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Today in Madonna History


groovyguy
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Rewinding the Charts: 25 Years Ago, Madonna Was in ‘Vogue’ Atop the Hot 100

 

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Madonna photographed in 1990.

Lorraine Day

 

 

In 1990, with the help of a video directed by David Fincher, the pop star’s No. 1 single propelled a dance craze.

ONE OF MADONNA’S BIGGEST hits – the 1990 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 dance anthem “Vogue†– had surprisingly humble beginnings. “The whole thing was done on a shoestring budget,†says Shep Pettibone, the track’s co-writer and producer. Allotted just $5,000 by Warner Bros. Records to create what was initially slated as a B-side, he finished the song in three weeks, recording the then-31-year-old pop star’s vocals in a “basement on West 56th Street†in New York, where, he says, a closet had been converted into a vocal booth.

 

 

The song starts with suspense-building synths before kicking into “Philly Salsoulâ€-style house music, and its lyrics and sumptuous black-and-white video, directed by future Academy Award nominee David Fincher (Gone GirlThe Social Network), celebrate voguing, a style of dance popularized in New York’s mostly gay ballroom club scene in the 1980s that mimicks fashion-shoot poses.

 

Released as an A-side, “Vogue†topped the Hot 100 on May 19, 1990. Madonna and Pettibone also collaborated on the singer’s 1992 No. 1 ballad, “This Used to Be My Playground,†but Pettibone left the music business in the late ’90s and now owns The Empress Hotel and Paradise Nightclub in Asbury Park, N.J.

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