Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth for this Thursday. I heard that Madonna was coming out with a new album sometime later this year. I went WOW since for a guy like me who's nearing retirement age, I first knew about Ms. Ciccone when I was in my late teens. Man, has this been a career for her!
Since hearing her for the first time back in 1983 for "Holiday", it was pretty much Madonna everywhere for the rest of the 1980s. I'm not sure how many nicknames she's picked up during that time, but one of them was The Material Girl because of that January 1985 single, "Material Girl", and it's the nickname that I usually associate with her (I just read that she hasn't been too fond of that one, though).
As with a lot of her hits, "Material Girl" was all over the airwaves and the music video was on heavy rotation on the local video shows with her going all Marilyn Monroe. Songwriters Peter Brown and Robert Rans wrote the lyrics to show that Madonna was all about the glam and goodies but the music video impressed upon the viewers that she was quite the opposite. The melody itself hit me as a synthy and slightly sinful song for Madonna done up in a cutesy yet sly fashion, and it was quite the change to see the lady done up in a totally different fashion compared to her previous videos. I also forgot that there were a couple of other celebs involved in the video: Keith Carradine and Robert Wuhl.
"Material Girl" reached No. 2 on America's Billboard and No. 4 on Canada's RPM. So, what else was hitting the record stores in Japan in January 1985?
Yutaka Ozaki -- Sotsugyo （卒業）
Yoshie Kashiwabara -- Lonely Canary （ロンリー・カナリア）
Seiko Matsuda -- Tenshi no Wink （天使のウィンク）
1985 was GREAT year for music (I know one might be able to say that for others years of the 80's, too) But, I really think a lot was going on back in 1985 in the music worlds of both the west and Japan and that made it for a very exciting year. Yes, even though I was a 1st grader back in 1985 I recall that Madonna's hit were always on the radio. But, if I were thinking of Japan probablyレベッカ (Rebecca)'s 1985 hit release「Friends」is the first song that might come to my mind. Not to mentionm Akina's "Sand Beige e" and Mi Amōre. Anzen Chitai's Kanashimi ni Sayonara and Akiko Kobayashi's Koi ni Ochite: Fall in Love" which still seem to get some air play after all these years.
ReplyDelete1985 was chock-filled with famous pop songs in Japan and elsewhere. "Koi ni Ochite" is probably still a favourite among a certain generation at karaoke.
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