It's definitely a banger. I like that it was included on the remix album and mixed into the other songs. You Can Dance is really the first remix type EP I ever remember. I'm gonna expand on the album for a second.

The thing is, True Blue has a peppering of schlock on it. "Spotlight" could've easily been put on True Blue and it would've been a 50% strong album based on that one song, alone. "Jimmy Jimmy" and "Loves Makes the World Go Round" are on the end of the record for a reason, because the album is basically complete and done before either one of those two songs come on.

It's almost like True Blue has a dual personality, much like the title track's video (ie: two versions). On the one hand, she really went in on strong songs like "Papa Don't Preach," "Open Your Heart," "Where's The Party," "Live To Tell," and "La Isla Bonita." Next to those, "White Heat" feels a little like filler, but it is a good enough song to be on there.

However, you also have more throwback songs like "True Blue," and the two aforementioned tracks that I'd remove. Those have that doo-wop feel and don't really fit with the power pop hooks of PDP, OYH, LTT, etc. I'm okay with "True Blue" staying, because it's a novelty song, but the other two are garbage.

I'm also adding one other track to fill it out. There's your record.

Side A:

Papa Don't Preach

Open Your Heart

White Heat

True Blue

Causing a Commotion

Side B

Spotlight

Live To Tell

La Isla Bonita

Who's That Girl

Where's The Party

I rearranged side B so after "Spotlight" when the mood dropped with "Live To Tell," it's a gradual build up with BPM once you hit "Where's the Party." I may very well create that playlist, now that I think about it.

But yes, "Spotlight" is a great song, and should've been on True Blue.

[Edited 4/11/21 23:18pm]

TrivialPursuit said:

WAIT...

They chose Jimmy Jimmy over Spotlight?

WTF?

DotsofU said:

alphastreet said:

alphastreet said:

DotsofU said:

WAIT...

They chose Jimmy Jimmy over Spotlight?

WTF?

Yep they did! Crappy song too

Reading a bit on wikipedia, it says that it was so close to "Holiday," that Warner turned away from it. However, the irony is that the guy who came up with it (Madonna and Jellybean changed it after, and Bean remixed it to what we know now) did so because he thought with the success of "Holiday," that WB would want to immediately release another similar song to capitalize on it. Yet the opposite turned out to be true. Curtis Hudson was the writer of both "Holiday" and "Spotlight." There is a demo snip out there with another female singer, but it overlays the current version, so it's a little muddy. You can hear it being closer to something like "Everybody."

Madonna said that it was inspired by "Everybody Is A Star," and I can hear hints toward that in the verse melody. She seems to have an affinity with that song. She incorporated it into "Everybody" as an encore number on The Girlie Show Tour.

I don't know how "Jimmy Jimmy," another pseudo-doo-wop song, made it into the album's tracklist. They could've just buried "Spotlight" on there and never said another word about it. Besides, "Holiday" was on the first album. True Blue is her third, plus two soundtracks with almost a half dozen M songs, so "Holiday" wasn't that recent. It was five years between the two.

automatic said:

Where's The Party & Spotlight sounds like both songs were recorded on the same day, hence why only one of them were needed for the True Blue album.

TonyVanDam said:

WB was considering releasing it as a single, but it didn't test well. Radio stations played it, but they realized it would have broken her string of top 5 hits. Plus, she was really overexposed at the time.

phillymonster said:

WB was considering releasing it as a single, but it didn't test well. Radio stations played it, but they realized it would have broken her string of top 5 hits. Plus, she was really overexposed at the time.

It was put out as a promo, I think. But yeah, never an official single. Too bad, it could've been a good one-off to support You Can Dance. There was a single edit on some Japanese single or something. I glanced at it the other day while writing my earlier response. But, I've slept since then.

I always wonder about a word like overexposed when it relates to a musician. Was Prince overexposed from Purple Rain right through "Raspberry Beret?" "I Would Die 4 U" was released in what... November or so? And ATWIAD was out by April? Not much down time for a man who was one of only six people to dominate the #1 position on the album charts in 1984. (These days there's a new #1 every weeks it seems.)

That said, Madonna was striking when the iron was hot, and strike she did. She wasn't stupid. That was her virtual Purple Rain or Thriller moment. Get whatever you can while folks are still paying attention to you. Any younger artists goes through that, though. Albums, tours, maybe a movie role or a cameo, award show appearances, a TV special, a video that raises eyebrows. It's a purposeful and staggered schedule of purposeful - dare I say - spotlight moments.

I have to say, there was a nice lull after the Who's That Girl? Tour in 1987/8, before Like A Prayer showed up. We could all take a beat, including Madge. Overexposed back then, though? Nah. People couldn't get enough of her.

alphastreet said:

There’s a lot of dance pop and freestyle songs from around 87/88 that have the same sound as spotlight so I don’t see it as something that would have not been a hit if repressed properly. Plus her videos are what made her too so that would have been a factor

That was an interesting time, wasn't it? A lot of what we think of as typical 80s music ended up going away. A few things showed up.

- More dance oriented tracks like "Spotlight," which harkened back to "Holiday," which sorta made her ahead of a curve.

- Then you had these male/female duet songs. "I've Had The Time Of My Life," from Dirty Dancing, "Waiting For A Star To Fall," from Boy Meets Girl, "Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley" from Will to Power, "Next Time I Fall" by Peter Cetera and Amy Grant, Peter & Cher "After All", Aretha and George "I Knew You Were Waiting" et al.

- Then you also had the huge new Rick Wake sound that Taylor Dayne brought to the table. Later on, Christian artist Kathy Tricolli (among others) adopted that big sound. It was sort of a new 'wall of sound.' Really fat synths, big reverb on the percussion (which was probably a 707 or 808).

Similar songs were Swing Out Sister "Breakout," Whitney "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," Exposé "Let Me Be The One," Billy Ocean "Get Out of My Dreams..," Roxette "The Look" "Joyride," Karyn White "Secret Rendezvous," Donna Summer "This Time I Know It's For Real." Rick Astley was in the mix. They all shared either those big synths and/or that reverby drum machine sound, but by the time Karyn White showed up, it really adopted a little New Jack in it and created a new type of R&B music. Which was cool.

Even Jane Child made a last go of it with "Don't Wanna Fall In Love." Actually The Jets were getting into that big synth sound with "Crush On You," but Ric Wake took it to a different level.

So yeah, "Spotlight" ended up being one of the last songs of its kind before music took a hard left in the last 3 years of the 80s.

SoulAlive said:

that ‘You Can Dance’ album is alot of fun,isn’t it? Gonna have to pull it out and give it a spin this weekend.

Yeah, I thought the same thing yesterday.

TrivialPursuit said:

Side A:

Papa Don't Preach

Open Your Heart

White Heat

True Blue

Causing a Commotion

Side B

Spotlight

Live To Tell

La Isla Bonita

Who's That Girl

Where's The Party

I rearranged side B so after "Spotlight" when the mood dropped with "Live To Tell," it's a gradual build up with BPM once you hit "Where's the Party." I may very well create that playlist, now that I think about it.

So I created this playlist on Spotify to try it out. It felt so natural and perfect, I didn't blink once, expecting the next song to be one thing and it was something else. It just felt right. I think it'd be more interesting if the longer versions of "Papa Don't Preach, "Open Your Heart," and "Live To Tell" were in there. There are good remixes of most of those songs (good meaning ones that keep the original spirit of the song instead of going left with a club mix or something).

I'm not saying M missed a shot here. But I am saying this version of True Blue flows way better.

TrivialPursuit said:

automatic said:

TrivialPursuit said:

So I created this playlist on Spotify to try it out. It felt so natural and perfect, I didn't blink once, expecting the next song to be one thing and it was something else. It just felt right. I think it'd be more interesting if the longer versions of "Papa Don't Preach, "Open Your Heart," and "Live To Tell" were in there. There are good remixes of most of those songs (good meaning ones that keep the original spirit of the song instead of going left with a club mix or something).

I'm not saying M missed a shot here. But I am saying this version of True Blue flows way better.

This really is a much better tracklisting! True Blue does run out of steam about halfway through. This has much more energy to it. I still can't get over why Madonna went with the awful Jimmy Jimmy song. Honestly the melody reminds me of the song in the link below on Fraggle Rock sung by the Doozers. Lol https://youtu.be/262kfAoZmog

That literally sounds like the last two songs on True Blue fucked and "Yes We Can" was the bastard child. LOL

I dug into my music cloud here at home, and created two playlists to sync. One is the reconfig of True Blue and the second is the same but with extended versions. Now, there's a 19 minute version of "Live To Tell" that I had to say no to. The rest is:

Papa Don't Preach (Extended Remix)

Open Your Heart (Extended Version)

White Heat

True Blue (The Color Mix)

Causing a Commotion (Silver Screen Mix)

Spotlight *

Live To Tell (Extended Version)

La Isla Bonita (Extended Remix)

Who's That Girl (Extended Version)

Where's The Party **

* You Can Dance version, but I put a fade on the end; there is a single mix but I can't find it anywhere)

** I've never found an extended of this aside from You Can Dance. I may play with that and mix the intro of the album into the YCD version

I made the extended playlist just in case I was in a mood for it. The basic album versions are just fine for the regular playlist. I really enjoyed it last night. I almost put in "The Look of Love" or whatever other song from Who's That Girl, but I tried to stay in the 45 minute constraints of a vinyl record.

I like your summation of "losing steam half way through." That sums it up quite well.