------------------------

 

    " 'Papa Don't Preach' is a message song that everyone is going to take the wrong way," Madonna predicted to Stephen Holden in the New York Times. "Immediately they're going to say I am advising every young girl to go out and get pregnant. When I first heard the song, I thought it was silly. But then I thought, wait a minute, this song is really about a girl who is making a decision in her life. She has a very close relationship with her father and wants to maintain that closeness. To me it's a celebration of life."

 

    Madonna was right. Everyone had something to say about the song, from Tipper Gore, founder of the Parents Music Resource Center, to Gloria Allred, an attorney from Los Angeles committed to sexual equality. Allred said that Madonna should "make a public statement noting that kids have other choices, including abortion, or if she doesn't want to make that statement, then she has the responsibility to make another record supporting the opposite point of view."

 

    Gore, head of the Washington Wives group that vigorously protested explicit sexual lyrics, said she thought the song was important because it "discusses, with urgency, a real predicament which thousands of unwed teenagers face in our country. If it fosters discussion about pregnancy between teens and their family, then I think it's all to the good."

 

    Songwriter Brian Elliot, who composed "Papa Don't Preach" with "additional lyrics" by Madonna, commented to Jay Padroff in Music Connection, "The Pro-Life League has decided that 'Papa Don't Preach' is a rallying cry for them. All around the country, their offices have adopted my song. Strangely enough, Tipper Gore . . . who used to condemn Madonna, has applauded the song's urgency and sensitivity. Of course, I'm really glad this happened after the fact because I was a little worried that had Tipper Gore given her public support of the song earlier on, it might have killed it."

 

    Elliot, who recorded one album for Warner Brothers, was producing sessions for a new artist named Cristina Dent. He took the tape to Michael Ostin in the A&R department at Warner Brothers. "He liked the first song, but he completely fell out over 'Papa Don't Preach,' " Elliot told Padroff. "He played it back a number of times, and I had a very strong feeling that we had something happening at that point."

 

    Ostin later asked if he could play the song for Madonna, and Elliot consented. Then Ostin called again: Madonna loved the song and wanted to record it. "At that point, Cristina and I had been working together for six months or so. I felt that the song was strong enough to make it and do something for Cristina--to get that career rolling. But I was persuaded by a great many people that to have Madonna cut the song would be an astute move for everybody. It would bring a lot of credibility and visibility and economic autonomy for me and everything I was doing--and move my career ahead by four or five years in a six-month span."

 

    Elliot asked Madonna's management if he could go to the studio and listen to her version of the song. He was given a time to be at the studio when Madonna wouldn't be there. "I'm listening to it for the first time and I hear, 'Well, did I wreck your song?' And I turned around and there she is. . . . We had a spirited discussion at that point about certain interpretations of lines, and it was resolved to the mutual delight of all concerned."

 

    Elliot did not stay out of the controversy created by the song. "If Madonna has influenced young girls to keep their babies, I don't think that's such a bad deal," he told Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times. "I've heard from all sorts of people that I'm a voice for the New Right and a minion of right-to-life groups. But I had no ambitions for this to be adopted by any special interest groups. I don't have any banner to wave. I just wanted to make this girl a sympathetic character. As a father myself, I'd want to be accessible to my children's problems."

 

------------------------------------------

[Xander 430]

Open Your Heart

 

------------------------------------------

Writers: Madonna, Gardner Cole, Peter Rafelson

 

Producers: Madonna, Patrick Leonard

 

February 7, 1987

1 week

------------------------------------------

 

    Madonna's "Open Your Heart" moved up the Hot 100 simultaneously with Cyndi Lauper's "Change of Heart." But what Cyndi doesn't know is that songwriters Gardner Cole and Peter Rafelson wrote "Open Your Heart" with her in mind. "She never heard it," Cole reveals. At one point, the Temptations were under consideration to perform the tune. "(They) put the song on hold. Benny Medina, who was at Motown at the time, called Peter up and asked us if he could cut the song with the Temptations. Well, about a week later we found out that Madonna had already cut it. Once the Temptations heard that Madonna had cut the song they didn't have any interest any longer."

 

    Cole and Rafelson wrote "Open Your Heart" as a rock and roll song, although the original title was "Follow Your Heart." "I got the title idea from a local health food restaurant," Cole explains, referring to Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park, California. The two songwriters spent a year writing and perfecting the tune. "Peter and I usually write very quickly. It's usually a day or two a song, but for some reason this didn't really hit us as a hit song. We didn't give up on it. We just kept working on it over the course of a year. Thank God we did."

 

    Cole's manager, Bennett Freed, was working with Madonna's management when they were looking for material for her. "He gave her two or three songs and 'Open Your Heart' was the song that I thoughtwould be the least likely song she would choose. The original version didn't really fit into what Madonna was doing at the time. . . . I thought she was going to stick with 'Holiday' and . . . what she was already doing. But this song was a step forward for her, it was a different area--more rock and roll than I thought she would want to go."

 

    Freed called Cole to let him know Madonna had recorded the song. "Madonna redid some of the lyric ideas and, (with) Patrick Leonard, changed the arrangement around. Pat and her put a . . . bass line underneath the song and got it into a rock and roll dance area instead of just rock and roll. The original song was more pop/rock than dance. Pat and her just cut it into a dance song."

 

    Even after it was recorded, Cole was not certain that it would ever be heard. "It was the first song that was cut on the True Blue album. It made me nervous as a writer, because a lot of times the very first song that gets cut doesn't make it in the long run. But the song ended up making the album, which really opened up a lot of doors for me."

 

    As a result of the success of "Open Your Heart," Cole was signed as an artist to Warner Brothers Records and formed a writing partnership with the producer of the song, Patrick Leonard. Their first four song were taken by Jody Watley, Nile Rodgers, Chaka Khan and Marilyn Martin.

 

    "Open Your Heart" was the third number one single from True Blue. It followed "Live to Tell" and "Papa Don't Preach." The next single was the title track, "True Blue," which peaked at number three. Madonna followed "Open Your Heart" with "La Isla Bonita," a song originally written by Patrick Leonard for Michael Jackson. When the song was turned down, Madonna completed the lyrics and recorded it. "La Isla Bonita" was the fifth consecutive top five single from True Blue, peaking at number four in May, 1987.

 

------------------------------------------

[dll_ar 10]

Open Your Heart

 

 The two songwriters spent a year writing and perfecting the tune. "Peter and I usually write very quickly. It's usually a day or two a song, but for some reason this didn't really hit us as a hit song. We didn't give up on it. We just kept working on it over the course of a year. Thank God we did."

 

    

   

Yeah, this kind of perfection ussualy don't happen overnight... This is by far my favorite "dance" song from that album

[Xander 430]

Who's That Girl

 

------------------------------------------

Writers: Madonna, Patrick Leonard

 

Producers: Madonna, Patrick Leonard

 

August 22, 1987

1 week

------------------------------------------

 

    When Madonna needed songs for her third motion picture, Slammer, she called Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, who had written and produced her True Blue album. "She said she needed an uptempo song and a downtempo song," says Leonard, who produced and wrote the music for one of Madonna's previous number one singles ["Live to Tell"]. "She came over on a Thursday and I had the chorus. She went in the back room with a cassette of that. I worked out the rest of the parts, she finished the melody, she went back in the back room (and) she finished the rest of the lyrics. She came out and said, 'We'll call it "Who's That Girl," and I think it's a better title for the movie than Slammer so we'll change the name of the movie, too.' "

 

    Leonard agreed that it made a better title. The next day they wrote a second song for the film, "The Look of Love," in similar fashion. With Bray, Madonna wrote two more songs for the film: "Causing a Commotion" (number two in October, 1987) and "Can't Stop."

 

    "Who's That Girl" was recorded in one day, according to Leonard. "She sang it once and that was it. We put guitars on it and percussion the next day." "Who's That Girl" became Madonna's sixth number one single. All her chart-toppers came in the '80s, giving her more number ones during this decade than anyone else to date. 

 

    Madonna's relationship with the motion picture industry wasn't limited to recording songs for soundtracks. She was also in demand as an actress. Her first starring role was in Desperately Seeking Susan, which co-starred Rosanna Arquette. Director Susan Seidelman talked about Madonna in a People interview: "She is an incredibly disciplined person. During the (nine-week) shoot we'd often get home at 11 or 12 at night and have to be back on the set by 6 or 7 the next morning. Half the time the driver would pick Madonna up at her health club. She'd get up at 4:30 to work out first."

 

     Madonna might have had a number one single from the soundtrack of this film if "Into the Groove" had been released as a single. It was only available as the "B" side of the 12-inch single of "Angel." Madonna's record company chose not to release it so it wouldn't compete with "Angel," which was already moving up the Hot 100.

 

    In her second film, Shanghai Surprise, Madonna played a quiet young missionary from Massachusetts who fell in love with a small-time con man. Her co-star was the actor she first met while filming the video for "Material Girl," her husband Sean Penn. "We didn't actually plan on working on the film together," Madonna told British reporters at a film press conference that was also attended by executive producer George Harrison. "(Sean) had just finished a film and was looking for another movie to do and I'd just finished working on my record and I was looking for a movie to do. I read the script and loved it and asked him to read it for his opinion. He also liked the male role, so we looked at each other and thought maybe this would be a good one to do together." The critics were not kind to Shanghai Surprise, and the film did not do well.

 

    The critics were equally unenthusiastic about Madonna's third film, Who's That Girl. Madonna played Nikki Finn, described in a press release as "a feisty, free-spirited femme destined to take her place among the screen's great comic heroines." Madonna talked about the music she wanted for the film: "I had some very specific ideas in mind, music that would stand on its own as well as support and enhance what was happening on screen and the only way to make that a reality was to have a hand in writing the tunes myself . . . (the) songs aren't necessarily about Nikki, or written to be sung by someone like her, but there's a spirit to this music that captures both what the film and the character are about, I think."

 

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[dll_ar 10]

I have no idea what happened with this soundtrack, in which the main songs are Leonard's but the score is all Bray's... 

 

And since they talk about ITG not being a single, can you imagine what a hit Causing a Commotion could have been if she made a video for it?