Madonna ~ I'm Breathless . . . . .

Madonna's album I'M BREATHLESS, music from and inspired by the film DICK TRACY, was an album i owned and treasured as a child.

Moreover, it featured Vogue on it.

Did you like it? Do you like it?

her voice sounded so nice on this

My sis played this all the time. I've no interest in owning it, but I've always liked "Hanky Panky" as decent second-tier Madonna (e.g. "Causing a Commotion," "Gambler," "What It Feels Like For a Girl").

my favourite Madonna album.

but I havent hearfdit in years... I did watch Dick Tracy recently and the songs actually form the film stand up.

it s wonder why Madonna hasn't done more Sondheim material. especially as the Disco destroyer look isn't cutting it anymore.

i have only heard a handful of songs off this but obv "vogue" is classic and i'll rep for "something to remember" in a limited kind of way. i still don't know why she named her ballads collection after that song years later.

so true xp

funnily enough the song i'm listening to right now is "back in business"

you put me back, back in business

She did a decent enough job writing her own fake Sondheim material too.

One of only three Madonna albums that I ever actually physically owned (along with the Immaculate Collection and Erotica).

Hanky Panky scandalized my young mind.

^^^ live video was o_O to 16yo snoball

love "sooner or later" - madonna can always pull off the sexual predator so convincingly: "I always get my man"; with the willpower she exudes and the string of famous men she was linked to at the time, could anyone doubt her?

Plus it has maybe her best performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REGAJ6JmMrI
kinda endearing that despite all that command and chutzpa she's so nervous that her hand is visibly shaking at 2:20.

that performance just made me cry

"Vogue" shouldn't count really.

I think "Something to Remember" is fantastic. I wish she still did ballads in this classicist vein (see also "This Used To Be My Playground", "Take A Bow" obv - in fact the comp Something to Remember is really great generally).

Used to love this as a child but I think if I listened again I would gravitate towards "Sooner or Later", not sure if "More", "Back In Business", "Now I'm Following You" etc would really appeal nowadays.

Then there's the Warren Beatty vocal.

For the record, this is the first "A" that Christgau ever assigns Madonna:

I'm Breathless [Sire/Warner Bros., 1990]

There are no doubt hundreds of frustrated chorines who could sing the three Sondheim originals "better" than the most famous person in the world. But with its pedigree of wit and musicality, show-tune pop-schlock sure beats the direct-to-Vegas power ballads with which she's heretofore betrayed her dance-rock roots. Especially when she writes it herself--except for the "Material Girl"-inspired "More," the Sondheim tunes are fussy and genteel (with Mandy Patinkin's "well-sung" cameo the nadir), but such fake period pieces as "Cry Baby," "He's a Man," and the risque s&m-lite "Hanky Panky" are all her. This is a woman whose great gift is for the mask. Camp isn't everything she can do, but she sure knows how to do it right. A

I thought it was a surprising "A", but he was so clearly infactuated by her at this point.

...giving "Music" a few years later an A though was a total fuck up.

i tend to agree with that review, tho. clearly a smart move for her, in terms of image -- a sort of safe ground that, like alfred said, she could def stand to return to. and all the while she isn't taking herself too seriously on this album, which is key.

and besides any idea of image, in its humor, it seems to tap into some serious soul for her, and lets her sink into her voice.

I've never liked "Vogue" and I've never understood what's so great about it.

Solid dance groove, a vocal as good as any by your favorite house act, shrewd catchphrases. The problem with "Vogue" was its ubiquity. Only in the last few years have I rediscovered it.

I suppose we can call this peak of Madonna's Imperial Phase, after her '87 slump.

yea the vocal production on vogue is super clean

Expansive. What a great record for a 12-year-old me to discover on pop radio. ("Why are they playing this disco music?" type thing.)

So weirdly pastiche-y for Sondheim and so good!

I just heard on "He's a Man" for the first time in, wow, sixteen years. It holds up well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq2d69JcIuo

i was not your woman, i was not your friend, but you gave me
something to remember

no other man said love yourself
we weren't meant to be
at least not in this lifetime

but you gave me
something to remember

Love that song.

Just reflecting at the moment upon the fact that 'Hanky Panky' was a song played on the radio in 1990. That actually happened.