Songoftheday 3/8/17 - Look around everywhere you turn is heartache, it's everywhere that you go...

"Vogue" - Madonna
from the album I'm Breathless (1990)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 16

Today's song of the day comes from Madonna, whose fourth studio album Like A Prayer scored her five top-40 pop hits with "Keep It Together", "Oh Father", "Cherish", "Express Yourself", and the #1 title track. She's followed that album with a worldwide tour, Blond Ambition, along with starring in a movie with then-lover Warren Beatty, an adaptatation of the comic book Dick Tracy. She recorded the soundtrack herself (with cameo duets from Beatty and co-star Mandy Patinkin). I'm Breathless mostly contained swingtime pastiches to go with the film, but their was one odd man out in a tribute to the gay underground phenomenon of the "House Ball". "Vogue", written by Madonna with producer/remixer Shep Pettibone, celebrated an aspect of gay culture in the poorer areas of the cities that never got shown to mainstream audiences (a year later, it also helped from those venturing out to watch the documentary Paris Is Burning). From the dance fad to the campy rap rattling off old celluloid heroes, the single had every warning of being a knock-off novelty, but between the stately house music bass groove and Madonna's envelopment into the song, "Vogue" has become one of her most beloved songs of her career...

"Vogue" became Madonna's eighth #1 pop hit in the U.S. in May of 1990. The song also climbed to #16 on Billboards R&B chart, while it peaked at #23 on their Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio list. The 12" remixes topped the Dance Club Play chart for two weeks as well. Internationally, "Vogue" went to #1 in the UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and New Zealand, and got into the top-10 in France (#9), Ireland (#2), the Netherlands (#2), and Germany (#4).

You must seek out the documentary Strike A Pose, which documents the dancers that accompanied her on her Blond Ambition tour.

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The video for "Vogue" was nominated nine times at the MTV Music Video Awards in 1990 and won three, and even though her performance of the song at the show was lip-synched, the lavishly choreographed number remains one of the most iconic of the award's history, and for a young man watching gay music, dance, and visibility coming straight into MTV was a historic and emotional moment for many including myself...