"This album is dedicated to my husband, the coolest guy in the universe." And so go the liner notes of Madonna's third album, True Blue, dedicated to her husband Sean Penn.

It's very easy for an artist to repeat the same formula over and over again. If they have a solid fan base (which for her started with her self-titled album, Madonna) they're probably expecting the same type of material from you.

Madonna's first album (Madonna) was good, fluff, dance pop. In her video for Borderline, she danced around, flirted, and pined away for her man.

In her second album (Like a Virgin), Madonna pushed the envelope just a little. She combined the fluff, dance pop of her first album with just enough risque lyrics to whet our appetites. Her single Like a Virgin didn't go over well with the parents of the teen and pre-teen group. Still, she was safer then that other wild popster out there - Prince.

Along comes True Blue. Madonna gets married, she cuts her hair off, and she decides to open up a can of worms with her first single, Papa Don't Preach.

Tracks

Papa Don't Preach
This is a brilliant song. It could be told by any teenage girl. "Papa don't preach, we're in trouble deep. Papa don't preach, I've been losing sleep. But I've made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby." The brilliance behind it is that it emotes a realistic view of a girl who is pregnant and has no where else to turn except to her father. On one hand, she wants to convince him that everything is okay, and on the other hand, she's pleading for his help. Grade: A

Open Your Heart
This is a solid dance tune. Listening to the song, you think of someone who is upset over losing their significant other. Rejection. Flash forward to the video she made for this song. Instead of reflecting on the boy/girl break-up routine, she takes to a different level. Madonna's character is an exotic dancer. She dances to people who watch her peep show. The different people range from a lesbian to a set of identical twins. All react differently to her dancing. The coolest thing about this video is a shot where she is leaning backwards in a chair. The background and her head movements imitate the picture that graces the cover of her cd. Grade: B

White Heat
This is one of the most underrated Madonna songs. I don't think it's even on the Immaculate Collection (her greatest hits, volume one as I call it). It has a great dance beat. Grade: B+

Live To Tell
A great ballad. This song was featured in Sean Penn's movie At Close Range. It fits in well with the theme of the movie: secrets, lies, personal, self-destruction. Grade: A

Where's The Party
Another great dance tune, with lots of perkiness and spunk added to it. This is the kind of single you could toss on to your cd player while at a party or on the way home from a looooong week from work. "Where's the party, I want to free my soul. Where's the party, I want to lose my soul." Grade: B+

True Blue
I remember two things about this song. First, it has a very 50ish feel to it. Second, mtv held a contest to create the video to this. I don't remember what the winning video looked like. Madonna also created a video for this that had her and other girls dressed in 50's clothing, singing in and around a convertible from that era. Grade: B-

La Isla Bonita
Eak! The only song on the cd that leaves me with a nauseous feeling. It's weak - in fact, one of her weakest songs EVER. It's supposed to be a ballad. She longs for the pretty island ;). Grade: F

Jimmy Jimmy
A fluff, pop dance tune that would have been better served on a previous album. It tries to have a 50ish sound to it like True Blue does. More upbeat than True Blue but definitly not as good. Grade: C-

Love Makes The World Go Round
The last and final, weak song on this cd. It cannot make up it's mind whether it's a dance tune or a slow tune. During the chorus, it seems to speed up and when she is singing the verses, she slows it down. Grade: D

As with almost all of her songs, Madonna wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on this cd. Her collaborators from Madonna and Like a Virgin, Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard produced this cd.

Looking back over Madonna's 16+ year career, there are just a few cd's in their entirety that I enjoy listening to over and over again. If I block out the last three songs, then this is one of them.

Bottomline: If you're a Madonna fan, this is a must have for your musical collection.







Recommended: Yes