The Immaculate Collection (Digital Booklet) by André Guedes

HOLIDAY

Produced by John “Jellybean” Benitez for Jellybean Productions Inc.

LUCKY STAR

Produced by Reggie Lucas for Kalisa Inc. 3

BORDERLINE

Produced by Reggie Lucas for Kalisa Inc.

LIKE A VIRGIN

Produced by Nile Rodgers for Nile Rodgers Productions, Inc.

MATERIAL GIRL

Produced by Nile Rodgers for Nile Rodgers Productions, Inc.

CRAZY FOR YOU

Produced by John “Jellybean” Benitez for Jellybean Productions Inc. 7

INTO THE GROOVE Produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray 8

LIVE TO TELL

Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard 9

PAPA DON’T PREACH Produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray 10

OPEN YOUR HEART Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard

LA ISLA BONITA

Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard 12

LIKE A PRAYER

Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard 13

EXPRESS YOURSELF Produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray 14

CHERISH

Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard 15

VOGUE

Produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone Executive Producer: Craig Kostich 16

JUSTIFY MY LOVE

Produced by Lenny Kravitz for Super Mouche Productions Associate Producer: André Betts 17

RESCUE ME

Produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone

“The Coolest Queen of White Heat”... “An outrageous blend of Little Orphan Annie, Margaret Thatcher and Mae West”... “Narcissistic, brazen, comic... the Goddess of the Nineties...” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s been said about Madonna since she arrived in 1983. The complete press file would probably yeild enough recyclable pulp to keep what’s left of the Amazon rain forest from the saw for several months. And yet, in all that ink and column inches, most of what’s been written has addressed the way she looks, acts, earns, and conduts her personal life. A breathless TIME cover story, for example, concluded with four pages devoted to Madonna’s comments on 22 pithy topics the magazine had chosen –everything from Fame and Feminity to Parents, Virginity, Catholicism and Belly Buttons. Apparently, TIME ’s editors didn’t think anyone cared to read what Madonna had to say about her specialty, the preeminent thing it is that she makes: Music. ¶ In the years since, the ensuing hoopla has further fogged the issue of Madonna’s music. It’s easy to forget that before her hit singles became Events, they were great records, the best of which hit pop´s cosmic G-spot, got a groove, and literally shook the world. Collected in one place and listened to as a body of work, those records 1) document the musi-

hot, the Police and Abba were cooling, and the marriage of New Wave and disco, hastily arranged by England’s New Romantics, was on the rocks. Onto this scene burst the two records that, by and large, invented what came to be called Dance Music: Shannon’s “Let The Music Play” and “Holiday.” The former turned the beat around with tough poly– rhythms, and the latter simply rocked-gently but insistently–with melodic sweetness and a “girl” playfully sending out party invites (“Everybody spread the word...we’re gonna have a celebration”). A synth burbles like some superfresh tributary of the Fountain of Youth and the girl, sexy and sure of herself, beckons us to “take one day out of life” ‘cause we need that holiday, “Oh yeah, oh yeah.” It’s irresistible pop, and easily one of the most persuasive Let’s-get-lost songs ever sung. “Holiday” and the string of Madonna dance classics that followed–1984’s sinewy, and astro-bodied “Lucky Star” and “Borderline” (at Number Ten, her last single not to go Top Five) and 1985’s 12-inch anthem, “Into the Groove”–virtually defined the Eighties’s emerging sound. It was black-rooted, dressed sharp in custom production, physically attractive. “Star” and “Groove” and “Dress You Up” and the rest forced radio to devise a whole new format to accommodate them (“Hot” or “Power” Radio, depending on where you listened). As Power flowered, the arrival of each new Dance Music hitmaker raised audience expectations about the genre’s prime mover and shaker: what would Madonna do next? ¶ Her first Number One single, crowned the third week of November ‘84, gave an unequivocal answer. “Like A Virgin” shocked some, intrigued others, and succeeded so thoroughly as an across-the-board pop smash (six weeks at the top) that it rendered the whole competition issue moot. From now on,

cal career-in-progress of an artist with an uncommon capacity for growth and

this “shiny and new”, coolly understated single announced, Madonna records

change, and 2) sound as good as, and often immeasurably better, than ever.

would confound all expectations, including those set by previous Madonna re-

¶ The party started officially in October 1982, when Sire Records released a

cords. Like “Material Girl.” The infectious, neo-Blue Beat romp resembles no

12-inch of “Everybody.” (Those who choose to see Madonna as a self-image

other Madonna music before or since. Here, she comes on at once coquettish

mongerer might be surprised to learn that her likeness doesn’t even appear on

and self-determined, hence tantalizingly unreadable. With probably explains

the sleeve os this first record.) It wasn’t until almost a year later that Madon-

the intense heat the disc drew once it hit (i.e., considerably more than Ran-

na really “broke”, with the joyous “Holiday.” Cougar and Culture Club were

dy Newman’s unmistakably facetious “Short People” encoutered a few years

earlier). What to make of “Material Girl”’s bucks-based dialectic? It’s anyo-

“Like A Prayer” Takes You There. ¶ Madonna has called “Express Yourself”

ne’s guess, but we ought to note that by the third verse she’s counting her

a tribute to Sly & The Family Stone, and it’s surely her deepest sould dig

wealth in “experience”, and that the end toward which she’s been justifying

since “Lucky Star.” “You don’t need diamond rings/Or 18 carat gold”, the one-

her means turns out to be pretty benign and thoroughly pop: Boy Attraction

-time Material Girl sings, recommending truth and self-respect (“Don’t go

(“and now they’re after me”). Roots bonus: when she chirps “That’s right!”

for second best, baby”) as infinitely better investments. “Cherish”, the third

and “No way” on the second and fourth verses, she sounds uncannily like

single from LIKE A PRAYER , simply swings. Credit Madonna’s sunlit

Lou Christie fading on “Two Faces Have I” (1963). ¶ “Material”’s unlikely

vocal and valentine lyrics. The Shirelles and Chiffons never had benefit of

follow-up, the VISION QUEST ballad “Crazy For You” that Madonna tre-

a better couplet than “Romeo and Juliet/They never felt this way I bet.” A

ats with exceptional tenderness and a tinge of Country, presages a quartet of

true tonic, “Cherish” bounces along as if it had the power to lift the darkest

innovative, radiantly sung singles from her underrated 1986 TRUE BLUE

heart. If there’s ever a sucessor to YOU CAN DANCE (the seamless-

album. She had a hand in writting all four highly dissimilar tracks. “La Isla

ly segued anthology of Madonna dance mixes from ‘87), “Cherish” belongs

Bonita” is as light and wistful as “Open Your Heart” is taut and determined. Both pivot from the subtlest of hooks into killer choruses, the former swelling and ebbing like some Tropic tide, the latter driving like hard rain: “Don’t try to run”, she warns the unresponsive guy of her dreams, “I can keep up with you...” While the majestic “Like A Prayer” dwarfs it for sheer scope, “Papa Don’t Preach” certainly ranks as one of Madonna’s most compelling dramatic performances. She flat-out sells the songs–from the inside–in a way that would have been unthinkable a year earlier. A new maturity is evident too in “Live To Tell.” Her voice, full with loss and longing, sweeps across the stark arrangement of distant synth chords and lone guitar figures, seeking, holding, secrets. “...It will burn inside of me....” ¶ Nearly two years pass between 1987’s “Who’s That Girl” and the three LIKE A PRAYER hits. The album, which critics waste no time in proclaiming Madonna’s most frankly personal, even “confessional”, yields more surprises–fore-most among them a head-on confrontation with Catholicism and a re-embracing of her R&B roots. The title track doesn’t just appropriate religious images: the words, and Madonna’s impassioned delivery, actually sound Spirit-driven, rising from a whisper to a wailing soundwall. It keeps on pushin’. Only Madonna and co-writer

there, in perpetual play, a joyous little whirl without end, amen. ¶ Originally, the stylish “Vogue”, her most recent Number One, was to have closed this collection. Of course it’s here, the epochal dance-pose track is still inspiring musical (and video) imitations even as we write. Fittingly, the final honors now go to two just-cut Madonna originals, the dark and hauntingly poetic “Rescue Me” and “Justify My Love.” Their inclusion is further proof that Madonna’s interest lies not in what has happened, but rather in what’s happening. “Vogue” collaborator Shep Pettibone co-wrote “Rescue Me.” Writer-singer Lenny Kravitz was Madonna’s partner on “Justify My Love.” ¶ Putting a lid on a collection of Madonna’s greatest hits is a risky business at best. Like no other singer (or writer or producer) in recent memory, she continues to demonstrate an uncompromising commitment (hell, maybe an obsession) to never stay put. The experience of honoring that commitment has made the Material Girl “rich.” It has also enriched popular music as a whole-pushing it to new limits, pulling apart pre-conceptions about what it can say and do. Best of all, there’s our experience of the music she’s made, itself so rich in wit and emotion, and so abundant with the undisguised joy she has taken in making it. That’s one secret she’s never been able to keep.

Patrick Leonard know whether the song’s theme is the redemptive power of romantic love or the Holy Ghost gig, or both (check the video). Either way,

–GENE SCULATTI, 1990

HOLIDAY (Curtis Hudson/Lisa Stevens) Published by House of Fun Music/Pure Energy Pub. Co. Inc. BMI Produced by John “Jellybean” Benitez for Jellybean Productions Inc. Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda †

LUCKY STAR (Madonna) Published by Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl ASCAP. All rights for the world on behalf of Bleu Disque Music Admin. by WB Music Corp. Produced by Reggie Lucas for Kalisa Inc. Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

BORDERLINE (Reggie Lucas) Published by Likasa Music BMI Produced by Reggie Lucas for Kalisa Inc. Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

LIKE A VIRGIN (Billy Steinberg/Tom Kelly) Published by Billy Steinberg Music/Denise Barry Music ASCAP Produced by Nile Rodgers for Nile Rodgers Productions, Inc. Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

MATERIAL GIRL (Peter Brown/Robert Rans) Published by Minong Publishing Company BMI/Candy Castle Music ASCAP Produced by Nile Rodgers for Nile Rodgers Productions, Inc. Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Michael Hutchinson †

CRAZY FOR YOU (John Bettis/Jon Lind) Published by WB Music Corp. ASCAP/Warner-Tamerlane Pub. Corp. BMI Produced by John “Jellybean” Benitez for Jellybean Productions Inc. Arranged by Rob Mounsey Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Michael Hutchinson †

INTO THE GROOVE

LIKE A PRAYER

(Madonna/Stephen Bray) Published by WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Adm. by WB Music Corp./Black Lion Music, Inc. ASCAP Produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray Additional Production by Shep Pettibone Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

(Madonna/Patrick Leonard) Published by WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. Adm. by WB Music Corp. ASCAP/Johnny Yuma Music BMI Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard Additional Production: Shep Pettibone Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

LIVE TO TELL

EXPRESS YOURSELF

(Madonna/Stephen Bray) Published by WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Adm. by WB Music Corp./Black Lion Music,Inc. ASCAP Produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray Additional Production: Shep Pettibone Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

PAPA DON’T PREACH (Brian Elliot; Additional Lyrics by Madonna) Published by Elliot/Jacobsen Music Pub. Co. ASCAP Produced by Madonna and Stephen Bray Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Michael Hutchinson †

OPEN YOUR HEART (Madonna/Gardner Cole/Peter Rafelson) Published WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. Adm. by WB Music Corp. ASCAP/Warner-Tamerlane Pub. Corp. BMI/ Doraflo Music, Inc./Bertus Pub. Adm. by Warner-Tamerlane Pub. Corp. BMI/Rafelson Music ASCAP Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

LA ISLA BONITA (Madonna/Pat Leonard/Bruce Gaitsch) Published WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. Adm. by WB Music Corp. ASCAP/Johnny Yuma Music BMI/Edge Of Fluke Music ASCAP Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Michael Hutchinson †

CHERISH (Madonna/Patrick Leonard) Published by WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. Adm. by WB Music Corp. ASCAP Johnny Yuma Music BMI Produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Michael Hutchinson †

VOGUE (Madonna/Shep Pettibone) Published by WB Music Corp./Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. Adm. by WB Music Corp./Lexor Music ASCAP Produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone Executive Producer: Graig Kostich Mixed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

JUSTIFY MY LOVE (L enny K ravitz / Ing rid Chavez; Additional Ly rics by Madonna)

I wanna kiss you in Paris I wanna hold your hand in Rome I wanna run naked in a rainstorm Make love in a train cross-country You put this in me So now what, so now what?

© 1990 Miss Bessie Music ASCA P Produced by Lenny K ravitz for Super Mouche Productions Associate Producer: A ndré Betts Back g round Vocals: Madonna and Lenny K ravitz Recorded by: Henr y Hirsch, David Domanich, A ndy Cardenas and Josh Cuer vokas at Waterfront Studios and Unique Recording Studio Mi xed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶

And deliver and despise And right while I am standing there I suddenly begin to care And understand that there could be A person that loves me

RESCUE ME

Love is understanding–it’s hard to believe Life can be so demanding I’m sending out an S.O.S. Stop me from drowning Baby I’ll do the rest

(Madonna /Shep Pettibone)

Wanting, needing, waiting For you to justify my love Hoping, praying For you to justify my love

I’m talking, I’m talking I believe in the power of love I’m singing, I’m singing I believe that you can rescue me

I want know you Not like that I don’t wanna be your mother I don’t wanna be your sister either I just wanna be your lover I wanna be your baby Kiss me, that’s right, kiss me

With you I’m not a little girl With you I’m not a man When all the hurt inside of me Comes out, you understand You see that I’m ferocious You see that I am weak You see that I am silly And pretentious and a freak But I don’t feel too strange for you Don’t know exactly what you do I think when love is pure you try

Wanting, needing, waiting For you to justify my love Yearning, burning For you to justify my love What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Talk to me–tell me your dreams Am I in them? Tell me your fears Are you scared? Tell me your stories I’m not afraid of who you are We can fly! Poor is the man Whose the pleasures depend On the permission of another Love me, that’s right, love me I wanna be your baby Wanting, needing, waiting For you to justify my love I’m open and ready For you to justify my love

To understand the reasons why And I prefer this mistery It cancels out my mysery And gives me hope that there could be A person that loves me Chorus: Rescue me/your love has given me hope Rescue me/I’m drowning Baby throw out your rope With you I’m not a facist Can’t play you like a toy And when I need to dominate You’re not my little boy You see that I am hungry For a life of understanding And you forgive my angry little heart When she’s demanding You bring me to my knees While I’m scratching out the eyes Of a world I want to conquer

Chorus

Chorus: Rescue me/your love has given me hope Rescue me/I’m drowning Baby throw out your rope Ooh ahh love is understanding Ooh ahh love is understanding Love is understanding–it’s hard to believe Life can be so demanding I’m sending out and S.O.S. Rescue me, rescue me It’s not my business to decide How good you are for me How valuavle you are And what the world can see Only that you try to understand me And have the courage To love me for me I believe in the power I believe that you can rescue me © 1990 W B Music Cor p./ Bleu Disque Music Co., Inc./ Webo Girl Publishing, Inc. Adm. by W B Music Cor p./ Lexor Music ASCA P Produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone Mi xed by Shep Pettibone and Goh Hotoda ✶ Recording Engineer: P. Dennis Mitchell Assistant Engineers: Curt Frasca and John Partham Keyboards and Prog ramming: Peter Schwartz Additional Prog ramming: Joe Moskow itz Back g round Vocals: Dian Sorel, Catherine Russell, Lillias White Recorded at A x is Studios, N YC. LYRICS REPRINTED BY PERMISSION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Assistant Engineers: Curt Frasca and Lolly Grodner † Mixed at Right Track Studios, NYC ✶ Mixed at Sound Works, NYC Mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound, NYC Album Coordinated by Shep Pettibone and Jane Brinton Management: Freddy DeMann/ The DeMann Entertainment Co. Lenny Kravitz appears courtesy of Virgin Records Photography: Herb Ritts Art Direction: Jeri Heiden Design: Jeri Heiden and John Heiden Digital Booklet: André Guedes Special Thanks To: Craig Kostich, Junior Vasquez and “The Sound Factory sound system on a Saturday night when we needed to listen.” To my favourite Charleses Jo & Lu-Lu, and especially to Mr. Boneyhead for working the hardest, BOOTS!, and assistant to Boney–Tony. This album is dedicated to “The Pope,” my divine inspiration.

Please read the following QSound Information before playing your CD or tape. QSound and the QSound logo are registered trademarks of QSound Ltd. © 1990 This recording has been processed with QSound, an unrivaled advancement in stereophonic sound technology. QSound presents the listener with a new three dimensional aspect of recorded sound when played back through any conventional stereo system.

Sire Records Company, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York. 10019-6908. Marketed by Warner Bros. Records Inc., a Time Warner Company. ÂŠ1990 Sire Records Company for the U.S. and WEA International Inc. for the world outside of the U.S.