These songs were recorded with Otto Von Wernherr before 'Madonna - The First Album', when Madonna was still an unknown, though this CD was not released until 1987.
Songs
- Wild Dancing (Extended Dance Mix)
- Cosmic Climb (Extended Dance Mix)
- We Are The Gods
- Wild Dancing
- Cosmic Climb
Wild Dancing is recorded here in two different versions. It is an energetic song, which is mostly sung by Madonna to the background of a drummer, with occasional twirls from an electric keyboard (shock, horror!). It's alright, but hardly makes for 'wild' dancing.
The Wild Dancing Extended Club Mix has less of Von Wernherr, whilst the Wild Dancing itself has little overblown spoken bits by him, where he almost raves, God knows about what. "You know what I'm saying ?", he says at one point. No, Otto, not really. Madonna just about rescues this song.
Cosmic Climb is also present in two forms. Otto has a larger spoken part in this song, but he is less annoying, as his dreary voice suits the mood of the song. Madonna is capable as ever, asking if you've got time to make this cosmic climb. Seems like she did and Otto didn't, in the end, doesn't it ? The beat and tune are better, and this results in this being the most (only?) listenable/least unlistenable song on the album.
Despite the cheap-sounding keyboard, Cosmic Climb Extended Club Mix is not too bad.
We Are The Gods is definitely the worst track on the album. Von Wernherr sounds like a drunk Arnold Schwarzenegger with his "oh my God, the gods are here!" and Madonna's scream of "gods! gods! gods! gods!" is ear-shattering and her "Mommy, Mommy, it's the gods!" is toe-curlingly embarrassing, through no fault of her own. The lyrics are terrible, over-simplistic and almost infantile and the rhythm sounds like the military march of a third-rate army, though some of the fills are quite nice. The theme 'we are the gods' becomes so annoying as Von Wernherr sounds so smug, you end up thinking 'who the hell do you think you are?'. I think he answered that question in the song.
RatingThe problem with this album is that it is mostly Otto Von Wernherr. The music is his style, and Madonna simply features on it, though she has quite an important part and keeps the album on the right side of zero on my 0-10 rating scale. Von Wernherr's heavy germanic trance/punk style will not appeal to many, and Madonna's role is limited in its artistic freedom. However, even at this early stage, it is possible to see Madonna's talent; she was certainly far too good for Von Wernherr, who suffers in comparison. At the end of the day, this is not a very good album - some call it terrible, and there's a lot of truth there - but true Madonna fans may wish to listen to it as a historical piece, ignoring Wernherr's total lack of singing talent. And it just shows you, even the best have to start somewhere - there's hope for all us wannabes yet. A very poor 2/10.
� Josh Deb Barman 2000
