Vogue (song)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Vogue"
Single by Madonna
from the album I'm Breathless
Released	March 20, 1990
Format	Cassette, CD, CD maxi, 7", 12"
Recorded	1990
Genre	Dance House Music
Length	4:50
Label	Sire Records Warner Bros. Records WEA International
Writer(s)	Madonna Shep Pettibone
Producer(s)	Madonna Shep Pettibone
Certification	2x Platinum (United States) Gold (United Kingdom) Silver (France)
Chart positions
#1 (Australia, Canada, Europe, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom, United States) #2 (Switzerland) #4 (Germany) #7 (Austria) #9 (France)
Madonna singles chronology
"Keep It Together" (1990)	"Vogue" (1990)	"Hanky Panky" (1990)
I'm Breathless track listing
"Now I'm Following You (Part II)" (11)	"Vogue" (12)
The Immaculate Collection track listing
"Cherish" (14)	"Vogue" (15)	"Justify My Love" (16)

"Vogue" is a 1990 number-one hit single by Madonna from her album I'm Breathless. The song was originally slated to be released as a B-side to "Keep It Together" before becoming one of Madonna's biggest hits of the 1990s and of pop music history on its own.

Contents 1 Song information 2 Chart success 3 Music video 4 Official Versions 5 Trivia 6 Hollywood star names 7 External links

[edit] Song information

In late-1989, after the album Like a Prayer had spawned three U.S. hits - the title track, "Express Yourself" and "Cherish" - and a top-five European single in "Dear Jessie" - its fourth domestic single, "Oh Father", stalled at number twenty in the charts. Perhaps to ensure that the last single release of "Keep It Together" would fare better on the charts, Madonna and producer Shep Pettibone decided to compose a new song to be placed on the flipside of "Keep It Together" and quickly produced "Vogue", partly inspired by a dance performed by gay men in New York clubs in which dancers used a series of complex hand gestures to imitate their favourite Hollywood stars (see the list of the names of the Hollywood stars below), as well as the cover models on the magazine Vogue. The song had been preceded a year earlier by Malcom MacLaren's "Deep in Vogue", which had stormed world club charts in a mix by future Madonna collaborator William Orbit (with S'Express guru Mark Moore). MacLaren had provided the song for the film Paris is Burning, after reading the book of the same name. Together, the song and the film displayed for the first time to a wide audience the concept of "vogueing". Quotes from the film can be heard throughout MacLaren's song. Vocalist N'Dea Davenport participated in related sessions for both artists' albums.

Never one to ignore an "underground" movement, Madonna brought "vogueing" into the mainstream when she named her song after it. After presenting the song to Warner Bros. executives, all parties involved decided that the song was too good to be "wasted" on a B-side and should be released as a single. Although the song itself had nothing to do with Madonna's then upcoming movie Dick Tracy, it was included on the album I'm Breathless, which contained songs from and inspired by the film.

[edit] Chart success

Aided by both a single version and an extended remix, as well as a black and white video directed by David Fincher, the song shot to number one in several territories in which it was released. In the UK, the song knocked Snap!'s "The Power" off the number one slot and stayed there for four weeks, continuing a trend of club/pop crossovers going to number one. In the US, the single reached multi-platinum status. In Australia, it was released as a double A-side to "Keep It Together", and it went to the top spot.

Massive airplay and sales demand in response to the popular music video (discussed below) in April 1990 made way for "Vogue"'s #39 debut the week of April 14. The song made it to #1 by its sixth week, knocking Sinéad O'Connor out of the top spot, where "Nothing Compares 2 U" had ruled for four weeks. "Vogue" kept several singles in May 1990 from reaching #1, and was slow to descend off the chart, finally exiting the top 40 nine weeks after it left the top spot.

The success of "Vogue" boosted the sales of the I'm Breathless album, and combined with Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour, generated massive publicity for the Dick Tracy movie.

[edit] Music video

The video, directed by David Fincher, is widely considered one of Madonna's best. In 1993, Rolling Stone magazine listed the video as the twenty-eighth best music video of all-time. It was the third time Fincher and Madonna collaborated on a video (the first being 1989's "Express Yourself" and the second being 1989's "Oh Father").

Filmed in black-and-white, the video recalls the look of 1930s Hollywood films with the use of artwork by the Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka and an Art Deco set design. Many of the scenes are recreations of photographs taken by noted photographer Horst P. Horst. Some of the close-up poses recreate noted portraits of such stars as Veronica Lake and Marlene Dietrich. (Additionally, several stars of this era are name-checked in the song's lyrics.)

There was some controversy surrounding the video due to a scene in which Madonna's breasts (though not her nipples) can be seen through her sheer blouse, as seen in the above picture. MTV wanted to remove this scene, but Madonna refused, and the video aired with the shot intact.

The video features the dancers and back-up vocalists for Madonna's then-upcoming Blond Ambition Tour.

A live version of "Vogue", performed in the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards, also proved popular. It featured Madonna and her dancers dressed in an 18th-century French theme, with Madonna bearing resemblance to executed French Queen Marie Antoinette. The performance was considered risqué, as Madonna and her dancers flashed their undergarments during their routine, and at one point Madonna pushed the faces of two male dancers into her breasts.

In 2004, Madonna opened her Re-Invention Tour with "Vogue", again using an 18th-century-influenced theme - 're-inventing' the set design of the 1990 VMA performance. That version is included on the track setlists of I'm Going to Tell You a Secret.

[edit] Official Versions

• Album Version - 4:50 (Shorter than the The Immaculate Collection version)
• Video Version - 4:50
• The Immaculate Album Edit - 5:18 (Longer than the I'm Breathless version)
• The Immaculate Video Edit - 5:18
• Single Mix - 4:21 (Altered introduction, but same as the I'm Breathless version, used for radio play only)
• 12" Version - 8:26 (Used for "Vogue (Remix Edit Video)", included in the "Royal Box" collection)
• Bette Davis Dub - 7:28
• Strike-A-Pose Dub - 7:36

[edit] Trivia

• One can clearly hear Madonna overdubbing the second half of each stanza in the "rap" section of the song. The timbre of her voice and the recorded atmosphere are not matched well enough to disguise that the vocal parts were altered after the fact. Presumably a rewrite of the rapped words would be the reason for the overdubs.
• The song edit from The Immaculate Collection is featured on the soundtrack of The Devil Wears Prada. It is used over the montage in which Anne Hathaway's character starts dressing in fashionable clothing rather than the conservative preppy look she had hitherto been sporting. The song is also included on its soundtrack, rather than "Jump", which also appears in the movie. The song was played when Streep went up to receive her Golden Globe Award for best actress.
• Britney Spears used the song as an intro for her medley dedicated to Madonna and Janet Jackson during her ...Baby One More Time Tour. During .this medley she even sings Material Girl.
• Kylie Minogue covered a part of this song for her Showgirl - Homecoming Tour and mixed it with Burning Up from her Fever album.
• Ayumi Hamasaki, who is considered the 'Asian Madonna', has released a single and song, also titled "Vogue." It is believed that Madonna was the inspiration for the song title. Ayumi has indeed said that she admires Madonna a lot. However, the songs are not even remotely similar.

[edit] Hollywood star names

The lyrics of the song reference the names of several Hollywood stars, in this order:

• Greta Garbo
• Marilyn Monroe
• Marlene Dietrich
• Joe DiMaggio
• Marlon Brando
• James Dean
• Grace Kelly
• Jean Harlow
• Gene Kelly
• Fred Astaire
• Ginger Rogers
• Rita Hayworth
• Lauren Bacall
• Katharine Hepburn
• Lana Turner
• Bette Davis

Nine of the stars were alive at the time the single was released: Greta Garbo (who died less than a month after "Vogue" was released), Marlene Dietrich, Joe DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, and Lana Turner. As of March 2007, Bacall is the only one alive.

Chart	Position
U.S. The Billboard Hot 100	1
U.S. The Billboard Hot 100 Singles Sales	1
U.S. The Billboard Hot 100 Airplay	1
U.S. Top 40 Tracks	1
U.S. Hot Dance Music/Club Play	1
U.S. Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales	1
U.S. Rhythmic Top 40	1
U.S. Billboard Hip Hop & R&B tracks	16
U.S. Adult Contemporary	23
Australia	1
Austria	7
Canada	1
France	9
Germany	4
Ireland	1
Italy	1
Japan	1
UK	1
Spain	1
Sweden	1
Switzerland	2

[edit] External links

Preceded by "The Power" by Snap!	UK number-one single April 8, 1990 for 4 weeks	Succeeded by "Killer" by Adamski
Preceded by "Nothing Compares 2 U" by Sinéad O'Connor	Billboard Hot 100 number one single May 19, 1990- June 2, 1990	Succeeded by "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips