Jump to content

Blond Ambition and Re-Invention tours - who owns the rights?


Little Angel
 Share

Recommended Posts

There must be a reason these never got released? I assumed it was all about the rights. Madonna said she had to wait a certain amount of time after the release of the documentaries before she could release the tours. Well it's been 27 years since Blonde Ambition, what's the hold up.

I was watching a non official DVD (ripped from the laserdisc) and the quality is now pretty bad it is hard to watch. 

Will an official version ever happen do you think?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Pioneer holds the rights to BAT.

I guess the problem is that nobody on M's team is really campaigning for a different release than laserdisc.

They probably think they will not make enough money from it, or M is not interested because it might be looked at like another re-hash, sending her to the "ancient" and non-happening department of music artists. She might also not want to be connected with the persona of that time or again remind everyone of what she used to be like before Kabbalah and the kids, for image-control perhaps.

 

Not sure who holds the rights to RIT.

Oseary seems to think it was released. I remember reading something about him thinking that the IGTTYAS was the official release of it, and end of.

 

You know what, in the end Madonna might just think it is boring to release the whole concert as a concert without heavy edits or things to say and explain in between, documentary-style, she loves to teach.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Onstage persona hasn't changed much over the years. BAT she is grabbing her crotch and saying the f word a lot. Sticky and Sweet she is randomly shouting "motherfucker" in the middle of Borderline. And the performances of S.E.X and Holy Water in the Rebel heart show are a lot more racey. 

 

The bootleg of the Blonde ambition tour is one of her highest selling DVDs. if you type in madonna DVD in Amazon.co.uk they are automatically ordered by best selling and BAT is quite high. That should tell them something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as I know with RIT she was unhappy with the result of recordings in Lisbon, apart that on that moment she decided to release "Im going to sell you the Kabalah", most known as "Im going to tell you a secret".

 

I dont understand why Warner Music has banned all the material from Madonna. Since she left only we had the box-set with all studio albums and re-release of vinyls. Its hard to check as someone said that someone released the BAT and Girlie on CD and they´re selling very well and Madonna and Warner dont see a penny.

 

Why not release their concerts in BR? Is another question.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all I have to say that "The Blond Ambition Tour" and "The Girlie Show" are two of my favorite tours and I've always wanted them to be released on blu ray and that but...

 

A week ago I was with some friends and asked me to play for them my favorite tour. "The Girlie show" (Fukuoka) was the one selected by me and that's what people thought about it... "Well, it's not a bad concert but the recording looks poor and cheap". I changed TGS for The Blond Ambition Tour  Nice and it was the same reaction. I decided to play "Truth or dare" for them and the reaction was the opposite. Everybody was like "WOW". I don't know how to explain it better.

 

What I'm trying to say is that maybe they don't want to release them because the edition is not good for 2017. Now her tours are recorded in a way than it's more a music video than a concert. Everything is very fast, they change for one take to another in 2 seconds. Everything is really fast and you're all the time like "Wow, wow, wow".

 

"The Virgin Tour" for example was recorded in other format and it looks much better than "WTW"; "BAT" y "TGS". But I don't think people now would see the original edition of those 3 concerts the same way we see them. I mean, I think lot of people would say "Oh, I remembered much better". I think the only way to release them now would be making another edition. "Blond Ambition Tour" would be incredible with footage of the Paris show, but to use the same old edition from Nice I think it could be a mistake.

 

Maybe someday Madonna will sell the Blond Ambition Tour from Paris but to do it she must make the edition of the full show, not just the "Truth or dare" songs and that takes time. I think she will think about it when she don't feel the need of making new music and new tours. But while she's busy in other project she won't think about it.

 

For "The Who's that girl tour" and "The girlie show" I think all we'll get is the DVD. It doesn't make much sense to release a blu-ray when you can't do more with the image.

 

About "The Re-Invention Tour" I think it will be released someday too, but I think it will be something like what I said about the "Blond Ambition Tour" some lines above.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have to agree that it is both confusing and frustrating why she has never felt the need to release such an iconic show.

 

I have read in the past that Pioneer purchased the rights to the Blond Ambition show in Nice and therefore she was contracted to sell the concert on the Laserdisc format. I think at the time, they thought Laserdisc was the new ''big thing', but lo and behold it only lasted a few years. As far as I am aware, Pioneer do not release DVD's or Blu-Rays, so this may be a reason for the Nice show never being released on these formats.

 

I know that HBO also had a share in the rights, but that was just for broadcast on TV. I would assume this contract has now expired.

 

Blond Ambition was also filmed and released on VHS and Laserdisc in Japan live from one of the Yokohama shows. I believe this release was put out by Warner Bros Japan, so I'm not sure why a deal has not been made to release this show commercially? 

 

She put a video up on her Instagram at the end of last year showing her going through her archives. She seemed to focus on her Blond Ambiton items. She showed a couple of the costumes and also what appeared to be lots of boxes of tapes from Truth or Dare.

 

When she did a Q&A session a few years ago, someone asked when Blond Ambition was going to be released and she answered ''when I find the tapes in the archives''......so it leads to me to wonder if from seeing this video.....has she finally found the tapes she wants to use for the Blond Ambition release? I would assume that the footage would be the Paris show, which is what every fan wants. I think the Paris footage would fit in with how she would want the concert footage to look. It was recorded on film, so it would look spectacular.

 

Here's hoping!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as I know with RIT she was unhappy with the result of recordings in Lisbon, apart that on that moment she decided to release "Im going to sell you the Kabalah", most known as "Im going to tell you a secret".

 

I dont understand why Warner Music has banned all the material from Madonna. Since she left only we had the box-set with all studio albums and re-release of vinyls. Its hard to check as someone said that someone released the BAT and Girlie on CD and they´re selling very well and Madonna and Warner dont see a penny.

 

Why not release their concerts in BR? Is another question.

I'M GOING TO SELL YOU THE KABALLAH...... I cannot breathe this is too funny.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me it's pretty simple.  Madonna wants the focus to stay on the Documentaries which came of the Tours.  I'm sure it has been batted back and forth the pro's and con's throughout the years to release them.  BAT may benefit the most for a release after all these years, but I am not sure if RIT would. Hard core fans will flock to them, and BAT may sell more to casual fans, but I don't think RIT would do so well. 

 

I would like to see a box set of VT, BAT and RIT before I croak.  Her life and career will carry on for decades more. She's bound to live until 100, so I hope they aren't waiting to release all the rarities when she dies. Many of her fans would be long gone before they see these rare releases.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can see who owns the rights by looking at the copyright info. Most are copyright to Boy Toy which means Madonna owns them. But she will have licensed them to a distributor and it all depends on how long that license is for. A lot of the time it will have been for 20 years. So some videos may be totally in her control now. It would be down to her to get them re-released. 

 

Virgin Tour, Blond Ambition Nice, Who's That Girl Japan, Truth Or Dare are all copyright to Boy Toy (Madonna). Presumably RIT is too but that had complications as Caresse (former manager) was the producer, preventing the release.

 

Blond Ambition Japan says it was copyright to Music Guide. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People are wrongly assuming that laserdisc was a new format in 1990, it wasn't. It was started in 1978 and was successful throughout the 80's. It didn't decline until the mid nineties with DVD arriving.

Pioneer stepped in to sponsor the tour when Pepsi pulled out which is why they tied it to their flagship product format, although they did release the japanese edition on vhs too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People are wrongly assuming that laserdisc was a new format in 1990, it wasn't. It was started in 1978 and was successful throughout the 80's. It didn't decline until the mid nineties with DVD arriving.

Pioneer stepped in to sponsor the tour when Pepsi pulled out which is why they tied it to their flagship product format, although they did release the japanese edition on vhs too.

 

Well... Technically what came in 1978 was "Video Disc" - optical discs with video on them.

 

Never took off - was relaunched later in the 80s as "LaserDisc (LD)" (digital discs with longer recording capacity) - still never took off.

 

Pioneer were madly pushing Laser Disc at the end of the 80s - and it was part of this big push that they sponsored the BA tour in 1990 with a promise to "exclusively" release the tour on Laserdisc in 1991.

 

Laserdisc never broke into the mainstream. It was always a "niche" product. I had a player - I bought it in 1991 specifically 'cos of the BA tour release! Even back then pretty much no-one except enthusiasts, knew about Laserdisc - and aside from small sections in very large branches of HMV or Virgin - you couldn't buy the discs on the UK high street.

 

As for Pioneer's hold over the release - I think that's long gone. ICON at the time said the Pioneer exclusive rights lasted only a year or two I think. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree the "Video disc" which later was relaunched as LASER DISC was around since the late 70's. My grandmother had a Video disc player. She had all these classic movies such as "Old Yeller" on Video Disc.  I remember we would go to her house and watch these movies from time to time.

 

I bought my Laserdisc player simply because of BLOND AMBITION as well  I remember going to a local Merchandise store that handled top of the line electronics, and got a deal and received a couple movies free.  GHOST was one of them.  I loved the Laser Disc player.  To me, it was like an LP (album) with a big picture sleeve. I realize it's more practical to have these smaller devices that take smaller products, but again it was just great to get that huge picture sleeve that came with those movies (and likewise LP's for music).  I recall in '94 when Laser DVD's started to become more popular, I still debated if I should get GIRLIE SHOW on Laserdisc.  I hadn't a DVD player at the time. I decided to go for the VHS at the time, but later down the road when I knew DVD's were sticking around, I bought the DVD as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haven't read all the replies but the reason Blond Ambition is not being released is, according to them, they couldn't find the film footage for the whole show, and we also don't know who owns it, I'm assuming she does since she showed she has ToD reels in storage but where they are (the show reels) is a mystery?. It seems like they were pursuing this release in the early 2010s or so but it went nowhere.  

 

That's good news tho because releasing a SD DVD of any of the shows she released on Laserdisc or w/e that we've had for ages would be lame and it would largely kill the chances of ever seeing the Paris (or other film footage if it exists) in glorious high definition. Those shows are not the best representation of that tour and I'm glad she released nothing instead of something "ok".

 

Girlie Show was only shot on tape so it will never exist in high definition, what we have is pretty much what we'll ever have, although the GS DVD could use some remastering especially the audio (but then the purist fans might bitch)

 

RIT, they either don't have the full show on film and only shot select songs for IGTTYAS, or she simply doesn't want to release it since it would kinda kill the documentary which is what she wanted to release. ToD won't suffer from having the whole BAT released but IGTTYAS would tbh. Maybe one day we'll see it if it exists but it would require them to do a lot of editing, likely more than Blond Ambition, since RIT has backdrops and they love doing crazy things with them in the editing lol.

 

Also she doesn't like releasing everything, she's probably saving things for the future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the reason why we 'only' got documentaries is because that's what she wanted to release. If she wanted to release the whole concert movies, she would have done it. But, for whatever reason, she wanted the releases to be documentaries. Who knows why, either because that was the way she wanted it or she was just unhappy with the recordings. I know she wasn't satisfied with the Lisbon recordings and the whole RIT Paris show is definetly somewhere in a file. Maybe we'll get all this when she dies, they will all try to make money with her name as soon as she's gone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The most I can see a Warner Bros doing a cheaply done boxset of all her tours (same releases; no new feature) with a pretty standard box cover with the name like - Madonna: Live!

 

 

 

 

This would be good enough for me. I just want all the tours to be available on blu-ray + digitally.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • madgefan changed the title to Blond Ambition and Re-Invention tours - who owns the rights?
  • madgefan pinned this topic
  • 5 weeks later...

WB has Warner Archive, I don't know why they don't use that to release her tours, removes much of the overhead costs and is basically an On Demand service. 

In terms of Paris BAT, we haven't been able to fully discern whether the full shows were filmed or not. Toby Phillips says they were, Alek Kesheshian says they only shot the numbers they planned to use in the doco. Toby also states that Alek wasn't that involved in the actual filming of the concert sequences though, so maybe his memory isn't the greatest.

In terms of rights. Miramax owned ToD, Madonna sold it to them outright and regretted it later. Whether that included the rights to the Paris concert footage is unknown, though seems likely.

I doubt Pioneer own the rights to the Nice concert anymore. It was suggested a VHS version of the show was to be released within a year of the laserdisc, so I assume Pioneer's licence was limited and it reverted back to WB/Madonna, which is why we scored the In-House DVD from WB (they may have been prepping this for release at some point).

Carese Henry (I'm pretty sure) did a Q&A in ICON at some point and said they were looking into DVD releases for the tours, I assume WB owns the rights to that Nice concert. Also I don't think Pioneer ever re-issued BAT on laserdisc, despite the fact it was a big seller for them, so again, I feel they had a limited contract for it.

I get the feeling Madonna either had some sort of verbal or binding agreement with WB that she must approve of any releases. When the tour DVD's rumour started a few years back, Guy said he would look into working with WB on it. Many speculated that Madonna had more control over releases than we thought. It may be simply that WB wants to maintain a good relationship with Madonna, so are not willing to go against her wishes or it could be she actually negotiated a contract with them to that effect.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Write here...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use