After the smash success of 'Like A Virgin', Madonna returned, married to Sean Penn, with this album and its iconic cover photo. Yet again, her voice had improved and she also decided to co-produce for the first time. Madonna showed her interest in the latin sound for the first time here, something that would recur later. The album was remastered in 2001, with original artwork (the cover photo minus the lettering) and remixed versions of the title track and 'Papa Don't Preach'.
Songs
- Papa Don't Preach*
- Open Your Heart*
- White Heat
- Live To Tell*
- Where's The Party
- True Blue*
- La Isla Bonita*
- Jimmy Jimmy
- Love Makes The World Go Round
Papa Don't Preach is a real corker of a song. It is more than a bit 'rock' as well as pop. A teenage Madonna tells her father that she is seeing the boy he warned her about and that she is pregnant - and asks him to accept her boyfriend, whom she won't give up. A common if controversial story, this shows how in touch Madonna was with the public. Yet more controversially, she won't give up the baby either, which at the time was taken by anti-abortionists in the US an anthem! Another message is self-empowerment, a theme which would recur through Madonna's lyrics, as the girl takes control of her situation herself and rejects her father's moralising. Lyrically, this is the strongest piece of work Madonna had done up until this point, skilfully picking out a number of aspects of the situation from the father's attitude to abortion to early marriage, to the boy's offer to marry her and the imminent loss of freedom that pregancy will bring. Music-wise, it starts with an orchestral intro before drums kick in, the chorus is punchy and there is a pleasant acoustic guitar solo. Madonna's voice is grainier than her wont, perhaps emphasising the gritty subject matter. A real kick-ass classic Madonna song, bits of the music appear all over the place, e.g. the Vauxhall adverts on TV in 1998-2000 (if you're in the UK).
Open Your Heart is another stonking song, punchier and more upbeat than the previous track, opening with a cry of "watch out!". Over a continuous percussive battery and through a two-part verse, the song unfolds a tale of unrequited love for someone seen on the street. She won't take no for an answer ("don't try to run, I can keep up with you"), and the song is filled with innuendo ("I hold the lock and you hold the key...I'll give you love if you, you turn the key"). The song was originally written with Cyndi Lauper in mind, but as we well know, Madonna's previous successes torpedoed the Lauper bandwagon. The Temptations also considered this song before Madonna redid some of the lyrics and Pat Leonard but a bass line in to turn it into a rock'n'roll/dance song rather just a rock/pop track. This song has a great rhythm and Madonna really pulls out the stops and also provided us with a controversial video set in a strip joint with a child (her brother?) waiting outside for her and fantasising about being a stripper (but they choose innocence in the end over decadance and depravity)!
White Heat is a tribute to the actor Jimmy Cagney, and features his voice with the immortal words "you dirty, rotten...", followed by a spate of machinegun fire. The theme is of Madonna 'holding up' the object of her affections and demanding love in return. The song was inspired by Cagney's 1949 film of the same name (about psychotic gangster Cody Jarrett, who dies when the huge gasoline tank he is standing on explodes). Madonna adds more detective feel by quoting Clint Eastwood's famous tough-guy catchphrase, "make my day". This aural quotation from films gives interest, and has been used by other artists (like Kate Bush in 'Hounds of Love' and Siouxie and The Banshees' in '92 Degrees') to good effect. Otherwise the song is a standard uptempo dance track with synth bass, double-tracked vocals and male backing voices.
Despite the different quality of 'Crazy For You', Live To Tell must have been a great surprise at the time that it came out in 1986. Madonna's voice suddenly sound several shades deeper and more mature. The theme tune to then-husband Sean Penn's film 'At Close Range', it is a real tear-jerking ballad. Madonna describes how her man proved unworthy of her love ("a man can tell a thousand lies, I've learned my lesson well. Hope I live to tell the secret I have learned, 'til then it will burn inside of me"). This has some really beautiful lyrics and another example is "if I run away, I'd never have the strength to go very far. How would they hear the beating of my heart ?". Madonna tackles the theme of child abuse, a very brave move, as her lack of experience in this area of songs could have made the song fall flat on its face with the critics. Music-wise, the strong snare drum adds drama to the track, but this quality is most well provided by the synth strings and electric piano, with heavy metal guitar adding twists of style in tightly controlled doses. Another very compelling ballad, it is surprising to learn that it was recorded from a single take onto a demo (producer Pat Leonard says you can hear the lyrics sheet in Madonna's hand rustle faintly, though I can't quite make that out) - done this way because of the shy, naive, raw and yet powerful delivery by Madonna. It is well worth a listen, and especially since it is one of Madonna's earliest ballads. It is very important in the history of Madonna's musical progression and recognition by others as a serious artist. To this date, the song remains shrouded in mystery but it was the song that made other musicians join in the worldwide fever for this exciting new star. The song is a complete antithesis to her previous songs about love and sex. It was haunting and dark and instead of the customary shrill bubbles resonating from Madonnas vocal cords, we hear a deep, measured, plaintive sound that only makes the world even more astounded by the new object of their affections. Could Madonna be more than just a sexy pop tart with great dance songs and Marilyn Monroe aspirations?? Could she actually be a great singer/songwriter? America hadn't seen a great female singer/songwriter who was also a star. Carole King decades ago, Joni Mitchell wrote but rarely troubled the summit of the worlds pop charts. And here was Madonna, showing the potential of being all things to everyone.
Where's The Party is a song with a theme of staying young, despite working for a living, by partying. Madonna said this song was inspired by a her statement 'where's the party?' which she used to say when she felt that work, The Press and life in general was getting too stressful and she remembered that she was supposed to be having a good time. It is nice and bouncy, but routine (with a standard Madonna arrangement of drum machine, synth and clattering rhythm), until the last part, where Madonna trots out with, "we can make it all right, we can make you dance, we can make a party last all night" at high speed and repeated, which adds a really nice touch to the song, and there is a final twist of humour right at the end - something Madonna does nowadays quite often. This is not one for listening to too closely. If you've having a party, and want to dance, well you know what to do!
The title track True Blue, written in the style of early Sixties girl group pop (and a love song for new husband Sean, apparently based on a favourite saying of his) is actually in my opinion one of the weaker tracks on the album. It is too sugary, too I-love-you, for my taste: e.g. the chorus - "true love, you're the one I'm, dreamin' of, your heart fits me, like a glove, and I'm gonna be, true blue, baby, I love you" - ugh! But maybe that's a boy thing and you soppy girls will like it!! The music is in fast compound time and makes use of a doo-wop chord sequence, but the rhymes are too predictable and the tone is saccharine overdose! Not surprisingly, it was a hit (*rolling his eyes as he writes this*). The only moment of interest is when a bass coutermelody starts in the second chorus. Generally, this song wasn't up to being the title track, but hey, that's what true blue love does to ya!
Madonna gets right back on track with La Isla Bonita. Madonna's love affair with all things Spanish is clearly evident - many years before Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez and the new Latino sound. Originally written with Michael Jackson in mind (can you imagine that?! Good job he turned it down!), this is a real beauty, as Madonna reminisces about a beautiful tropical island (inspired by the mythical Spanish island of San Pedro) she once went to and the love she found there. The conga-littered intro ushers us quicker than the sweep of a flamenco dancer's skirt and the click of castanets into Madonna's tale of balmy romance. A real classic Madonna track and one of the gems of the album. A health warning, though: this is not one to listen to after your boss has told you that you can't have any leave, scuppering your vacation plans to the Seychelles, or wherever. It'll make you feel sick! Maybe play it on a cold wet afternoon in the city for some well-deserved escapism..."just like I'd never gone, I knew the song" - er ahem! Moving swifty on...
...we come to Jimmy Jimmy. Maybe we should have staying in San Pedro! This is a very lightweight song. It's about how Madonna had a crush on a young tearaway (inspired by Jimmy Dean, whom she actually had a crush on as a girl and whom she fantasised lived in her neighbourhood and moved away to be a big star), who leaves the small ol' town for Vegas, and how she wished she'd told him she loved him, but that it's too late now. More allusions to Jimmy Dean are in the way the boy smashes up his new car, but the waywardness of the male character could also be applied to hubby Sean! "Oop shoo boop oop oop sha la la", she sings like a lovesick teenage girl - ugh!
Love Makes The World Go Round is a song written for the Live Aid concert, where Madonna put on a performance of stunning, almost epic standards. The song itself is about pain, poverty and war and how we should fight them - pretty standard charity stuff - but the live performance was something out of this world. The bouncy tune and Latin carnival feel (accentuated with Latin American drums and samba synth bass) prevent the song from being depressing and some of the lyrics are catchy, like: "make love, not war, we say" (hear, hear!) and some are spot-on as well: "don't judge a man 'til you've been standing in his shoes, you know that we're all so quick to look away, 'cos it's the easy thing to do". We see in this song, as in Papa Don't Preach, Madonna the campaigner, for the first time. Bravo, Madonna. However, at best the song is average and not a particularly inspired way of ending the album.
RatingNot a bad effort overall - I think the title track was ill-advised and the album is generally of patchy quality with some dud/filler songs. This may have led to the under-rating of this album by critics and fans alike, but there are four awesome songs here and it certainly didn't stall in sales, which were HUGE. The unfortunate feel of the album is great potential mixed with commercialism and there is little cohesiveness between the different songs on this album. Despite this, Madonna shows great promise as a star AND a songwriter here and therefore, I will award her a deserved 7/10.
� Josh Deb Barman, Topman, Rikky Rooksby 2000