Skip to main content

On this Day: April 06, 1984 Borderline" enters the Billboard singles chart.


"Borderline" is a song by American recording artist Madonna from her self-titled debut album. It was released on February 15, 1984 as the fifth single from the album, by Sire Records. Written and composed by producer Reggie Lucas, the song received remix treatment from Madonna's then boyfriend John "Jellybean" Benitez. She used a refined and expressive voice for the song. Its lyrics dealt with the subject of a love that is never fulfilled and was written as a rebellion against male chauvinism.
Contemporary critics and authors applauded the song, calling it harmonically the most complex song from the Madonna album and complimenting the dance-pop nature of the song. "Borderline" became Madonna's first top ten hit on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number ten. In the United Kingdom it reached number two after it was re-released as a single in 1986. Elsewhere, the song reached the top 10 or top 20 of a number of European nations while peaking the singles chart of Ireland. The song was placed at 84 on Blender magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born", while Time included it on the critic list "All-Time 100 Songs".
The accompanying music video portrayed Madonna with a Latin-American man as her boyfriend. She was enticed by a British photographer to pose and model for him, but later returned to her original boyfriend. The video generated interest amongst academics, who noted the use of power as symbolism in it. With the video, Madonna was credited for breaking the taboo of interracial relationships and was considered one of her career-making moments. The release of the video on MTV increased Madonna's popularity further. Madonna has performed the song on her Virgin Tour (1985) and the Sticky & Sweet Tour (2008), where a punk-rock version of the song was performed. "Borderline" has been covered by a number of artists, including Duffy, Jody Watley, Counting Crows and The Flaming Lips.

Single

Borderline, the singleIn this love song Madonna asks her boyfriend to make up his mind, because she's crazy in love with him. The fans were crazy about the song too, because Madonna scored her first US top 10 hit when she released Borderline in 1984. It would also become her first Gold certification. In the UK at first it only got to #56, but after the first album was re-issued in 1985, Borderline re-entered the singles chart in January 1986 and made it to #2 (only to be blocked from #1 by Billy Ocean's 'When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going').

Video

Borderline, the videoThis was the first video by Mary Lambert, who would later also direct Like A Virgin, Material Girl, La Isla Bonita and Like A Prayer. In this video we see Madonna as a colorful street girl, toying with one of the boys. Then a photographer gets interested in her and she lets him take pictures while she sips champagne. Later though she gets bored and tries to win back the heart of her boyfriend. Lambert creates a contrast with color scenes in the street (with the boyfriend) and black & white scenes during the photoshoots. It was the first Madonna video that got sustained play on MTV.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Madonna Nipple During Istanbul Concert

#Madonna Flashes Titty on #MNDAtour!!! Photos, Gifs and Full Video of  Human Nature  and  Like a Virgin :  Always the burlesque girl.

Madonna Started Filming The "Bedtime Story" Video on December 5 1994.

The inspiration behind the video. Hello everyone! This month’s music video to be analyzed is the for “Bedtime Story”, While this video is tricky for its various sources of inspiration, it’s one of her best, if not  the   best, and an underrated one by most fans. I am sure that, after reading all of this, you’ll find yourself more in love with the true artist Madonna really is. Madonna called upon “Rain” director Mark Romanek to do the music video for “Bedtime Story” after she saw what he had done with Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer”. As she always does, she listened to the song over and over again, trying to think of a concept for a video. The theme she held on to for this one was dreams, it’s meaning, concepts, imagery and works based on it. She’s a huge fan of surrealistic art, in which lots of paintings deal about dreaming, or allude to something unfathomable in real life. She held to that and brought that concept to Romanek, that really liked the idea and wanted to add ...

Rolling Stone - June 13, 1991 - Flesh and Fantasy - Big Time Girl Talk with Carrie Fisher

Madonna and I had met many times over the years, but we had never actually had a conversation. It took this interview to bring us together – she as icon, I as inquisitor of icon [after all, I have already distinguished myself as friend of icon, relative of icon and ex-wife of icon]. I had never done an interview before, and I don’t know that I will again. For me, this has all the makings of a waterloo. The first of the two sessions for this interview took place in the restaurant of the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles. Madonna wore gold lame; I probably wore black. The last session took place in the offices of her manager, Freddy DeMann. Madonna wore a negligee; I probably wore black. I was late for that first meeting because a friend who had AIDS and who was staying with me had suddenly developed a fever. I called Madonna to say I was on my way. “You’re late,” she informed me. I explained about my friend. “Well, okay, that’s a good excuse,” she said. By the time of our fina...