Sunday, September 4, 2016

108. Madonna - True Blue


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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. 49, Billboard, The 300 Best-Selling Albums of All Time

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
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



Photo from Art Blart


(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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