Into Which Groove?

All this Michael Jackson talk has led me to revisit the work of some of his 80s dance-pop contemporaries, including arguably his chief chart rival: Madonna. True, Michael Jackson did get a 13-year head start on Madonna, but they actually are (or were, rather) the same age, and Madonna has also been more prolific. After 1982, Michael Jackson managed to release about four albums, whereas Madonna has released about twelve (does the Who's That Girl soundtrack really count?). It also must be said that, despite Kaballah and Swept Away and her attempt at rapping on "American Life" and whatnot, she is probably a little more in touch with reality than MJ ever was.

Which brings me to the matter at hand. I am trying to decide which version of "Into The Groove" I like more: the original version or the mix on the Immaculate Collection. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. The original simply starts with the beat in full throttle, whereas the Immaculate version starts mostly a capella, backed by brief snippets of organ, before the beat finally enters. Although I respect the Immaculate mix's attempt to shake up the immortal "And you can dance! (you can dance!...you can dance!)/For inspiration (inspiration... inspiration)" intro, ultimately I think I prefer the intro as it appears in the original mix. With the original intro I get the sense the track may have already been "grooving" for hours and hours on end and the engineer serendipitously stumbled into the control booth, fresh from a nice snort of coke, thought to himself, "Wow, I've got to get this on tape!" and finally managed to press the red button. It gives the opening a sense of in medias res. On the other hand, because the Immaculate mix intially holds the beat back, when it finally enters, it has a heavier impact. It's like Chinese water torture, trying to decide!

Some further evidence to consider. The original mix is more spare and lean, while the Immaculate version is bathed in that "Q Sound" effect which sort of blurs everything together. The original mix also has a few extra "Now I know you're mine"s which were edited out of the Immaculate version - but then again, were they really needed? I'd say the original mix has the edge, aside from the not-so-insignificant absence of the Immaculate version's hot latin salsa piano solo. Regardless, in either version, the song is like the catchiest creation of Satan's most evil spawn (and I'm not even going to get into the matter of the extended mixes on You Can Dance).

Indeed, as lengthy and rewarding a career as Madonna has had, with some latter-day singles that are almost perfect for what they are, I have to go out on a limb here and say that her earliest period is her best. Although "innocent" is not really a word that many people associate with early Madonna, I feel there is a certain innocent quality to "Holiday," "Borderline," "Material Girl," etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think part of Madonna's initial appeal was that she did not have a conventionally strong singing voice. She was like a throwback to the early 60s girl group singers such as Little Eva or Ronnie Specter or Rosie and the Originals, who sounded like they were plucked from a Brooklyn street corner and thrust into a studio for the very first time in their lives (in fact, Little Eva, of "Loco-Motion" fame, was Carole King's babysitter).

But right around "Papa Don't Preach" Madonna suddenly decided that she needed to be a "serious" singer and that she needed vocal training. Nonsense. To call her voice "Minnie Mouse on helium," as one critic did, is to dismiss its very character. Listen to the way she sings "tonight I want to dance with some-one e-else!" The purity of the entire universe is in those notes. I also love the way she sings "Touch!...my body," as if she were stroking herself right there behind the microphone. But compare that to Prince, who probably would have just sang, "Touch my penis" and made it all too explicit. That's what I mean by "innocent." If Madonna was horny, she was horny in more of a guileless teenage girl sort of way than an experienced prostitute sort of way.

Also I am convinced with early Madonna that there was very little pretense toward creating "art" whatsoever. "Into The Groove" was probably intended to be completely, totally disposable. According to AMG, it was never properly released as a single in the US. They were making a forgettable B-side! But the public can spot a winner. At any rate, I know that she can't go around at 50 pretending she's still 25. But depth hasn't exactly become Madonna. The irony is that she probably came off deeper when she was trying to be irredeemably shallow.