(DVD/VHS)
For the song reviews, go to the page on the album as I'll only review the videos here.
Videos
- Lucky Star*
- Borderline*
- Like A Virgin*
- Material Girl*
- Papa Don't Preach*
- Open Your Heart*
- La Isla Bonita*
- Like A Prayer*
- Express Yourself*
- Cherish*
- Oh Father*
- Vogue*
- Vogue (from MTV awards)
In Lucky Star, Madonna goes all out on the urchin look, dressed in black with bits and bobs tied to her and the famous fingerless gloves, as she dances against a white background. In Borderline, Madonna plays the urchin again, but this time she is in love with the coolest dude in the gang, who turns out to be jealous of her getting a modelling shoot with a rich photographer. He shuns her, and Madonna says she must break free from his controlling presence. Like A Virgin is set in Venice, with Madonna gyrating on a gondola as it passes under bridges. Sometimes she is dressed in a wedding dress and is stalked (in a non-threatening way) by a lion and a man with a lion's mask turns out to be her lover. What is the significance of the lion ? That Madonna is a leo ? That she wants a man who is strong ? Who knows ? Who cares ? It's a great video. Material Girl was very misinterpreted at the time. People took the materialistic theme very seriously; Madonna teenage female fans declared themselves to be material girls and Madonna was blamed for a perceived decline in values. However, the video is a decidedly tongue-in-cheek spoof of a famous Marilyn Monroe scene. Rich men try to buy Madonna's attentions with expensive gifts, all of which she pockets. But in the end, she settles for a decidedly unflashy producer with a dusty old car, which is the moral that everyone seemed to miss. In Papa Don't Preach, Madonna plays the part of a teenage girl, who falls in love with a young man and gets pregnant by him. In the video, Madonna pleads with her father to be understanding and to help her keep her baby rather than preaching to her about it being 'wrong' in the first place. This shows how in-touch Madonna was with the times, as she highlighted the need for understanding in the case of teenage pregnancies. In Open Your Heart, Madonna plays the part of an erotic dancer in a strip club, sporting a startling black hairdo which is revealed as a wig when she sheds it to reveal an equally startling airsprayed bleached blonde style. Her dress is raunchy enough, a little (!) black corset-cum-leotard with a gold-tipped bust section and fishnet stockings. Outside the club, a boy waits, looking at the censored adverts with a childlike innocence. As Madonna's dance becomes more fevered, he starts dancing too as he imagines what it must be like for her. Then Madonna, having finished, comes out and kisses him - he appears to be her little brother waiting for her to finish work. The duo end the video by dancing down a dusky street, jostling each other playfully like big sisters and little brothers everywhere. A charming video, especially good because both Madonna and kid show some nifty little dance steps. La Isla Bonita is set in a New York suburb, with latino musicians playing in the street while Madonna looks dolefully on, then decides to come down in full red flamenco regalia. Like A Prayer was an extremely controversial video at the time, and led to Madonna being condemned by the Pope and the Catholic Church. In it, a dark russet-haired Madonna enters a church surrounded by burning crosses and kneels in front of a black saint, only to find that he comes to life and kisses her, before leaving. Outside, a black man who comes to the aid of a woman is framed for rape and nothing is done for him. A choir sings as Madonna describes how she the experience has made her feel. In the end, the saint turns back into a statue and it is all just like a dream. Express Yourself is set in a futuristic cityscape, where a very well-off and stylish Madonna tells women to express themselves and not to be led by men, while a downtrodden but hunky labourer works, sleeps in the rain and fondles Madonna's (very wet) cat. This is Girl Power long before the Spice Girls. Cherish is set on a beach, and Madonna (featuring a feathered blonde hairstyle), writhes in the surf as hunky mermen sport around her. Oh Father is a sad video. In it, a little girl loses her mother and the father loses himself in drink and mistreats his daughter without meaning to. When the girl grows up to be Madonna, she breaks away from her father, saying that he can't hurt her anymore. But, in a conciliatory note at the end, she returns to find him many years later at her mother's grave. Is this autobiographical ? Madonna certainly lost her mother to cancer when she was only five or six years old and her relationship with her father was at times difficult. But who knows whether this is true (probably only Madonna and her family). Certainly she wasn't an only girl as was the case in the video, but some of it is surely modelled on Madonna's own painful experiences, and she sings and acts with genuine feeling. In Vogue, Madonna and her entourage dress stylishly, pose and dance amazingly. Blurring hand movements and rapid dance steps galore, this is probably the epitomy of a dance video. Madonna undergoes several chameleon-like changes in this video, changing hair style and dress, but the effect is just one: simply stunning. Vogue (from the MTV awards) is a more classical affair. Madonna, her singers Niki Harris and Donna Delory and the dancers are all dressed in 17th Century costumes, complete with farthingdales (the frame which puffs out the skirts) and fans, which are put to good use during the exquisite dance routine, which is at once classical, modern, naughty and graceful. The audience's reaction says it all.
RatingThis DVD/VHS is a great collection of Madonna's early videos, especially important as Madonna, above all, pioneered the use of videos as marketing tools for songs. The videos show a fresh Madonna progressing from the urchin stage to the glamour stage to the more modern Like A Prayer and Vogue. A very inspired 8/10.
� Josh Deb Barman 2000