Was listening to the Like A Virgin album a few days ago. And I sometimes wonder what her intentions were when she chose to work with him. Nile was known for his funk/ disco touch. It is strange that as soon as he works with Madonna he turns out this glossy super pop music. Being a Madonna fan since 1982 I was expecting her sophomore album to be a continuation of the first album. Something with a strong urban/r&b vibe. I still like the album though. I just wish it wasn't so over produced.

He was the hottest producer at the time, coming off the heels of David Bowie's crossover album Let's Dance.

Nile's also had a solo album which was cool with a cool hit I forgot the Track,but they showed it all the time on U-68.

henree said:

Madonna has unrevilied talent in the music industry to be able to pick up trends just as they are getting ready to crest. and catching the next wave as the other crashes.

henree said:

Well it was HIS production remember not HERS...he had the most influence on those tracks.

a combination of the production and the songs themselves (aside from a few singles) makes this my least favorite proper album from her.

he made everything a little too slick and bland, even though it feels more stripped down than her debut.

Into The Groove, on the other hand, is marvelous, and I really wish she/WB had let Stephen Bray produce the album.

I have mixed feelings about this album.I love the singles "Angel" and "Dress You Up" and it's hard not to like the infectious "Material Girl" but the album as a whole feels dis-jointed.I appreciate this album strictly because of the nostalgia factor.This album basically defines pop music in 1985,lol.

henree said:

Yeah,it's amazing how "pop" sounding this album is,compared to the funky Chic and Sister Sledge records that Niles produced just a few years earlier.As a producer,he really expanded his sound in the 80s.

SoulAlive said:

I love all the singles but the rest of the songs are awful. Pretender, Stay, Shoo-Bee-Doo don't belong to her best. In fact, they give me headaches.
The only non-single song I think is relatively okay's Over & Over.

graecophilos said:

I agree,the singles are fine.It's the other tracks that don't really come alive.

Its certainly more in the line of Lets Dance than it is Chic or Diana. I completely agree that this production is too glossy- but Madonna apparently had a very specific idea of how this album should sound - that it would have to be her album to crack the mainstream, and would need the high production gloss to go with that. Warners apparently wanted more of the same and were extremely worried about what Nile and Madonna were doing on this album - which just shows how clueless record companies can be.

Nile has said that performances were routine, one take affairs such was the experience of the musician line up - but i think you have to give him credit for giving the songs enough room to work on their own rather than as a choesive album. There were no extended dance work outs, and very little room given to any dance leanings displayed on her first album. It is possibly her most cynical record in many respects, but you can forgive all that when you hear a track like Dress You Up.

I remember Nile saying in an interview how it annoyed him no one every got or appreciated Madonnas sincerity when it came to R&B music - but its a shame that the most R&B track is her massacre of Love Dont Live Here Anymore. If it had been more R&B it would have probably had a more timeless quality to it, but you can be sure it wouldnt have been half as big. While its Nile's production, i dont doubt Madonna was calling the shots on this one.
[Edited 12/1/08 3:40am]

She said she wanted to work with him because "he's a genius" and she liked the stuff he had made for other artists.

Lucy O'Brien dedicated a whole chapter in her book "Madonna - Like an Icon" to the recording sessions.
Nile apparently was not amazed by the songs Madonna brought in (understandable). He also wanted to bring more live musicians into the project.
Also he was not too keen on Like A Virgin (the song).

Well, you gotta read it. Nile seems to think til his day that it's Madonna's finest albums. I'm sure for him it was not just a job, but rather something he did as and advantage and for fun. Not to mention the money it made him.

Well, certainly Love Don't Live Here Anymore was Nile's idea. I know it's from another band but it reminds me of the many CHIC ballads.

Anyway, Into The Groove should have been on the album. Nowadays people like Rhianna would rerelase it just months after the original release date which 10 bonus tracks.

More rare songs will leak at the end of the year, along Across The Sky I hope we'll get Warning Signs, Desperatly Seeking Susan and that stuff from 1984.

it's my first madonna album on record and I would play it all the time. I agree the singles are the best, and also Angel and Over and Over are great. I didn't like the last 2 tracks either for years when I was a kid, and wasn't crazy about shoo bee doo either, but they've grown on me recently, probably cause of being a classic record.

alphastreet said:

Angel WAS a single. Wasn't Into the Groove it's b-side??

I always thought that the last 3 songs of the record are among her worst album filler songs of her career...

LiveToTell86 said:

I agree.The album gets really boring after "Dress You Up".

SoulAlive said:

yeah, but that's the whole second half, side b, right?
[Edited 12/1/08 6:01am]

graecophilos said:

oh yeah that's true, there was no video for it though right? I think I heard somewhere that over and over also charted

graecophilos said:

Even though LAV isn't one of my favorite Madonna albums,I appreciate the fact that it sounds different than the first album.This is something that I've always admired about Madonna...always moving on,musically,and trying a different approach on each new record.

SoulAlive said:

so the second side of the LAV album is less scratched than the first side? Anyway, this side-thinking has gone with CDs.

If you have an uptempo and slow side on vinyl records it's fine but on CD it looks like the CD would become boring at the end.
I always thought that Madonna puts her best songs on the first half of the album.
Have you realized that often The title track comes first, then the second single?

graecophilos said:

Yeah, in the 80s that's how it went. But it doesn't hold for Bedtime Stories where the biggest hit of the album is the last track.

LiveToTell86 said:

well, but on COADF the first three songs belong to the best on this album..

And what about American Life? The title, Hollywood, (I'm So STupid), Love Profusion and Nothing Fails?

LiveToTell86 said:

I thought a lot of 90's artists did that too often, especially dance/pop artists like ace of base, spice girls, and even r&b ones that had two good singles that were first on the album and the rest sucked

graecophilos said:

That's a matter of opinion, I think "Get Together" and especially "Sorry" are overrated and I take "Push" and "Like It Or Not" over them any day. Of course the first 3 tracks were the first 3 singles, but I've never been happy about that.

American Life is not a good example, even though the title track and the second single are the first 2 tracks, the title track and "I'm So Stupid" aren't exactly fan favourites, I think "Die Another Day" or "Easy Ride" are more appreciated than them.

Alphastreet: I was only talking about Madonna, it's true that it happened in the 90s with pop acts, it especially went bad when they didn't release the singles on CDs, so they forced to buy the public the full album with all the fillers.

Probably one of her top 4 albums for me, but then again it was my first cassette ever. I like her R&B-ish albums the most.

Nile Rodgers is one of my all-time favorite producers along with Giorgio Moroder.

It's incredibly dated, but that's part of why it was such a huge success. It really typified the sound of the day, and she was lucky and/or smart to work with him.

With such defining* songs as "Like A Virgin" and "Material Girl", I actually think she is pretty lucky she didn't get pigeonholed by this highly successful project.

*For her, for MTV, and for the 80s