Borderline 45

From Madonna's Borderline 45 fold out poster.

Borderline

Speaking of the Borderline Hat and Lollipops

...and tube skirts and the Healthy shirt. Madonna and Rosanna Arquette on February 17, 1985 at the Forum in LA for the Prince concert.

Fake but Fabulous

Someone trying to pull off a little Borderline hat and Lucky Star sun glasses on a Feingold pic for a t-shirt. Fake but fab.

Photographs featured in the Borderline Video

Who the fuck took these photographs that were in the Borderline video and why don't we have them? I've been waiting since 1984!!!

Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Summer Songs - Borderline #9

9. ''BORDERLINE'' (1984)

Madonna

The headlines belonged to Walter Mondale's slow death march against Ronald Reagan. But the airwaves succumbed to that poignant opening keyboard lick, burbling disco melody, and masochist-delight lyrics. If infatuation is an essential summer experience, then so is romantic frustration. Pleading while standing up for herself, Madonna scored her first top 10 hit and made romantic disappointment as uplifting as it'll ever be.

Madonna/Madonna VHS Cassette plus Record Store Counter Promo

When this 4 track Video VHS came out in late 1984, it was bliss! Borderline (still my all-time fav), Burning Up - finally in great quality - I used to have to watch MV3 with Richard Blade here in Los Angeles to get Burning Up and Everybody because MTV didn't play those. The club version mix of Lucky Star. And, of course, the original Like a Virgin - which is Mary Lambert's original cut and the first one they showed on MTV for the first couple of weeks of their exclusive.

This is the Record Store Counter Promo they had for the VHS. It folds under and it stands straight up like a pyramid. Fab.

What's Your Favorite Video From Madonna/Madonna - The First Album?

From Madonna's decadent debut album, Madonna, she had four great videos that reflected different eras in the early history of motion picture. With each video she progressed, as the medium of The Music Video grew with the advent of MTV.

Film Exhibition: Everybody (1982). Like a Nickelodeon machine but projecting outward in clubs, the sexy downtown street waif beckons everyone to dance and sing, get up and do their thing. A glimpse inside the underworld in which she came. Performing on stage, people are dancing beneath her and walking across her stage with a boom box, she unaffected.

Symbolism: Burning Up (1983). Raunchy Sex Goddess in heat that crawled up from the gutters into a world of goldfish bowls, Grecian/Roman marble busts with illuminating eyes, an abundance of door locks, chains, eyeballs and lips. Doors turn into boats and a car drives through the river around her. She ends up in the middle of a road, tugging at her garment as she's the target of a speeding driver. Just as the car would impact her and she would end up as road kill, she emerges driving the vehicle with the initial male driver nowhere to be found.

Narrative: Borderline (1984). Photographer discovers strikingly beautiful street girl as she's dancing with her lover and friends. Flattered at his proposal to pose for photographs, girls jealous boyfriend disapproves as she and photographer drive off to the studio. Being shot in a series of photos and ending up on a cover of a magazine, girl has flashbacks to her life when it was easy, sexy, fun and free. Bored with the glamorous champagne atmosphere photographer provides, an argument ensues, she rebels and returns to guy she loves.

Technique: Lucky Star (1984). A visual and voyeuristic study of performance and personae using close up, medium and long shots via fast paced editing. A character study of the dancer with the use of a motion picture camera. From the moment she removes her sunglasses, she 'lifts the curtain' to expose herself to the viewer. Long shots of dancers performance, close up of body parts from eyes, lips, stomach, feet and bellybutton. Performer allows us into her narcissistic world while making love to the camera as it follows every move leading to a personal extravaganza and ending with performer 'dropping the curtain' by putting glasses back on.

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Which is your favorite video from the Madonna album and why?

Happy Birthday Mary Lambert!

The best Madonna video director ever. She's cinematic, she's fabulous and she captures the true beauty of Los Angeles and Madonna like nobody else. And a Libra, too! Well, of course. xo

On the set of Borderline

Just Can't Get Enough

Perfection.

Borderline

I had a dream about Mary Lambert last night.

It's always been about the Orange Pumps.

Mary was so wonderful in my dream. It was a dinner party atmosphere. I was telling her and her guests how fabulous she was. That I was 13 when I saw the Borderline video in early 1984 and how she and Madonna are responsible for my aesthetic. I was on about (when am I not?) the orange pumps(!!!), florescent green socks, the Keith Haring/Vivienne Westwood devil skirt, the cinematography, to the Los Angeles Salvadorean restaurant/bar on 6th Street. I was raising one arm to the sky to explain that's where Mary is and the other arm to the dirt floor as to where the others dwell. It was a hoot.

I guess this all has to do with Mary's sister, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, and all the shyt regarding her senate seat this and last week . By the way, she triumphed when the odds were against her. xo

Anyway, here's Mary and what she's doing lately. She made the documentary about women in the senate called 14 Women and talking about an art show she had and how she tells stories with pictures. Still as brilliant, smart, beautiful, and wonderful as ever - check it out. She directed The Attic with Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) from my favorite television show Mad Men. I love Mary!!!! And she's a Libra.

We had a really hard time raising the money because women politicians are not as newsworthy as men...and I was told that. - Mary Lambert on 14 Women.

All I Had To Do Was Shoot Her Face...

My photographs of the 4th Street Bridge in Los Angeles where the beginning of Borderline was shot.

Like church bells on a Sunday morning after a hard night, Borderline beckons us to the Church of Madonna. That voice, that song, that face, those orange pumps. I still haven't gotten over it, 26 years later. Neither have you.

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The video:

The brilliant Mary Lambert speaking of it:

"We were up on a rooftop trying to steal a shot and the sun started to set and that beautiful golden light lit up her face and I was looking through the camera and I just looked down and I knew we were going to have a great video, all I had to do was shoot her face." - Mary Lambert on Borderline.

Gloss

My best friends and I, back in the day (1983-1986), were always on a mad search (still are) for Madonna magazines and pics. It was almost like baseball trading cards for fags. Anyway, whenever one of us wanted to let the other have it, we would say, "I found Gloss". Haha! Someone who was in the art dept. on Borderline or Mary Lambert has Gloss. Or maybe, it got tossed in the trash - wouldn't that be blasphemous?

Record Collector - Top 10 Picture Discs - February 2010

Madonna - Borderline - The Dance Show 1984

The only time Madonna did promotion for Borderline. Glad she did. I remember my cousin calling me on Saturday morning and saying, "that girl, Madonna, you like is on The Dance Show." She did 2 songs, this and Holiday.

Borderline - When 'The Voice' merged with 'The Face'.

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She had already bewitched me with 'the voice'. Then one day about 6 months in and a few magazine clippings later, while getting ready for school, I heard Borderline playing on MTV - I had been waiting forever. No longer was it just that voice from the heavens above - now I saw her in motion and it couldn't have been any more glorious.

...Behind the Music didn't do their research, Borderline was shot in Los Angeles but nevertheless..."I knew we were going to have a great video, all I had to do was shoot her face."
- Mary Lambert

1979 Interview with DJ John 'Jellybean' Benitez

notice the jumpsuit/pants?

Early Interview - Spring 1984