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Full House Album in 1991?


Arckangel
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A poster recently made an interesting remark. Vogue is one of those songs Madonna made that is unlike anything else she's done. I mean, some other songs (incl. remixes) she made at the time were similar in sound... But what if Madonna had made a full-length house album in the exact same genre as Vogue and songs recorded by dance acts of the time?

Erotica had house material, but I'm talking about something different, not as dark, more commercial... In 1991, Mo was busy working on Erotica and some movies, but I sometimes feel a release of hers lacked in the early nineties. Vogue and The Immaculate Collection were so huge... A solid house album released before Erotica could have been interesting and made it a smoother transition.

History can't be rewritten at this point, but yeah... It could have helped in some ways.

Edited by Arckangel (see edit history)
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6 hours ago, Arckangel said:

A poster recently made an interesting remark. Vogue is one of those songs Madonna made that is unlike anything else she's done. I mean, some other songs (incl. remixes) she made at the time were similar in sound... But what if Madonna had made a full-length house album in the exact same genre as Vogue and songs recorded by dance acts of the time?

Erotica had house material, but I'm talking about something different, not as dark, more commercial... In 1991, Mo was busy working on Erotica and some movies, but I sometimes feel a release of hers lacked in the early nineties. Vogue and The Immaculate Collection were so huge... A solid house album released before Erotica could have been interesting and made it a smoother transition.

History can't be rewritten at this point, but yeah... It could have helped in some ways.

It may have been a smoother transition into Erotica, were there a house album in 1991, but the abrupt nature of Erotica is what made it such a rude, fascinating and dark period from Mo.

With that said, it still would've been an awesome to have an album in the style of Vogue, I agree. But Vogue is just one of those special, unique songs that comes along so rarely, even with an impressive discography like Mo's.

:Madonna004: :Madonna019: :Madonna006:

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I think that might have been a possibility had she not recorded "Justify My Love". That song definitely took her down the more spoken word/hip-hop route rather than the house sound. Erotica would have benefited from being released in October 1991 imo. I think house and hip-hop had definitely progressed by the time Erotica was released in 1992.

When I think of the music of 1991, House music was everywhere: Ce Ce Peniston, Crystal Waters, Deee-Lite... I don't think it's a coincidence she didn't ask Steve "Silk" Hurley or David Morales to remix her at the time, she probably saw that as too mainstream or commercial as they were remixing everybody. There were tons of "Vogue" knock-offs back then, both musically and in music videos. William Orbit was more underground as were Masters At Work, who ended up remixing "Erotica". That was always her strength: don't do the obvious.

Erotica has aged better than most of her albums and I think there were an incredible amount of first-rate remixes released from this era, so we we kinda did get the Vogue House album overall, just not as direct.

Remember her saying to Shep "Not every song can be "Vogue"..."

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I'm glad it never happened. The transition from This Used To Be My Playground to Erotica is superb, sonically and visually.

A whole album of Shep and generic dance songs, no thank you. The balance between shep's production and Andre Betts is perfect on Erotica, in fact, I would've like more hip hop, nu jazz and new jack swing on the album. An alternate mix of Bad Girl produced by Andre Betts instead of Shep... yes please!

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I see what you mean. Had she of not done Dick Tracy maybe that's what we would have gotten instead of I'm Breathless. I love I'm Breathless so much but from a commercial standpoint it didn't really have much of an impact and I'm sure the label probably only green lit it because she was at her peak and was untouchable. An album to compliment Vogue and Rescue Me would have been huge though.

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3 hours ago, rlittler81 said:

When I think of the music of 1991, House music was everywhere: Ce Ce Peniston, Crystal Waters, Deee-Lite... I don't think it's a coincidence she didn't ask Steve "Silk" Hurley or David Morales to remix her at the time, she probably saw that as too mainstream or commercial as they were remixing everybody.

David Morales remixed Deeper & Deeper

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I would have loved it. I would have loved if she incorporated more ballroom culture of the time too. I'm surprised she never worked in new way voguing/ Vogue femme/ a "The Ha Dance" sample in recent years. I don't count Living For Love.

It's interesting that she didn't ask other mainstream house producers to remix her for being too commercial when Vogue sounds like Shep's Janet remix.

It's also interesting how certain popular producers did get asked to remix her later on while others were never asked. Never a C&C, Frankie Knuckles, Todd Terry, Soul Solution. But we got Thunderpuss and Hex Hector who were remixing everyone before M.

I would have loved an electroclash album from her. Particularly the sound of the Felix Da Housecat and Mount Sims remixes for the America Life era. An all trance album like the Above and Beyond remix of Wiflfag....there are so many imaginary Madonna albums I die just thinking about.

 

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I kind of think Vogue, Justify My Love and Rescue Me if not on the Immacuate Collection could have worked on Erotica  - but I love the Erotica album and remixes so not sure it really needs to be changed

I love house music but I don't know if she had done a full house type album before Erotica if people would have been bored of hearing alot of house sounding tracks on Erotica  - even songs like Rain and Bad Girl have dance music sensibility about the way they are produced it's hard to explain it when they are ballads! 

I think perhaps she could have added some House tracks onto Bedtime Stories as think it's closely related to R&B but the remixes from Bedtime Stories were such brilliant house tracks it did not matter she still gave us great dance tracks through the fantastic remixes.

Amazed she never used Frankie Knuckles to remix any of her tracks am glad we got that sort of sound on the Morales mix of Deeper and Deeper though.  She's was good through in her choice of remixes for the Erotica singles by not going too mainstream Masters At Work, Murk, then Junior, Bizarre Inc, Mark Picciotti  and Danny Tenaglia for Bedtime Stories singles

The official mixes back then were as good or better than the originals but sadly now there seems to be tons of remixes commissioned for her singles off her last 3 albums and very few of them any good 

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21 hours ago, Pootz333 said:

I would have loved it. I would have loved if she incorporated more ballroom culture of the time too. I'm surprised she never worked in new way voguing/ Vogue femme/ a "The Ha Dance" sample in recent years. I don't count Living For Love.

It's interesting that she didn't ask other mainstream house producers to remix her for being too commercial when Vogue sounds like Shep's Janet remix.

It's also interesting how certain popular producers did get asked to remix her later on while others were never asked. Never a C&C, Frankie Knuckles, Todd Terry, Soul Solution. But we got Thunderpuss and Hex Hector who were remixing everyone before M.

I think for the same reason you mentioned above with Janet. 

While I agree that Vogue sounds very similar to Miss You Much (Shep's House Mix), it's Shep that whored out his sound to every major artist and it wouldn't have been easy for working artists to know and memorize every single remix available by others. So it's very possible that Madonna heard Miss You Much (the remix not the album version) which charted towards the fall/winter of 89 from memory, after Shep had already worked with Madonna on Vogue in early 1990 and was like, "fuck .. great .. you dick!" He should NEVER have brought a sound that was already used into a new song -- taking a fucking huge risk of having Madonna being called a copy-cat? Seriously! I'm sure Shep had to smooth that out with Janet, and maybe part of the reason Janet always dissed Madonna in the early 90's. 

So why did Madonna avoid certain popular producers/mixers at the time? For fear of having a sound too similar to everything out there at the time. It was hard to avoid and navigate, but maybe by dropping the house/Vogue sound and shifting is what allowed Madonna to stay fresh.

I am an ENORMOUS fan of Deee-lite, I love their sound so much, but they couldn't break out of that sound. And no matter what they did, people just wanted more of Groove Is In The Heart --- all-day-long. 

Escapade (Shep's Housecapade Mix) also have a very similar sound.

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1 hour ago, captainjay said:

I think for the same reason you mentioned above with Janet. 

While I agree that Vogue sounds very similar to Miss You Much (Shep's House Mix), it's Shep that whored out his sound to every major artist and it wouldn't have been easy for working artists to know and memorize every single remix available by others. So it's very possible that Madonna heard Miss You Much (the remix not the album version) which charted towards the fall/winter of 89 from memory, after Shep had already worked with Madonna on Vogue in early 1990 and was like, "fuck .. great .. you dick!" He should NEVER have brought a sound that was already used into a new song -- taking a fucking huge risk of having Madonna being called a copy-cat? Seriously! I'm sure Shep had to smooth that out with Janet, and maybe part of the reason Janet always dissed Madonna in the early 90's. 

So why did Madonna avoid certain popular producers/mixers at the time? For fear of having a sound too similar to everything out there at the time. It was hard to avoid and navigate, but maybe by dropping the house/Vogue sound and shifting is what allowed Madonna to stay fresh.

I am an ENORMOUS fan of Deee-lite, I love their sound so much, but they couldn't break out of that sound. And no matter what they did, people just wanted more of Groove Is In The Heart --- all-day-long. 

Escapade (Shep's Housecapade Mix) also have a very similar sound.

Did a lot of people really hear that Janet Jackson remix though? Did they even play it a lot in clubs? I feel like the original version was far more popular. I never associate Miss You Much with Vogue. Even though the beat is similar in that remix the songs still feel so different. And that house sound was everywhere by the time Vogue came out anyway.

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23 hours ago, MDNA22 said:

I kind of think Vogue, Justify My Love and Rescue Me if not on the Immacuate Collection could have worked on Erotica  - but I love the Erotica album and remixes so not sure it really needs to be changed

Vogue would stick out on Erotica like it did on I'm Breathless. Unless Madonna took some of the polish out of it to make it match the rest of the sound and production. Maybe use some of the original lyrics that were deemed too suggestive to be associated with Disney. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

To me, Erotica was born out of the success of Vogue and Justify My love.

Half the album is produced by Shep (Vogue) and the other half by Andre Betts (JML) 

The shep side is pretty much a house album and she even inserted continuity directly into the album:

Vogue - lyrics in Deeper & Deeper

Justify My Love - using actual JML vocals in Waiting.

are you saying she shouldve just skipped the andre betts jazzyier hip hop stuff? or should Shep have stuck to the more 1990 house sound instead of whatever new sounds were born into house by 92? or is it the theme you dont like? do you mean Vogue as in stick to topics centered around the vogueing gay experience?

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On 3/9/2021 at 6:36 PM, captainjay said:

I am an ENORMOUS fan of Deee-lite, I love their sound so much, but they couldn't break out of that sound. And no matter what they did, people just wanted more of Groove Is In The Heart --- all-day-long. 

I'm a massive fan of Deee-Litee too, they are one of my very favorites.  I have to disagree though, I thought Dewdrops in the Garden and the remixes from that Era were so different from World Clique/Infinity Within.   In fact, i think that really still is a forward sounding album.

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42 minutes ago, momosfantasy said:

I'm a massive fan of Deee-Litee too, they are one of my very favorites.  I have to disagree though, I thought Dewdrops in the Garden and the remixes from that Era were so different from World Clique/Infinity Within.   In fact, i think that really still is a forward sounding album.

Problem is they were relegated to dance act - they had trouble bridging pop and dance like they did with Groove and Dewdrops was awesome but that was like doubling down on the strictly dance sound (no pop).

Im torn with Deee-lite - Lady Kier is a conservative now, reposting gop tweets and vaccine conspiracy theories.  Ill keep enjoying what I own but its a tough pill to swallow.

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1 hour ago, AModSquad said:

Im torn with Deee-lite - Lady Kier is a conservative now, reposting gop tweets and vaccine conspiracy theories.  Ill keep enjoying what I own but its a tough pill to swallow.

Hoooooow?!? She was always so forward thinking with climate issues and voting and stuff. Where is she posting stuff. She’s been suspended from Twitter… and everything else is pretty inactive. I can’t believe it. ?

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On 3/21/2021 at 1:25 AM, AModSquad said:

Problem is they were relegated to dance act - they had trouble bridging pop and dance like they did with Groove and Dewdrops was awesome but that was like doubling down on the strictly dance sound (no pop).

Im torn with Deee-lite - Lady Kier is a conservative now, reposting gop tweets and vaccine conspiracy theories.  Ill keep enjoying what I own but its a tough pill to swallow.

No she's not!!  Where did you see that?  I've followed her for years, she's not conservative in the least!

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