MADONNA – WHO’S THAT GIRL LP – Nr MINT/EXC+ A1 DANCE POP

Madonna – Who’s That Girl
(Sire Records  1987  WX102)
Matrix No’s: A1/B2

Vinyl in Nr MINT/Excellent+ condition
(there are some surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality apart from the odd light pop/crackle)

Sleeve in Very Good+ condition
– let down by discolouration mark in top left corner and larger one on back cover at top

Madonna Louise Ciccone; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, author, director, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City to pursue a career in modern dance and performed in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy. In 1982, Madonna signed with Sire Records (an affiliate of Warner Bros. Records) and released her self-titled debut album the following year. She has since released a series of successful albums, including the Grammy Award winners Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). Many of her songs peaked atop record charts, including “Like a Virgin”, “Into the Groove”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, “Like a Prayer”, “Vogue”, “Frozen”, “Music”, “Hung Up”, and “4 Minutes”.

Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry. She attained immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Critics have praised her diverse musical productions which have also been known to induce controversy. Her music and style has influenced numerous artists around the world. Madonna is considered by Forbes as a cultural icon and she is often referred to by the international media as the “Queen of Pop”.

Madonna received generally positive reviews for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), though her later film appearances received mixed commentary. She received critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for Evita (1996), but has received harsh feedback for other performances. She has been recognized as an acclaimed businesswoman, involving herself in fashion design, writing children’s books, and film directing and producing. In 1992, she founded entertainment company Maverick as a joint venture with Time Warner, which also included the label Maverick Records. In 2007, she signed a US $120 million record, touring and merchandising 360° deal with Live Nation, resulting in her leaving Warner Bros., her label since 1982.

Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the best-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records. Time included her in its list of the “25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century” due to her major influence in contemporary music. Madonna is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second best selling female artist in the United States, with 64.5 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard ranked her at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. In 2012, she was crowned the “Greatest Woman In Music” by VH1. As of 2013, some sources report that Madonna’s net worth has crossed over one billion dollars. Forbes magazine named Madonna the fifth most powerful and the highest earning celebrity of 2013 with net earnings of $125 million between June 2012–13.

Who’s That Girl: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the first soundtrack album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on July 21, 1987, by Sire Records to promote the film of the same name. It also contains songs by her label mates Scritti Politti, Duncan Faure, Club Nouveau, Coati Mundi and Michael Davidson. The soundtrack is credited as a Madonna album, despite her only performing four of the nine tracks on the album. After the commercial success of the film Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), in which she co-starred, Madonna wanted to act in another comedy film titled Slammer, about a woman named Nikki Finn who was falsely accused of homicide. However, due to the critical and commercial failure of her adventure film Shanghai Surprise (1986), Warner Bros. were initially reluctant to green light the project, but later agreed, after Madonna convinced them and also because they wanted to cash in on Madonna’s success with soundtracks.

Madonna began working on the soundtrack in December 1986, and contacted Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, who had worked as producers on her third studio album True Blue (1986). She felt that an uptempo song and a downtempo song were needed for the album. Leonard composed the music for the uptempo song, with Madonna providing the melody and lyrics. The singer named the track “Who’s That Girl” and, believing this to be a better title than Slammer, changed the name of the film to the same. Together, Madonna and Leonard also developed the downtempo ballad “The Look of Love”. Two more songs were composed for the film with Bray, the first being the dance-y tune “Causing a Commotion”, and the other being “Can’t Stop”, a track inspired by Sixties Motown and the group Martha and the Vandellas.

After its release, the Who’s That Girl soundtrack received a mostly negative response from critics. Some reviews described the album as plain and incomplete, although the title track and “The Look of Love” were praised as its highlights. The soundtrack was a commercial success, reaching the top ten of the album charts of the United States, Austria, Canada, France, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom, while topping the charts of Germany, and European Album chart. The album went on to sell 6 million copies worldwide.

Three of the Madonna tracks were released as singles. The title track became her sixth number one single on the Billboard Hot 100, making her the first artist to accumulate six number-one singles in the 1980s, and the first female performer to get that many number-ones as a solo act. “Causing a Commotion” was released as the second single, and reached number two on the Hot 100. “The Look of Love” was a European market-only release, reaching the top ten in the United Kingdom. Another track, “Turn It Up” was a promotional release in United States, reaching number 15 on the dance charts. Who’s That Girl received further promotion from the successful Who’s That Girl World Tour.

Track listing

Personnel