I still remember the first time I ever heard of Madonna. I was
\nwatching a Chicago-area version of MTV, when a video for
\n“Borderline” came on. Upon first glance, I thought Madonna was a
\nBritish dance music singer who was a sex kitten – wearing a black
\nbra through a white shirt always did that for me.<\/p>\n
I was wrong on two counts: Madonna, obviously, isn’t British,
\nand as her self-titled debut album proves, she ain’t no dance music
\ndiva.<\/p>\n
Some of the early hits are still somewhat entertaining, don’t
\nget me wrong. “Borderline” is an okay song, which could be one of
\nMadonna’s better vocal performances on this album. However, there’s
\nno denying that this song (for that matter, the whole album) hasn’t
\naged very well; the backing track is rather weak compared to other
\ndance music songs of this time period. Still, you don’t knock a
\ngood thing.<\/p>\n
Too bad there’s not many moments on
\nMadonna<\/i> like this. Problem number one is that Madonna’s
\nvoice just isn’t seasoned enough, and sounds too weak through these
\ntracks. Another hit from this album, “Lucky Star,” is an example,
\nwhere it often sounds like her voice is straining to make some of
\nthe notes. “Burning Up” also features some of this strain, but it
\ndoes feature a little more challenging material to perform. This
\nbrings us to the second problem: a lot of the songs on this are
\njust poor-man’s dance music. Exhibit “A”: “Physical Attraction,” an
\nincredible waste of time to listen to.<\/p>\n
Problem number three: the production work of Reggie Lucas, which
\njust doesn’t fit Madonna’s style at all. Mark Kamins, who produced
\none track, doesn’t do much better. Only John “Jellybean” Benitez,
\nis able to do any justice to Madonna on “Holiday,” another song
\nwhich has her straining to hit some notes (though not nearly as
\nmany as other songs).<\/p>\n
Maybe I’m being a little too harsh; this is, after all, just a
\ndebut album. But I think the bigger problem was that Madonna wasn’t
\ngiven a chance to express her own individuality in the music. She
\nwould gain this opportunity on her next album, and it would make a
\nbigger difference.<\/p>\n
If you absolutely must own the hit songs off
\nMadonna<\/i>, then pick up
\nThe Immaculate Collection<\/i>. Otherwise,
\nMadonna<\/i> is one that’s strictly for the die-hard fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5663],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-39192","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-madonna","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39192"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}