It was reissued in 2012 on vinyl and looking at Amazon it looks like it uses the original artwork, so was thinking of buying that. Last year I bought a reissue of the Bedtimes Stories album on vinyl and I liked how it sounded a lot. Though I never bought that album when it first came out.
Great topic and I will gladly follow this one. I think I found Madonna a bit later in the 80's but of course I wanna comment each album along with you rest here. The debut is great album with no filler tracks, just really compact package of 8 songs and it works/flows nicely. Not too dated album at all, of course the production is what it is, but it's part of the charm anyways. I like the cover and videos which I have some nice memories of seeing them on tv. About ideal number of songs and playtime for album, that's why I like and prefer those good old times. Good 80's dance pop, Madonna just starting out as anybody else in the early times of their careers. I bet she would never had believed what kind if career and success was waiting for her.
As someone who has listened to and loved music since I was a child (nearly 40 years ago) and heard Good Vibrations on the radio, and that being the very first song that really "knocked me out", Borderline is one of the perfect pop songs in my book. It will always be my favorite Madonna song, with many others tied for second.
Great thread! The 'Madonna' LP still sounds vital nearly 35 years on, a testament to the instincts and talents of Madonna, Sire's Seymour Stein, and those they aligned themselves with during its creation.
Has anyone found the 7" version of "Lucky Star" on CD? To my knowledge it doesn't exist. But it never hurts to ask.
To my knowledge also, it doesn't exist. Even that (almost mythical) 1997 Japanese CD Single Collection box set has the full ~5:30 album version, because in Japan, that was the version on the 45. Edit: The 45 version is, as I'm sure you know, just an edit of the album version, so in theory you could always recreate it if you wanted (it has three edits).
I've got that box set. It is the album version on there as you said. I could do the edit myself, but I collect CDs. So I really want it on CD. However, I have a list of over 300 tracks I want which don't currently exist on CD, so eventually I will have to create my own edits or rip from vinyl where no CD exists. It seems odd though that an artist as well-known as Madonna doesn't have all her singles on CD in their original 7" versions.
I'm envious. It looks incredible, but it's certainly not cheap. I also prefer to have tracks on CD where possible. I do my own edits for songs I (a) don't have on CD and can't find easily/cheaply, and (b) for which I prefer the 45 edit. The perfect example would be Prince's "Batdance" (before the 45 edit showed up on 4Ever). For "Lucky Star" I really like the TIC remix, so I'm perfectly content to use that on playlists as a substitute for the 45 version. But yeah, it would be brilliant if Madonna/Warners followed the concept of that Japanese box set and issued a similar (but somewhat less expensive) item. That's top of my wish list.
It does seem crazy expensive now. I think I bought it about 15-20 years ago. From recollection it was somewhere around £200-250 then.
Ditto on "Borderline." An exemplary pop song. I thought so when I first heard it in Jr. High, and I still think so now in my mid-40s!!!
Wasn't "Borderline" written by the same guy who wrote the Stephanie Mills hit "Never Knew Love Like This Before"?
I wouldn't be surprised, I've always felt 'Borderline' was inspired in some way by that song. They have the same composition.
I was happy to pick up the "Borderline" CD single from Germany many years ago. I like the US Remix of the song. Pat
After the career she's had, you think she'd allow herself a victory lap or two and put together a few archival releases or at least deluxe editions of her back catalog. Given her reluctance to ever look back, though, I can't see this happening. I think what she doesn't realize is that some well-done archival releases will only help her legacy, not diminish it. In addition to a comprehensive collection of all her single mixes, I'm still holding out for DVD releases of the Virgin and Blond Ambition tours as well...
Maybe if one of us sent her a kind and impassioned letter pleading with her to reissue her hit singles as they were originally released, and explain why, and how many of her fans have been demanding them for decades, maybe she'll listen. I am so tired of Madonna comps with remixes and alternate versions. I had to needledrop the 45 of "Borderline" and re-create the 45 edit to "Lucky Star".
In Australia her first album was top 3 and had 4 top 5 singles on it so repackaging it as 'The First Album' was ludicrous. But they did it anyway.
Ain't No Big Deal was the song Seymour Stein really liked. He wanted it on the album and they kept on remaking it. If she hadn't come up with Holiday she'd probably still be rerecording it. When she dyed her hair blonde she went to see Stein in hospital and she went from being a low priority artist to a high priority artist just by changing her hair colour.
Fabulous idea for a thread- well done and thank you! My first Madonna album was actually True Blue in 1986. I was 12 and although I knew all her hit singles from earlier, I had not acquired an album. I therefore quickly backtracked and picked up Like A Virgin and Madonna. I like LAV but for me her debut was better, there was just something about it. It sounded edgy to my 12 year old ears and also slightly dangerous in a weird way. I adore every track on this record and still play it often. I also find that of her 80s material, it is the album I play the most. I think it has aged incredibly well and I never tire of it. It is in my top 3 of her albums, although trying to rank them is almost impossible for me, and I think that if I could only grab one Madonna record if the house was burning down, it would probably be this one. She was just so cool and so sexy but so tough at the same time. Sure she made 'better' records but there is something about this one, a hunger and an ambition, that I don't think could ever be captured again. It is innocent and knowing all at the same time...a remarkable record. And, when you think of the career that would follow this humble album it is simply mind-blowing. (And to a 12 year old kid living in a nasty, small country town in the backwaters of Victoria, the video for 'Burning Up' was the best thing I had ever seen!)
I remember she was on Solid Gold and she opened the show. Halfway through Holiday Marilyn McCoo butted in and gave a rundown of who was going to be on the show. Madonna never did the show again so when they put on Holiday after that it ran for about 90 seconds.
Great idea for a thread! Can't wait to revisit her albums, it's been a while since I listened to one. Born in '79 I didn't become aware of Madonna until True Blue. By then, '86/'87, all the girls in my school wanted to be her, dressed up as her, playbacked to her songs. The boys, of course, thought Madonna was music for girls. Or even that music was for girls. Boys played football. One or two liked Michael Jackson but that was about it. I'd become a Pet Shop Boys fan (Actually was my first record), and I loved Madonna's songs even if I never owned a single one of her albums until about '97 when I bought Like A Prayer at a sale. My first copy of the debut came years later when I bought the remaster around 2007. I'd been playing "Borderline" on a classical guitar for my own entertainment for a year or two and it was about time I owned a copy of the song. Not that long ago I got The First Album as well: I wanted an (almost) original as well. Aside from the perfect "Borderline", I really like "I Know It". I think fondly of those girls from school that introduced me to "Holiday" and wonder how they turned out.
Just listened to my vinyl copy and lots to like. The standout songs for me are Borderline and Holiday. The only thing I think would have improved the album a lot is if they've used real drummers. The use of drum machines just robs the songs of life in my humble opinion. Just feels like there's something missing.
In his book, Nile Rodgers says (if I remember correctly) that when he was asked to produce Madonna's second album, his first request was that he could use a live rhythm section, so you weren't alone in that assessment. It's interesting to think how different Madonna would have been if, say, Rodgers, Tony Thompson and Bernard Edwards had been on hand to beef up certain tracks (the way they did on "Material Girl" and "Like A Virgin"). (But that's totally hypothetical, in 1982 Sire weren't about to hire A list session guys to play on an LP by an unknown New York dance artist). And as I said before, I love the Linn drums, but I admittedly have a soft spot for them.
I love the drum machine as well. Keeps it simpler and contributes to the record's deliciously clean, precise sound. I think if they'd had a live rhythm section it would have ruined that aesthetic, and might have cut too close to the dead sound of '70s disco. Anyhow, the programming on this thing is incredible. That transition into the break of "Lucky Star" - the "shine your heavenly body tonight" bit - is funky and fierce. Was listening to the album again last night and it just lept out at me as a defining moment. Curiously, on Amazon Music "Lucky Star" looks to be the #1 most-played track off both the original release and the 2001 remaster.
