Mike Watt/Ciccone Youth - Burnin' Up
So, recently I moved in with my fiancee and the great joining of the CD collections took place - not as traumatic as we first thought and there was a lot of crossover.
But listening to her "Immaculate Collection" made me scuttle back to my copy of Madonna's self-titled debut, and that's where the title for this post comes from. How much revisionism can you get on one CD?? Where are all the lesser hits? If you're going to have bloody "Crazy For You", where's "Angel"? If Madonna is famous for allegedly re-inventing herself at the drop of a hat, where are all the tunes where she went a bit "off-message"? Isn't that part of her appeal, or for "reinvention" should we read "removal"?
It's like she's airbrushed the stuff out that made her so interesting in the first place. And the re-edited songs and re-recorded vocals... I'm sorry, luv, but that piano bit at the end of "Holiday" is part of my youth - stick it back in. It's kind of how the "Special Edition" versions of the 'Star Wars' films just aren't as 'special' as the originals, no matter how much THX and glitter old beardy-boy throws at them.
When Madge first appeared in the early 80s it was love at first sight, my first proper pop-star crush. I remember seeing her on The Tube in her groovy day-glo knitwear and weird fingerless gloves. The first album has "Lucky Star", "Holiday", "Borderline", but also a load of REALLY average songs - the kind of songs that you can imagine soundtracking a montage in (say) "Footloose" - the main characters in love, running on a beach, dancing in a barn, trying on endless "hilarious" outfits. It's good to hear that she didn't always know exactly what she was doing.
And the Mike Watt/Ciccone Youth version is here because someone will ask me to post it anyway!
Buy Madonna's first album
Buy Ciccone Youth's "The Whitey Album"
Visit Madonna
Visit Mike Watt's Hoot page
Visit Sonic Youth
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