MADONNA – "Who's That Girl"

It’s years since I listened to any of the singles, but the ones that are getting the least effusive write-ups here – this, La Isla Bonita and True Blue – were my favourites of the big Madonna hits. The slight air of the shoulder-shrug about them, the fact that they were by Madonna’s standards positively diffident, made them seem that much more attractive to a 16/17-year-old indie kid that the more strident and insistent songs that have entered into the modern pop canon. When the WTG? soundtrack album was released, I bumped into the local hardcore punk lad (he later became a guitarist in God) on the train home from Windsor. He had an Our Price bag, and when I asked what was in it, he produced the soundtrack album. Loved this song, he said, and couldn’t get enough of it.

“Dear Jessie” is the secret highlight of Like A Prayer.

Every song I know titled ‘Who’s That Girl’ I like and this is no exception. Unremarkable but a comfortable enough 7 as I’d never not be happy to hear it. Didn’t comment on her previous #1 but no serious objections to La Isla Bonita either – the context issue is of no real interest to me as it was such a decent “tribute”. Prefer both to ‘True Blue’. Her next topper tho, a whole new level…

@Tom: You don’t hear Causing a Commotion as an inferior Into the Groove rewrite?

I don’t think you can separate the “Latin period” Madonna from the 1987 Miami sound. In the US we had hits by Expose and Company B and Lisa Lisa. Who’s That Girl fit right in, but the other groups’ records were better.

In terms of acting ability, Madonna was never going to make that dent in Hollywood she so clearly craved at the time. Who’s That Girl casts Madonna alongside Griffin Dunne and neither of them could poosibly challenge Katherine Hepburn or Cary Grant. Punctum cites WTG as a rehash of After Hours, where I remember it as more of a rehash of Bringing Up Baby (for leopard insert cougar). No matter, it’s a paper thin movie with little to recommend it.

The title song however is a continuation of “Latin Period” Madonna’s acknowledgment of Miami-based latin pop. Less a movement than a mere distraction over here. Miami Sound Machine had been successful with Dr Beat off the excellent Eyes Of Innocence album, and followed with a steady procession of hits. I don’t recall Lisa Lisa or Expose for that matter troubling the upper reaches of the chart all that often, but all were dancefloor staples until the homogenising effects of Chicago and Detroit made Miami somewhat pale by comparison.

So this is Madonna shoehorning her new single onto the film soundtrack and persuading the producers to rename it. I understand the working title was “Slammer”. Ah, well business is business after all. WTG’s skip-along and airy arrangement doesn’t make it as engaging as “The Look Of Love” or as danceable as “Causing A Commotion”, but it stands up by itself, but we’re really just marking time until her next chart topper…

I once wrote something on The Hits That Madonna Forgot, the two [i]Who’s That Girl[/i] megahits among them. “Who’s That Girl” didn’t even appear on a comp until last year’s [i]Celebration[/i], while “Causing a Commotion” is still missing (#2 for three weeks in the US, in case you wondered).

While I agree with you that this is a mediocre, filler number one, I do think you seriously underestimate ‘The Look Of Love’. That song is a clear prelude to Like A Prayer in my opinion. A very classy, understated affair which is unfortunately forgotten due to its (relatively) low chart placing and lack of a proper video. The lyrics are unusually soul-searching and the melody atypically mournful for a soundtrack album stuffed with generic mid-80s cheese.

Consider the final bridge. There’s definitely more going on here than a tossed-off third single for a side project.

[i]All the books I’ve read
and the things I know
Never taught me to live
Never taught me to let go…[/i]

One of her most underrated tracks if you ask me.

Agree with Tom’s review: WTG rewrites La Isla Bonita to even less effect.

Agree with thefatgat,12, that the film principally rewrites Bringing Up Baby. I’d add just that it includes a big helping of the early ’70s, Streisand-vehicle, rewrite of BUB; What’s up Doc? (Which managed to keep its question-mark!)

The great movie around this time with somewhat similar themes was Something Wild (it has the original version of New Order’s Temptation on its soundtrack IIRC). There was kind of a direct like-for-like comparison of Melanie Griffith in that film with Madonna in WTG. Yikes.

Anyhow, it’s certainly become part of M.’s charm that she’s incredibly hard-working, is willing to fall on her butt like this (having your ass handed to you by K. Hepburn, Streisand, and Griffith simultaneously – nice!), but *shall* return triumphant. What a gal.

Lastly, the silver screen remix of Causing a Commotion is *incredible* (so aerobic!).

I don’t mind this so much – perhaps it’s lack of familiarity makes it seem (marginally) fresher than LIB.
The video is a mediocre mess of sentiment (kids) and movie marketing. What strikes me is how young Madonna appears.
As regards her movie career I once did a case study of Madonna’s movies in a Film Studies class and came to the conclusion that her acting ‘method’ consisted of getting a different hair style.

re17 As a Prince fan I went to see ‘Under the Cherry Moon’ at the cinema when it came out but I suspect that even WTG would have more merit.

@13: I think she’s incredibly emotive at her best, both as a songwriter and interpreter – Papa Don’t Preach is the perfect example.

Perhaps further proof is the fact that there are virtually NO good Madonna covers – for example:

The original of Open Your Heart in Spanish – vocally hammy, production generic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kC5SwKycM4

Alizee’s bored-to-tears take on La Isla Bonita, an inexplicable number-two hit in France: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZlgNj-rIxw

Hardly comprehensive, but in comparison Madonna’s skill becomes much more obvious.

This must be one of the most consensual threads we’ve had for a long time. This is the first instance of Madonna taking her eye off the ball musically (see also most of the 90s). Having said that I really love that synthetic brass line that cuts in after the first line of the second verse and still anticipate it with a thrill whenever the song’s played on the radio.

I agree that “The Look Of Love” is the best of the trio but it’s still an inferior re-hash of “Live To Tell”

#23 Probably chasing Uncle Disgusting away or snacking on a Ruddy Big Pig !

@MikeMCSG,23. Surely the ’90s were pretty solid for M.: The whole Ray of Light album’s great, some of Bedtime Stories is great and all of it’s solid, and Erotica’s patchy but intriguing (my sense is that it’s kind of grown on people though various remixes and as the literal over-exposure of the Sex book with which it was associated at the time has faded out of memory – that’s certainly been the case with me). Beyond that, Vogue, Justify my love, Beautiful Stranger and the Evita tunes… Put all of that together, and in my view you’ve got a superstar-decade-to-be-reckoned-with.

Mike, what you’re describing is a classic case of “difficult 2nd/3rd album syndrome” where the creative momentum stalls and only the most successful artists can gain top commercial returns on what is effectively dreck. It’s then down to the artist in question to get their creative mojo back, possibly winning new fans in the process.

@24 ’90s Madonna was really great! Her so-called “90s slump” consists entirely of Evita. Erotica is easily my favourite Madonna album and Bedtime Stories is really underrated (we discussed it a bit on the “La Isla Bonita” thread). Evita was a misstep (but more because it was unexpectedly reverent than an actual disaster). And then every one of her 1998-2005 albums has at least a few songs that are up there with the best of her ’80s work.

This is really pretty ordinary stuff, and as I’m not as enamoured of M. as most of you I can’t rouse myself to more than a 4. Possibly even a 3 if I were feeling uncharitable, but not today.

Billy @13, that certainly chimes with my own feelings about ’86-’87 Madonna, then and now.

#22 – Madonna covers all crap? AHEM – Ciccone Youth “Into the Groovey”, almost as good as the original.

Another decent Madonna cover is “Borderline” by Stardeath and White Dwarfs, who supported the Flaming Lips back in November. It was really quite amusing seeing the gradual realisation on the faces of the crowd.

“Burning Up” is OK though.

@36 – just youtubed this and it’s nowhere near as good as the Lips’ own version they’ve been flogging for years (skip to 1:15 in http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/media/s2665913.htm for one rather ragged radio take)

Unexceptional Madonna, yes, but unexceptional Madonna is still pretty good by most standards.

What I wanted to touch on here was something Punctum alluded to in the first post on this thread – “was she that worried about Gloria Estefan?” It’s only when catching the BBC4 documentary on “Latin Music USA” a few Friday nights ago that I realised what a breakthrough Hispanic music was making at that time – MSM obviously, Los Lobos (the next number one, now de-bunnied) … but also a singer who had been a total black hole in my knowledge until that evening, name of Selena.

Selena won the Best Female Vocalist award at the Tejano Music Awards (we’d know the style as Tex-Mex) in 1987 and dominated the category for the next seven years. In February 1995 she played to an audience of 65,000 at the Houston Astrodome, and just over a month later – 15 years ago tomorrow, in fact, as I write – she was shot dead by the president of her fan club following a row over its finances. NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw described her as “The Mexican Madonna” and indeed Madonna was among those who phoned Selena’s family to express condolences. Her funeral drew as big a crowd as the Astrodome gig, and the Governor of Texas – one George W Bush – declared her birthday “Selena Day”.

Back in 1987, her breakthrough year, the idea of a majorly successful singer known by a single Latin name cannot have been lost on Ms Ciccone, who was ever skilful at keying into the latest hot topic and applying it to her own music. But do other British Popular readers find Selena a mystifying absence in their pop knowledge?

@lonepilgrim. It’s being reported that it was Glee’s creator Ryan Murphy who approached M. with the ‘whole show’ idea.

On one level, of course, this idea just continues trends towards particular-artist singstar/guitarhero/rock star games. On another level, however, the thing with Madonna does feel special: it isn’t just her *music* in the show, it’s all the various characters being inspired/obsessed by her, and finding things in the music that resonate weirdly with them. And that only works because M’s had such a long career at the top (or close enough to it) that she’s had time to pick up so many different resonances/meanings for people.

Glee could do whole shows on other people – most obviously, perhaps, Elvis, Beatles, The Who, Abba, Michael Jackson but also contemporary people like Beyonce and Gaga – and in many of those cases it would probably be a strictly musical upgrade. But I’m a little shocked myself to realize the extent to which Madonna has had a breadth of cultural impact over a very long period that’s currently unrivaled, so that I don’t in fact see a whole show obsessively about any other artist being able to work the way ‘The Power of Madonna’ did. That said, there could be other musical special event shows that would be fun for specific audiences. E.g., I could imagine Bowie or Morrissey&Marr having some role in an ep. as visiting cool teachers or whatever, and then this being used as jumping off point to explore their magnificent songbooks. I’d love that, and it would be great for the show, but I think that that would be more like the theater geek stuff on the show with Kristin Cronenweth and Idina Menzel guest starring and singing – much of Glee’s audience doesn’t know who they are and the characters on the show don’t – than like the true Madonnarama/hysteria we’ve just seen.

Goddamn I hate Glee. STOP RUINING MY FAVOURITE SONGS, UGH.

⌗44 thanks swan, according to Wikipedia M gave permission in 2009 for the show to use her entire catalogue which backs up punctum’s point @45 .

As much as I’d like to see a Bowie special I think they’d struggle to create a coherent narrative from his lyrics. Maybe Fame, ‘Heroes’ & Let’s Dance would fit the bill – but a bigger problem is that I doubt that he’s on the musical radar of the kids who make up the core audience.

I agree with swanstep when he says’ that I don’t in fact see a whole show obsessively about any other artist being able to work the way ‘The Power of Madonna’ did’.

@49, punctum. Maybe a few more than that: at least space oddity, ziggy, fame, heroes, young americans, let’s dance are known/recognized by everyone, but it’s true that Bowie never reached the true popular stratosphere in the US that Led Zep or Elton John did.