The Look of Madonna

( The official album cover) Welcome back on Blogger! Earlier this year I started a series dedicated to Madonna's peers with my review for Cyndi Lauper's debut album She's so Unusual.  It's now time to add another piece to the series and review the iconic Please by the British duo Pet Shop Boys (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe). Let's get right into this article! HISTORY A synthpop record, Please was released on March 24, 1986. It was preceded by two singles, the smash hit West End Girls, released in the fall of 1985, and Love Comes Quickly, which came out in February 1986. Two more singles, Opportunities and Suburbia, were released to promote the album in May and September respectively.  Please was an original release at the time, as the heavily electronic and dance nature of the songs was accompanied by socially conscious lyrics. This would eventually become the main characteristic of Pet Shop Boys' music. Also Neil Tennant's supposed bi...

Welcome back on Blogger!  This is a different article, more about my own interpretation of Madonna's music. I'm going to discuss Madonna's career and how it can be divided into trilogies, how her life and career have always gone hand in hand and how she progresses with every new release artistically and personally.  Every trilogy has a defined theme, intent, coherence and story.  Let's jump into this article! The "Pop Queen" Trilogy This trilogy includes Madonna's first three albums ( Madonna, Like a Virgin, True Blue). During this era Madonna was at the peak of her pop sensibility. She was able to blend artistic depth and commercialism, she became a fashion icon and a visual artist. With every album she added something new to her status of "Pop Queen". Madonna was about her love for dance-pop music, Like a Virgin took that type of music and gave it an irresistible aesthetic, True Blue took both things and added concepts,...

( Album artwork by Herb Ritts) Welcome back on Blogger! The day has finally arrived and we are going to get right into it!  " You can dance, you can dance if you want to....get into the groove".  You Can Dance was released on November 17, 1987 and it was Madonna's first remix album.  Initially she was not so keen on hearing remixed versions of her songs, as she thought people drastically changed them, erasing her original vision: " I hate it when people do master mixes of my records. I don't want to hear my songs changed like that". For this reason Madonna decided to remix some of her songs by herself. With the help of Patrick Leonard and John "Jellybean" Benitez, she took six songs from her previous three studio albums ( Holiday, Everybody, Physical Attraction, Into The Groove, Over and Over, Where's The Party) plus one unreleased demo from the " True Blue"  sessions ( Spotlight) and remixed them all in a dance ...