Here are a dozen Madonnas over a true blue background under a cool blue filter.
Before this process the original album art work was posterized and crosshatched and brightness was adjusted in three levels.
The album cover, shot by photographer Herb Ritts, is one of Madonna's most recognizable pictures. It features a picture of Madonna from the neck up.
The main colors in the picture are gray, white and various shades of blue to reinforce the album's title. Madonna positioned herself in an elegant pose
while wearing pale make up with red lips, tilting back her neck in a swan like pose. Jeri Heiden, who was working at Warner Bros. art department,
was given the task of editing the photos and making them compatible for appearance in an album cover. She had to work with a total of 60 rolls of
photos, each of size 35 mm. Heiden ordered about 30 to 40 test prints from Ritts' studio and made recommendations based on it. Several images from
the photo shoot were considered for the album cover, some of which later became the single covers for "Papa Don't Preach", "True Blue" and "Open Your
Heart". The final photo was selected by Madonna, Heiden and Jeff Ayeroff, creative director of Warner Bros. at that time.
After the final photo was selected, Heiden commissioned two different versions of the album cover. The original image was taken in black-and-white,
and Heiden experimented with a variety of treatments of the photo, to go along with the album's title, and finally arrived at the blue toned, hand
tinted version of the image. The LP and CD album cover is a cropped image of a longer picture including torso, more of which is seen in the cover of
the cassette tape edition, and was also included as a fold-out poster in the initial pressings of the LP. A poster of Madonna, mirroring the cover art,
was included within the vinyl versions of the album. wikipedia
No. 67, Rolling Stone, The 100 Greatest Album Covers.
Photo by Herb Ritts, art direction by Jeffrey Kent Ayeroff, album produced by Madonna, Stephen Bray & Patrick Leonard. Sire, Warner Bros. 1986.
According to Lucy O'Brien, author of Madonna: Like an Icon, the album artwork was on-par with Andy Warhol's concept of pop art. She felt that the
image was a mixture of innocence and idealism, while incorporating 1950s-style Technicolor and hand tinted color, characteristic of Warhol's
silkscreen printed design, prevalent in the 1960s. Jeri Heiden, the album's cover designer, commented, "She was already highly aware of the value of
her image and was in control of it. After I took the photo, it appeared as if she was floating—her clothing was not visible. She took on the appearance
of a marble statue, goddess-like." O'Brien felt that the artwork heralded the arrival of a new Madonna, while drawing on the enduring appeal of her
celluloid icon Marilyn Monroe. "With this picture, Madonna made explicit the connection between Warhol and herself, the vivid nexus between pop art
and commerce. The late 1980s marked a new era of the pop artist as a brand, and Madonna became the first one to exploit this."
Erica Wexler from Spin described Madonna on the cover as "like a cobra basking in the hot sun, Madonna on the cover of her new album stretches her
profile lasciviously." Author J. Randy Taraborrelli commented in Madonna: An Intimate Biography, that the album cover indicated how True Blue was
a vehicle of growth for Madonna. He felt that the "washed out color photograph" of her with head tilted back and eyes closed was "understated",
especially when compared to the sexier poses she had been associated in the past. The album's inner sleeve did not feature any photographs, and
instead was dedicated to album credits and the song lyrics, since Madonna wanted to be represented by her songs on True Blue, not her image.
Billboard listed the cover at rank 34 on their article about the "50 Greatest Album Covers", describing it as a striking image of the singer. wikipedia
(A) Papa Don't Preach - Open Your Heart - White Heat - Live to Tell
(B) Where's the Party - True Blue - La Isla Bonita - Jimmy Jimmy - Love Makes the World Go Round
"La Isla Bonita" Official Music Video from QueenMadonnaHD on YouTube.
www.madonna.com
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