More promotional articles on ‘Holiday’ have been added to The First Album page (press and adverts tab).
‘This is the story of Beauty and the Bullet – the first single from the star of the ’80s’ according to R&R Magazine in 1983, guess they forgot about ‘Everybody’ and ‘Burning Up’
More coming up.
Madonna covers the February 2021 edition of ‘Polo Lifestyles’ magazine.
You can view the digital magazine online and / or order a hard copy HERE
The promotion for Madonna’s third single ‘Holiday’ from her debut album continued as this article was published in R&R Magazine on September 23, 1983.
They write about her music video directed by Steve Barron, which was ‘Burning Up’, however they refer to the ‘Holiday’ single. Who knows, maybe Steve Barron was planned to shoot the ‘Holiday’ video too.
We all know there never was a music video for ‘Holiday’ and TV performances were used to promote the track instead (mostly TOTP UK and Solid Gold USA.)
The article has been added to our The First Album page.
And really the unique thing about Madonna was how she rose to fame so rapidly and really tapped into culturally what was going on, especially with ‘Material Girl’. I mean, ‘Material Girl’ summed up the era. It was a materialistic age where everyone was spending. It was Dynasty, it was shoulder pads. It was bling.
There was a lot to say with those songs. With most, we tried to do as much as possible within the music videos that were available to us was to stretch them out across, tell the whole career story. But on occasions where we were limited, we found other ways of doing it.
With Madonna, I love the story of the songwriter of ‘Like A Virgin’ who finally got to meet her and was brushed off immediately.
That’s my favourite as well. I mean, it’s so telling, isn’t it?
I know. It’s like, ‘Ouch, that’s cold’. And so, I assume you intentionally didn’t approach the artists themselves to participate? It seems that you wanted their stories, but not as told by them?
Yes, that’s right. Because a bit like with Abba, getting the musicians to tell the tale, you get the real story. The problem is the moment you involve the artist, generally what tends to happen is they want to steer your editorial down a path that then just becomes a big advert for them. Whereas I think what you get in these shows is you get the real stories. You get the people who really knew them and tell it like it is.
Full article at SBS
New (old) article added to The First Album page (press tab)
Madonna’s first two singles (Everybody + Burning Up) had just been released and there was a lot of promo coming up for the album’s third single ‘Holiday’.
The article is from R&R Magazine and was published on September 2, 1983.
More coming up!
People notice Madonna. This would’ve been the case whether or not she ever got famous. There are tons of stories about people meeting Madonna before she ascended to stardom, and that’s because people have always remembered her. Some people radiate self-assurance so powerfully that they change the chemistry of the air whenever they walk into a room. That’s Madonna, and that’s how Madonna has always liked it. If someone does not notice Madonna, it’s a problem. That problem is the story of “Open Your Heart.”
The entire message of “Open Your Heart,” one of the best singles in a career full of great ones, is this: No. Fuck you. You will love me. The song’s narrator seems to be lost, spiraling, because this guy she likes can’t pull his head out of his ass long enough to notice that Madonna is right there, looking at him. That ignorance seems to be a source of great frustration for Madonna’s narrator. It also seems to be a turn-on. “I follow you around, but you can’t see! You’re too wrapped up in your-selllf to no-tiiiice!” This cannot stand.
It’s not that the poor chump in the song doesn’t like Madonna. It’s that he doesn’t even seem to realize he has any kind of a shot. Madonna realizes this: “I think that you’re afraid to look in my eyes/ You look a little sad, boy, I wonder why.” I’ve been this fucking guy so many times in my life, and maybe that’s why “Open Your Heart” strikes such a deep chord for me. “Open Your Heart” is a truly masterful pop song, a glittering example of what you can do with keyboards and congas and funky little guitar-ripples. But it’s also a beautiful image of a determined woman bulldozing her way through someone’s life-killing anxieties. “Don’t try to resist me,” Madonna sings. It’s a command.
While ‘Island’ magazine (October 1983) is notorious for being Madonna’s first ever magazine cover, Madonna actually appeared on the cover of a magazine before.
Though not a full feature cover, one of her press images appears on the November 27 1982 edition of Dance Music Report.
Madonna’s debut single ‘Everybody’ was featured the Breakouts featurette under ‘Sales’.
This has been added to our The First Album page.
Much more on the way!
Official and original promotional pictures for Madonna’s debut album are extremely hard to find. These were sent out by the record company to promote the artist.
Various promotional shots were used to promote Madonna and her debut album and we have added a few of them to our ‘The First Album’ page HERE.
Pictured here are from the USA, UK, Germany and Italy.
This is one of the earliest articles on Madonna that appeared in the Dutch media. This article is from Hitkrant (April 7 1984) and has been added to ‘The First Album’ page HERE
Translation:
‘I want to be a star’ says MADONNA. The singer is willing to give it her all. Because Madonna not only knows what she wants, she goes and does it too….
Once Madonna wants something, she is determined to make it happen! The polite England dislikes her for her boundless ambition and attitude, but the star from New York knows her business! She is a hit in the charts, played the leading role in ‘Visionquest’ and made a name for herself as a dancer. Not bad for a girl from the backstreets of New York. How did Madonna accomplish all this?
‘I sang and played the guitar in a club in New York’ says the sexy singer. ‘I wanted to become famous and to reach that goal I needed a good manager. I thought: ‘who is the most succesful artist in the music industry and who’s his manager? I need him.” The answer was Michael Jackson and his former manager Freddie De Mann. Madonna got him and under his wings she was famous instantly. Nothing stands in the way of a glorious carreer now. Especially now that Nile Rodgers will be producing her next record. Because THAT is what Madonna wants.
Madonna does what she wants!
When this article appeared in the weekly Hitkrant ‘Holiday’ was becoming a big hit in The Netherlands and climbed from number 17 to number 12 in its 4th week in the official Dutch Top 40. Her debut album climbed from number 46 to 39 in its third week.
Stay tuned for MANY articles to come!
With museums around the world closed and no opening date in sight for many, one silver lining – for film-makers at least – is their availability for shooting purposes. This week FKA Twigs released a video, co-directed with Emmanuel Adjei, to accompany her new single (a collaboration with the rapper Headie One). Making a notable appearance in the video for ‘Don’t Judge Me’ is Kara Walker’s Fons Americanus, the 13-metre-tall fountain that was installed in the Tate’s Turbine Hall in 2019, and which Walker has described as an ‘allegory of the Black Atlantic’. There are clear thematic links between the sculpture and the song, which tackles racism in contemporary society.
Open Your Heart (1986); Vogue (1990)
Madonna
Tamara de Lempicka’s art deco nudes appear in a host of Madonna’s music videos from the 1980s and ’90s – whether adorning the exterior of a club in ‘Open Your Heart’ or propped on easels in ‘Vogue’. And in fact the pop star is such a fan that she has acquired a number of De Lempicka’s paintings for her own art collection.
A short music video barely two minutes in length is gaining traction among netizens as it skewers China’s alleged attempts at acquiring the Grande and Chiquita Islands in Zambales and Fuga Island in Aparri.
The video shows the islands set to the music of Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” with a woman singing Filipino lyrics that portray China as being enamored of the three islands, then swooping in to steal them from a country that has been enjoying a time of peace and optimism.
The video then calls out China for poaching territory from its neighbors. It is still unknown who produced the video, but it seemed to touch a nerve among netizens who left comments on social media agreeing with the video’s allegations.
One user on the “Justice for Sale” Facebook page, where the music video was posted, said that “it’s true that China is stealing islands from the Philippines.” Another commenter claimed that China “has been achieving progress by using the resources of the Philippines.”China’s sincerity in helping out the Philippines was questioned by another commenter, who said China would be welcome here “if they were sincere in their desire to help,” but warned them of “attempting to hoodwink the Filipino people.
”It is unknown if the Chinese embassy is aware of the video or the netizens’ comments over it.
The “Las Isla Bonita” video appeared online after reports that a Chinese-owned company, Sanya CEDF Sino-Philippine Investment Corp., proposed in 2019 to develop and operate Grande and Chiquita Islands in Zambales in a $298 million (P14 billion) project partnership with local firm GFTG Property Holdings.
The deal was put on hold by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, which oversees Grande and Chiquita Islands, after seeing “some problems” that would violate the Philippine Constitution.
Read full article at Manila Standard
KENJI WAKASUGI
In January 1985, Madonna went to Japan for the first time to promote her infamous Like a Virgin album. At just 27-years old, she was already well on her way to becoming an international sensation and style icon. Meanwhile, Japanese photographer Kenji Wakasugi was given a dream assignment for a local publication: a 45-minute studio sesh with the star, armed only with his camera, one flash unit and a single piece of furniture—a pink, plastic-covered sofa. What transpired was an up-close, personal and captivating photoshoot that fully represented Madonna at that time, right down to her legendary fashion including early Gauthier and Westwood pieces, Maripol designed crucifix jewelry, Boy Toy belt buckle and Healthy Swimmer crop top. Although Wakasugi’s photos were never published, kept in a private collection for over 30 years, they’ve now been released for the limited-edition art book, Adore, available on January 25.
KENJI WAKASUGI (NJG)Representing both a visual time capsule and a collector’s item, Adore is a 200-page homage to Madonna that combines the raw images of the young performer – reclining on the sofa, playfully dancing, or candidly staring into the lens – with those of Wakasugi’s own bustling, 1980s nocturnal world. These photographs are punctuated by his depiction of Japanese motifs, a contradiction of culture and nature often seen in his work. The design, including the aqua cover and bold black title, further emphasize his nod to 80s Japanese minimalism.
There are only 800 copies available in print, so if Madonna fans want to get their hands on this one, they should definitely save the date.
Available exclusively at njgstudio.com on January 25
More at ELLE Canada
All photographs courtesy Kenji Wakasugi.
To find new words to describe the importance of Madonna Louise Ciccone is a nearly impossible task. That’s why a photo book tells you all you need. The inimitable rebel energy of Madonna is on display in Adore Madonna, a new photo book by the Japanese photographer Kenji Wakasugi (out today on NJG). The monograph contains never-before-seen images from a 45-minute shoot in 1985 for Playboy Weekly Excite during her Madgesty’s first visit to Japan, commemorating the success of her breakthrough album Like a Virgin.
Adore Madonna is a testament to the everlasting power of the Queen of Pop, not only as a musical supernova but also as a symbol of fame, self-empowerment, and sexual liberation, as she models Vivienne Westwood, Jean-Paul Gaultier, and her signature bedazzled “boy toy” belt. The images captured that day by Wakasugi remind us that despite the passing of time, nobody does it like Madonna. “It is almost a miracle that 36 years later, they now became this art book,” the photographer told Interview. “There she was, inside my camera. Thank you, Madonna.” As all things related to the queen, the book is rare. There are only 800 limited-edition copies, with 100 featuring Wakasugi’s signature and a numbered digital print. Below, a few of the images from that fateful day in Tokyo, when Wakasugi captured a star in the early days of her journey to change the world.
In 1985, Madonna made her first-ever trip to Japan. She’d just released Like a Virgin, the follow-up album to her self-titled debut, with Nile Rodgers as a co-producer, and traveled to Tokyo to promote the record. For most fans of Madonna, this is likely the pop icon’s most identifiable era, especially visually speaking: teased hair, wedding dresses with fingerless gloves, references to Jean Paul Gaultier and Vivienne Westwood, the “Boy Toy” belt. And it was during this watershed moment that Playboy magazine tapped the photographer Kenji Wakasugi to shoot her.
The Osaka native was allotted 45 minutes with Madonna in a spare studio space, where he set up a pink couch covered in plastic and a flash unit—that was all in terms of props and equipment. There were no stylists, nor a glam team; Madonna came to the shoot wearing her own clothing (a bustier, Takara Kronoform robot watch, Maripol’s layered rubber and crucifix jewelry). As Wakasugi recalled, her energy and vibrant spirit did more than enough to fill the room.
“Madonna was very modest, had a great manner, and seemed powerful,” the photographer said. “I adored her smile.”
The contents of that promotional shoot, considered relatively bare bones at the time, are now enshrined in a limited-edition book named Adore, published by NJG. Adore not only contains never-before-seen outtakes from the photoshoot with Madonna, but it’s also bookended by more pictures Wakasugi took during the 1980s: images of neon street lights, floral motifs, and commuters darting through the streets of Tokyo evoke the mood of that time, and speak to the photographer’s tendency to capture culture meeting nature. One look at Wakasugi’s website—which is chock full of outdoor photography much more akin to Ansel Adams’s style than Steven Meisel’s—and you wouldn’t be blamed for expressing surprise that a guy like him was commissioned for a Madonna shoot. But the Tokyo Technical School of Photography graduate has also lensed the likes of Glenn Close, Richard Gere, and Hall & Oates over the course of his career.
His soft-focus touch and tendency to capture people in their most natural state comes through in the Madonna photographs. On set, Wakasugi recalled that he wasn’t able to communicate with the star further than a few words of encouragement, but her “vigorous” personality told him everything he needed to know. She was more than comfortable in front of the camera.
“I don’t speak English, and there was no translator, so there was no conversation,” he added. “I said ‘Great!’ ‘Beautiful!’ through each pose and movement she made. She was 100 percent ready for the shoot, so I was inspired and committed. Between Madonna and I, there was a spark throughout the session. There was no room or space between us.”
Choosing which images would be included in Adore led Wakasugi to revisit the Playboy photographs for the first time, thirty-five years after the fateful shoot took place. As he thumbed through the pictures of Madonna at the cusp of her prime, he said he “never imagined” they would someday become an art book.
“The shoot became a fusion and synthesis of west and east,” Wakasugi said. “Madonna and I [represented the United States and Japan.] And through this process, I discovered a new vision.”
More at W Magazine
‘Adore’ – last few copies remaining at njgstudio.com
The limited edition of 100 with print sold out quickly yesterday.
Get one of the only 700 ‘Adore’ books now, which is destined to become a very collectible piece!
Madonna’s Facebook page just mentioned that an HD version of the ‘Material Girl’ music video will be out this coming Wednesday!
The single was released in North American on this day back in 1985.
