Definitely a holiday cash grab, and I can confirm from a retail perspective that this thing flew off the shelves. It's so amazing when you think back that "Into The Groove" was the b-side for the "Angel" 12"er, and wasn't available on an album until this release (at least in America). That b-side version is the preferable one of the several available IMO.
It's legit the only version I listen to outside of the live versions. It's got the best production and the only one that, I find, has an actual groove.
Causing A Commotion was a big hit but I think 'Dress You Up' was a moderate hit. It charted top 5 but made like 90? YE
Weirdly, "Dress You Up" and "Angel" still get some radio play, whereas I have never once heard "Commotion" on the radio.
That's a good point. I haven't heard CAC on the radio since it was in the charts. "The Look Of Love" either.
I tried to work out what you meant and I thought a wizard must be about magic. So I figured maybe you thought it was a bad song which I had magically made good. But I see now, you meant magic to make it appear, because it is not so easy to find. The reason I didn't understand is because when I bought it that was not so hard to get. I got mine about 15 years ago and of course it was much cheaper back then. I've just looked on Discogs and got quite a shock. Ahhhh, one of the perks of getting older!
I went to a kids party once when I was a kid (no surprise there) and we played pass the parcel and I won a 7" by someone called Madonna I'd never heard of and the song was "Everybody". We all won records that must have come from a bargain bin somewhere so I stuck it with my other kiddie records like The Smurf Song until one day sold it for about 50p to a friend when Holiday came out. Suffice to say, I wish I knew where he now lived so I could break in and take it back!
That mix of "Where's The Party" on the Japanese CD-3 is the remix/edit from the U.S. promo disc. These were the only two songs from that promo disc issued commercially anywhere. The You Can Dance remix of "Into The Groove" also appears on a U.K. CD-single of "Crazy For You" (1991) but it's not the full version from the U.S. promo 12" single. It just fades out early.
As others have said, the You Can Dance tracks are not particularly good remixes. I believe that the success of this album was due largely to the holiday cash grab and that this would be the defacto Madonna Greatest Hits album (despite the few tracks, but it did contain Into the Groove) for a lot of casual fans until TIC was released. And sadly, I think its success would also lead to the remixing found on TIC.
"Spotlight" is a catchy dance/pop single. "You Can Dance" could of just been a promo-only release, as it really is more of a DJ tool than a home listening necessity. I have the promo version of this set which I like, with the edits.
Yeah that's true, but on the other hand the mixes aren't godawful either (except maybe the "Everybody" remix, which kind of screws up a song you'd think would have been really easy to remix). I've heard far worse collections of remixes than these, but agree they should have been a lot more adventuresome (and not repeated any tracks, apart from maybe recent hit "Into The Groove").
Not much to say about You Can Dance that hasn't been said already. As an album, just meh. I was lucky to score one of those Japanese singles of Spotlight back in the day and that's all I listen to where this album is related.
Always had a lot of control over the media, never had a good voice, we have other very better artists that were forgotten for exemple :Róisín Murphy (solo and w Moloko) she got an amazing voice
You Can Dance was the first Madonna album to miss the Top 10 in the US: it peaked at No. 14 on January 23 1988 (No. 1 at the time was Tiffany, followed by George Michael, Dirty Dancing, INXS and Michael Jackson). In the UK, thanks to @Bobby Morrow and his fellow Madonna obsessives, it debuted at No. 5 (its peak position) on November 28 1987 (No. 1, also debuting on the chart, was Rick Astley, who was even hotter than Madonna in Britain that winter). And in NZ, thanks to me and my fellow Madonna obsessives, it debuted at No. 4 on December 13 1987 (Madonna for Christmas!) No. 1 at the time was Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse Of Reason (which I also owned, on vinyl... won in a radio call-in competition).
Let's be frank. YCD is filler. It was released at a time when there was "Madonna mania" all over the world and Warners knew they could just get some remixers to stretch the same material out for another release. It's like offering a kind of hits collection as an interim between albums just because lots of people were clamouring for anything with Madonna's name on it. It's just a shame it wasn't very good.
True. True Blue had come out in the summer of 1986. By late 1987, Sire/Warners must have known album #4 was not imminent (and in fact it would arrive much later, in March 1989), so YCD very much served as a stopgap. I wonder if they contemplated a hits compilation, but the Madonna camp wasn't keen, so they settled on a remix album?
I think it was too early for a greatest hits compilation at that time. Although these days some artists seem to bring them out really quickly, back then it was well into people's careers when it really warranted a compilation.
I think you are right. Most people who liked Madonna's first 3 releases probably already had all the songs anyway. So a greatest hits comp would be a bit premature.
I found this Wiki page showing You Can Dance is the second-highest selling remix album of all time with Michael Jackson's Blood On The Dance Floor outselling it by 1 mil. Everything else is far behind. Whatever Madonna and Warner Bros intentions were at the time, I'd say it worked. Best Selling Remix Albums
True. It would have been too early (from a career-strategy point of view), but she certainly had enough hits to do one (and already a scattering of songs/mixes that hadn't been on her albums). And in all likelihood, it would have had remixes (like TIC did), so it would just have been like You Can Dance, but in more of a traditional 'hits' format. Like you say, It would have been highly unusual for the 80s, and I'm sure Madonna would never, ever have said yes to it, but I'd be surprised if Warners didn't at least float the idea to her. It would have been as much of a stopgap as YCD seems to have been, and possibly more enticing to the average fan.
