Saturday, June 9, 2018

"Dress You Up" by Madonna

Top 10 Alert!
Song#:  2429
Date:  08/17/1985
Debut:  36
Peak:  5
Weeks:  16
Genre:  Dance-Pop



Pop Bits:  By this point in time, Madonna's second album Like a Virgin had already spawned three Top 10 hits and was still selling well hanging around the Top 20 of the album chart. A fourth single was planned and this track was selected for release. It debuted high inside the Top 40 and then quickly made its way up the chart to become her seventh Top 10 hit in a row. It also got to #3 Dance, #32 AC, and #64 R&B. It would be the final single released from the album. The associated video was a concert version of the song from Madonna's tour and it received an MTV Music Video award nomination for Best Choreography.

ReduxReview:  This was a solid choice for a single from the album. The dance track fell in line with the hits from her first album while melding well with her first two hits from Virgin. I thought it was a better song that her previous single, "Angel," and it sounded good on the radio. Looking at it within her catalog now, it's not one of her strongest songs and it wouldn't make the list of my favorite Madonna tracks. However, it's a fun little artifact from her early career.

ReduxRating:  6/10

Trivia:  Double Shot!  1) This song made the PMRC's famous "filthy fifteen" list. It was put on the list due to sexual content. Madonna was a prime target of Tipper Gore after she heard her daughter play the song. Gore would later state that pop culture is morally bankrupt and materialistic "and Madonna was the worst of all."  2) In addition to the songs for her Like a Virgin album, Madonna also contributed two new songs to the Vision Quest soundtrack, "Crazy for You" and "Gambler." Of course the film's producers wanted to get these songs out as singles, but Madonna's label was fearful of attention being drawn away from her album and saturating the market with competing singles. It was finally agreed upon to slot in "Crazy for You" following Virgin's first two singles. It was a good thing as the song sailed to #1, but they nixed turning "Gambler" into a single in the US and it wasn't even sent out for airplay. However, the song was released in many other countries and it did fairly well getting to #4 in the UK, #3 Italy, and #10 Australia. The song was solely written by Madonna. She had written several for her debut album and one for Like a Virgin. After this, any song she wrote had a co-writer. The lone exception was a 2007 charity single called "Hey You" that she wrote by herself.

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