To re-live that magic experience we invite you to read again our exclusive interviews related to that tour.
RJ Durrel - Choreographer: Each and every time I saw the show it would reconnect me to the exhilaration of working on a tour of such amazing caliber. Nothing beats hearing the fans cheer and scream as Madonna dances my choreography. I would leave each concert feeling elated, soaring among the stars.
Nicki Richards - Tour Vocalist: The gift I received is an unforgettable, incredible life experience! I learned some life-changing lessons like what's going on with global warming (I went and changed out all my lightbulbs for energy-efficient ones, for instance), I traveled the world with a wild bunch of colorful people, I performed in front of and connected with audiences as big as 85,000 strong in the most successful show on the planet. Now that's what I call a freakin' gift!
Steele - Creative team behind the post production work on "Future Lovers": Seeing the opening show was a very memorable experience. The best part was seeing how much gratification our creative staff got from the audience reaction to their work. There's nothing like the instant gratification of the live show, and you can be sure the reaction is honest. There's no bullshit from a packed arena.
Dustin Robertson - Editor of "Get Together" backdrop video: Steven, Jamie and Madonna wanted me to create the video screen backdrops for the opening number "Future Lovers" as well as the 2nd number, "Get Together". They sent me the footage from the Steven Klein shoot that I had watched the summer before and I got to work on "Get Together". I was so excited to be creating visuals for this music.
She was awarded the honour in the 2007 edition of the perennial favourite book recognising the biggest, fastest, most and best. Based on figures from 2004 (the most recent available when compiled) the Re-Invention Tour box office receipts pushed Madonna ahead of Britney Spears for the first time since 2001!
Madonna is, of course, no stranger to Guinness, famously breaking Elizabeth Taylor's record for costume changes when she starred in the hit musical movie 'Evita' in 1996. Her 83 costumes, 39 hats, 56 pairs of earrings and 45 pairs of shoes easily outstripped the record Taylor had held since 1963 with her monumental movie 'Cleopatra'.
Guinness have also frequently crowned Madonna the most successful female recording artist of all time.... but compared to earrings and hats, that's not especially important, right?
August 16th 2006 saw a busy Madonna earning her keep, playing her eighth and final London Confessions Tour show at the Wembley Arena, adding the pressure of live filming for the live DVD/CD set which would document the tour. As with each other night, Madonna invited a select group of her pals along to watch her perform. Now, being the nice polite girl that she is, she gave them some of the best seats in the house, but as it was her birthday, she got the UK branch of her record label to knock her up a little surprise birthday gift for those who helped her celebrate.
Snappily titled 'The Complete Collection' the lavish box set she presented to her very closest friends was a 17-CD box set containing the following CDs :
Madonna (Remastered)
Like A Virgin (Remastered)
True Blue (Remastered)
You Can Dance
Like A Prayer
I'm Breathless
The Immaculate Collection
Erotica (Dirty)
Bedtime Stories
Something To Remember
Ray Of Light
Music
GHV2
American Life
Remixed & Revisited
Confessions On A Dance Floor
I'm Going To Tell You A Secret
This almost complete set of Madonna's works was held in a lovely embossed cardboard box and there was a clever little black box taking up the room for two more CDs space so that the whole lot just fit perfectly in place. Quite why Madonna and Warner UK didn't fill that gap with the CDs of Who's That Girl and the complete Evita soundtrack, thus completing the set, is unknown but probably related to their status as 'Original Soundtracks' rather than 'Madonna albums' per se.
'Bedtime Story', the Bjork/Nellee Hooper/Marius DeVries collaboration sounded like it was from a different planet. I'm sure that together with some US-friendly remixes by Junior Vasquez and arguably Madonna's finest (ever?) video to accompany it, all involved thought it might shoot to the top of the charts like its predecessor despite being such a different sounding track.
Sadly, they were very, very wrong. It did the business in the UK where it reached No.4 (although cynics might attribute that to Madonna doing her first UK-specific promotion for a single for the first time since Like A Virgin by appearing at the Brit Awards to perform the song!), but in the US it limped to a woeful No.42 in the Billboard Hot 100. It did reach No.1 in the Dance Chart, but then, all of her singles do!
Maverick weren't ready to give up though and commissioned some new remixes to try and inject a last gasp boost of radio interest in the song. These new mixes by Mark Picchiotti and Teri Bristol were collected together on two extremely limited Promotional only pressings and titled them "Bedtime Story - Chapter II" - a cute play on words relating to the song title.
These promos - a 4-track 12" and 2-track CD - have gone on to become some of the highest prized collectables ever officially released in the US and have sold for up to $350 each!
Sadly, Maverick's ingenious ploy failed and the Bedtime Story single continued its downward spiral out of the chart.
Who is he? I hear you cry. This, ladies and gentlemen, is David Fincher, director of such cinematic masterpieces as Se7en and Fight Club.
As many of you may know, he directed Madonnas' videos for 'Express Yourself', 'Oh Father', 'Vogue' and 'Bad Girl' - beautiful classics every one which captured Madonna's beauty, style and vision on celluloid like few others... Hell, he even made her appear to be able to act.
He also produced 'Star', Madonna's short video for the BMW project 'The Hire', directed by Madonna's old man, Mr Ritchie.
But, did you know that David Fincher was originally set to direct Madonna's 1991 documentary 'Truth Or Dare'? His love of moody, black and white style would have suited the behind the scenes footage, and his deft use of widescreen scope would have suited the colourful concert scenes, so perhaps he would have been the right man for the job. On second thoughts, considering one of his trademark cinematic styles is to end his movies with an attempted or succesful suicide, perhaps it's a good thing he didn't!
In what could be viewed as a cynical public relations rescue-job, Michael Jackson also tried. Sadly his Number Ones album had to rely on songs which made No.1 in Latvia to actually fill the album, even though he technically had had enough genuine different no.1s from the UK and US to fill a respectable 16-track album. Strange decisions there!
Elvis and the Beatles have fittingly led the way, showing the rest how to do it properly. Each had enough singles which Hit No.1 in the UK and US ONLY to fill a full album, the Beatles managing 27 (although technically using one which didn't hit No.1 in either territory yet missing off one which did , odd!), and of course Elvis' staggering total 30 (with another five left over for a second volume!). But then, as they say, before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything. Fair play to the cheeseburger king. So, what of Madonna? Well, she's not the most successful female artist in chart history for nothing you know.
Were she to release a 'Number Ones' album using the Beatles and Elvis rules she could put out a very respectable 19 track compilation as follows :
So ladies and gentlemen, I give you - Madonna - Number Ones:
Madonna filmed a video and set the tone for the album, DJ friendly remixes were prepared and inhouse test pressings of the release were prepared. However, Motown, the original label that launched Marvin Gaye, objected at the very last minute due to legal wranglings and the single's release was eventually cancelled.
Maverick had no choice but to lead with planned second single 'You'll See' yet managed to convince Motown to allow them to send the intriguing 'I Want You' video to the music networks for airplay in support of both albums.
However, it wasn't the disaster Maverick might have thought it was going to be as 'You'll See' went on to be a huge success around the world and the compilation achieved respectable sales!
The filth-fest that was late-1992 was soundtracked by Madonna's sixth studio album but yet again, the completed tracklisting was not what Madonna originally had planned, if the newly created Maverick press information is to be believed.
Take a look at the following proof of the press leaflet from early autumn 1992 which shows the initial tracklisting for the album.
As you can see, the tracklisting order is radically different to the finished release, Goodbye To Innocence is in and Did You Do It? is out! Would that have made a better album? You decide!
Also, Bad Girl was planned as the second single, following the title track, and both singles were due to be accompanied by 'X-rated' video singles which were to be for sale to the public. Why these never materialised can only be speculated, but the instant backlash Madonna received from the prudish press may be the reason. As we all know, the video to the single Erotica was certainly saucy enough to be considered 'x-rated', but the resultant Bad Girl video was a far tamer affair that must have been originally conceived.
Looking at the album artwork at this early stage it would indicate that following on from the 1986 'True Blue' album, Maverick intended to release the 'Erotica' album with a cover consisting solely of the striking blue stylized image of Madonna's face with no writing at all.
Even her name was only added as a 'Bad Girl' font sticker as a last minute addition to the press proof!
History shows they changed that and added the, now legendary, spidery handwritten 'Madonna Erotica' titles for the eventual release.
Many thanks to Annaclare for use of the images of her sparkly stuff.
Fact of the Day is brought to you by Tony from London.
Central to the imagery in the video is the image of the feline - the cat representing the feminine.
Three separate cats where hired to play the cat you see onscreen! These ones are called Carbone......and Ebene...
...but the third one isn't shown. Cat rejection. It's tough at the top!
The owners of all three cats were paid 100$ for their pets per day to appear onset. Perhaps that's why the total budget for the video topped $2,000,000!
However, in a conversation with Monte Pittman in Paris late one night during last year's Confessions Tour, your fact of the day correspondant uncovered the truth!
"The Funny Song" aka "Oh Dear Daddy" was created around a song Monte taught Madonna to use as guitar practise in the months leading up to the tour. In typical Madonna fashion her perfectionist streak kicked in so hour after hour, day after day she practised to get her playing proficient enough and confident enough to perform to arenas full of fans for the first time! She got so used to playing the chord sequence that she added some whimsical lyrics over the melody and chose to include it in the cowgirl section of the 2001 Tour as a sly wink to the hours of practise Monte put her through.
NOTE: The song is not about her daddy!
Madonna's Justify My Love was a worldwide smash hit in late 1990 reaching No.1 in the US and No.2 in the UK.
The lead off single from The Immaculate Collection, her first collection of hit singles, was always going to be a big deal, but who could possibly have imagined the sauce-a-thon Mads had in store for us with that song?
Well, after that summer's Blond Ambition Tour, most of us actually, but who predicted the video?!
In classic Madonna style... when the Jean-Baptiste Mondino video was innocently sent out to music TV stations to air on this little innocent looking tape...even the heads of MTV, the channel for a new generation remember, found it too hot to air and a classic Madonna furore erupted. Heh. Good old Mads
Ever the one to spot a marketing ploy when she saw one - her next move was to create the world's biggest ever selling video single!
Variously released in saucy looking porn-style cheap casings giving little indication of the supposed filth contained within, the video hit the shelves in record time and sent the video buying public into a frenzy of Maddy-sauce shopping! The Aussie video, deemed its 'sexual allusions' for Mature audiences only, the Canadian issue which artified the classic Patrick Demarchelier photo with a lovely purple tint, and the US issue with the era-defining 'Parently Advisory' WARNING logo (maybe it was a warning that you may end up sprawled over Tony Ward? Wise words... )
The UK, in an untypically brash move, went one better and they slapped it in a proper sleeve, with a plastic case and added the phenomenally popular MTV Awards performance of Vogue!
The video proved iconic and the real blast off for Madonna's 'sex-mad' period and even led to an hilarious parody on Wayne's World where Wayne and Garth re-enacted the video and even met Madonna in a dream...
In the words of Camille Paglia - the video is pornographic, it's decadent...and it's fabulous!
The company name they came up with was created using the bits of names of both the star and her manager. The first four letters are taken from two of Madonna's names - the name she was given - MAdonna, and the name she gave herself at her "catholic confirmation" - VEronica. The last four letters are taken from Freddy's given name - FredeRICK
Thus : MA + VE + RICK. Voila.
| Angel Borderline Causing A Commotion Dear Jessie Erotica Fever Gambler Holiday Impressive Instant Justify My Love Keep It Together Love Tried To Welcome Me Material Girl | Nobody's Perfect Oh Father Pretender Queen's English Rescue Me Skin Take A Bow Up Down Suite** Vogue Where Life Begins X-Static Process You'll See ...but Z... |
**although technically a remix of Goodbye To Innocence it attracts its own copyright and has been registered as a separate composition.
She might be from Michigan, she might have earnt her stripes playing the clubs around New York, but it's Wembley which these days might be more notable for it's connection to our Mads.
At the construction of the new Wembley Stadium, workers bury a time capsule for future generations to discover what represented London and Wembley in late 2005. This glimpse into the past will give our descendants an idea of what it was like to live in London. What went in to represent what Londonders were listening to?
Well, guess who was the No.1 single and album at the time? You got it. Madonna, of course, has a long history with Wembley stadium - playing sold out shows at the old stadium a record 8 times before it was demolished - three nights in the summer of '87 for Who's That Girl, 3 very hot nights in 1990 for Blond Ambition, and two slightly cold, drizzly nights in late September 1993 for the launch of the Girlie Show. Her Confessions Tour was due to stop at the new stadium for two shows in summer 2006, but due to the delays in completion plans were shifted next door to the indoor venue Wembley Arena. Madonna was determined to play to a full stadium's amount of people, so instead of a night at the new 90,000 seater stadium, she did 8 nights at the 11,000 capacity arena! There's always a solution!
Madonna has also played 12 sold out shows at London's Wembley Arena - four on her Re-Invention Tour in 2004 and eight for Confessions - the last three of which were recorded for the Confessions Tour Live CD & DVD.
Naturally, cementing (*groan*) her connection with Wembley further, Madonna was honoured as the very first star on Wembley's new 'Square Of Fame' where she unveiled a bronze plaque on the afternoon of her first London Confessions show on August 1st, 2006. What better way to mark her lasting connection to London's most famous venue than to stamp it on the floor right outside!
September 1983 saw the release of lots of new music in the UK. Hot new signing to the Sire label, Madonna, released her second UK single - the catchy, dance tune 'Lucky Star'. Sadly, it failed to chart, the last time that ever happened for Madonna.
A hot new compilation release, featuring the big hits of the time, also hit the shelves: 'Now That's What I Call Music' - which reached No.3 in the album chart. Not the greatest achievement considering it featured eleven No.1 singles!
However, despite their rather inauspicious beginnings, the two releases marked the beginnings of a series of chart beaters which continue to this day.
Madonna is easily the most successful singles artist the UK has seen since Elvis, and certainly the most consistant. She has released 67 singles to date and she continues to top the charts even 24 years after her debut release. The Now! Music series, now onto it's 65th volume, has spawned international versions the world over and the UK series continues to sell over a million copies of every single issue. In today's climate of No.1 albums only needing to sell 100,000 units to hit the top, and considering the short shelf-life of compilations - that is quite simply staggering.
So - what is the fact of the day here? Madonna, with her record breaking 59 UK Top Ten singles, has NEVER featured on a Now! That's What I Call Music album. Ever!
Even her No.2 hit single duet with Britney Spears, 'Me Against The Music', did not feature on the Now! CD of its time, despite the fact that virtually every other single Britney has released has appeared on the accompanying Now! CD of its period.
The shortest recorded Madonna songtitle is 4 letters long. This applies to album tracks Stay, More, Swim, Skin, Gone and Push and for the singles Rain and Jump.
The longest recorded Madonna songtitle is Drowned World/Substitute For Love with 29 letters...
...unless we are including Evita songs, in which case the record is held by the whopping 43 lettered The Actress Hasn't Learned The Lines (You'd Like To Hear) which can only be found on the full recording Evita soundtrack.
