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AUSTRALIAN IMPORT
Condition: Brand New Factory Sealed
A quintessential '80s pop artifact, Madonna's third album was a huge musical leap forward and ranks with Like a Prayer and Ray of Light in the top echelon of her works. Only the title track (a bit too obviously a '60s girl-group homage) and the fine-but-nothing-special "Jimmy Jimmy" slightly lower the quality bar. Most of the songs share a jittery dance-pop sound, edgy, distracted, and nerve-jangling but simultaneously invigorating and exhilarating and almost dangerously giddy--a perfect soundtrack for the mid-'80s. Highlights include the hedonist's credo of "Where's the Party," the subtle and pretty Latin pastiche "La Isla Bonita," and, towering above all, three stunning mega-hits. "Papa Don't Preach," with its gorgeous pseudo-classical strings intro, is a sumptuous airwaves banquet, as Madonna wrestles with the have-the-baby-or-give-it-up dilemma (abortion's not in the picture) in newly gritty tones. "Open Your Heart"'s marriage of jitter-pop and wistful melody underscores the singer's yearning but forceful stance ("You better open your heart to me, buster"). And "Live to Tell" is a riveting ballad, lushly melodic yet spare and haunting--a place, as the song says, where beauty lives.
Track Listing
1. Papa Don't Preach
2. Open Your Heart
3. White Heat
4. Live to Tell
5. Where's the Party
6. True Blue
7. La Isla Bonita - (Spanish)
8. Jimmy, Jimmy
9. Love Makes the World Go Around
10. True Blue - (The Color mix)
11. La Isla Bonita - (extended remix)
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