Sex For Sale: Ottawa Sun : 10.21.92 : Sex Book

Madonna :1992:

@jpgaultier

Up and through with Gaultier and shyt.

Some "Fever" Dingle

Did anyone ever notice that you could clearly see the dick of the Fever dude?

DID YOU?

Bad Girl

Bad Girl from Madonna's 1992 Erotica album is not just one of Madonna's greatest videos, but one of the greatest videos of all time. Over used words today like Epic should be attributed to works such as this. This is cinema, this is storyline, this is acting, this is David Fincher, and above all, this is Madonna doing what she does best.

Madonna solely brought Movie Star into the rock music world back in 1984 with Mary Lambert's Borderline playing a Lolita of the streets character. Nine years later with Bad Girl, we get what would be her Academy Award winning performance as Louise Oriole - an on the verge, alcoholic fashion magazine editor who has a sexual compulsion and flirts with death rather than deal with her feelings of depression from a dying relationship.

David Fincher directs this fourth and final video with Madonna. Christopher Walken co-stars as the guardian angel watching over Louise in discontent while protecting her every move until the one moment he falters while reading about the Bloody Rampage Killer in the New York Post that will eventually take her life.

We have great stuff here. Louise licking Friskee's cat food off her finger. Dropping her dirty lace underpants in the bathroom sink. Roaming the streets, bars and restaurants of New York with fabulous hair, face and Azzedine Alaia power suits. And Madonna giving one of her greatest on screen performances. This is what Body of Evidence should have been and she knows it, hence why we have this superb video. Madonna was not going to let this moment in time pass without giving it the punctuation mark she wanted.

Bad Girl trivia: Originally to be directed by Tim Burton (initially reported in Liz Smith's column in 1992). Cameo from James Rebhorn - whom Madonna abandons towards the end for killer - also had a role in Woody Allen's Shadow and Fog which Madonna had a cameo - as trapeze artist, Marie. Rebhorn also had a role in Fincher's 1997 film, The Game, starring ex-husband Sean Penn. Christopher Walken played Sean Penn's father in James Foley's At Close Range. Oriole, the main character's last name, is the street that Madonna lived on when she divorced Penn and was the house photographed for Vogue in 1989 - it is of the 'bird streets' that name that entire section of the Hollywood Hills.

Madonna and the Selling of Sex - The New Voyeurism - Newsweek - November 02, 1992

Erotic - The Making of 'Sex' Part 2

This is some of the amazing Super 8 footage that Fabien Baron, Stephen Callaghan and Darren Lew shot while Steven Meisel was photographing Madonna's Sex Book. The footage was compiled into an hour long video and given out at The Sex Book release party and the original soundtrack was set to vintage french music. This particular piece is set to Erotic, the cd that came with the book.

In Living Color - Neurotica

Since YouTube came around, I've been searching for this! This is way before Julie Brown's version. Kelly Coffield is brilliant. They all were, I miss In Living Color.

1992 Interview about Erotica on MTV

Madonna talks about Erotica, The Sex Book, MTV, songwriting, being a visual artist, Camille Paglia, and more.

BAD GIRL

EAT IT!

Gaultier and Madonna Catwalk 1992

Madonna at the Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, September 24, 1992.

EQ - The Recording and Sound Magazine: Recording Madonna by Shep Pettibone

Molly Meldrum and Madonna

You Thrill Me

I'm having a Confessions renaissance. I was in London for the filming of this show on August 15/16th. Per usual, Madonna was mesmerizing - my friends and I all had the time of our lives. Erotica/YouThrill Me from the Confessions Tour in 2006. Fantastique!

My friend Val's pics of Erotica from Confessions Tour.

Dead or Alive - Pete Burns - "Why's It So Hard" Live

In 1999, a Madonna tribute album was released called Virgin Voices. There were 14 covers. Of those, my favorites were: Boy George, James Hardway and Amanda Ghost's cover of Bad Girl, The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black's Burning Up, and Dead or Alive's cover of Why's It So Hard from Erotica.

Here's the incomparable and brilliant Pete Burns performing that version live at London Astoria in 1998.

Bad Girl '93

Love this performance. Always have. A glimmer of light in a dark moment. Remember everything about it, when it originally aired. Where I was, what I was doing, etc. Wish I didn't. ECT, sweetie! ECT!

MTV Day In Rock - Erotica - Milan, October 1992

MTV's Tabitha Soren reports on the Erotica single and video.

Dita

Jonathan Ross Interview 1992

Madonna and Jonathan Ross 1992.

Madonna sat with Jonathan Ross in 1992 to promote her Erotica album and the Sex book. She touches on many subjects here. Her thoughts on AIDS, art, sex, fame, monogamy, and life. Her disgust with homophobia and ageism. Trailblazing through, at the pinnacle of the fame she implemented and today others aspire to, she had no qualms about speaking truth that could have been detrimental to her career but she didn't care. The Goddess spoke like no other before her. Never one to mince words, Madonna let it rip and as far as looks go, she was sock'n it, do'n it - eat your heart out, Marlene. The entire unedited interview can be viewed after the jump:

Fever

In 1993, Madonna released Bad Girl/Fever - her third singles from the Erotica album. She sang both songs on Saturday Night Live on January 16, 1993. As far as the singles and videos were concerned, America got Bad Girl and everyone else got Fever*. The latter was directed by Stephane Sednaoui, who we had known for photographing Madonna on the set of her Justify My Love video in 1990.

It took me awhile to love the video for Fever. I was so impressed with Erotica, Deeper and Deeper and Bad Girl that at the time I thought Fever was a downgrade - it seemed a little out of place - now it seems perfect as one of the videos from the Erotica album. I got hooked on it after seeing it at a nightclub on a wall of tv screens. Prior to Fever, Sednaoui had directed Ziggy Marley in Kozmik (1991), The Red Hot Chili Peppers in Give It Away (1991) and Breaking the Girl (1992). He then became a household name for video directors among the MTV generation in America for directing The Smashing Pumpkin's Today and Bjork's Big Time Sensuality in late 1993.

*update of facts regarding single and video release of Bad Girl and Fever in the comments section provided by Jamesy from Madonna-tv.com

"Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda" - The Erotica Album.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Madonna's 5th studio album Erotica. She didn't hit a home run with this one for me. However, don't get me wrong for the songs I love, I love.

The hip hop beats and Middle Eastern vibe under the cold yet sexy vocals of Erotica and Waiting. The hard disco of Deeper and Deeper and Fever. The urgency and hyperactivity of Words. The jazz fused drum 'n bass beats of Secret Garden. The arrangements and emotional vocals of Bad Girl and In This Life. All perfection.

The videos are amazing - from the super 8 vintage look of Erotica to the Hollywood slickness of Mark Romanek's Rain. Bobby Wood's Warholian Deeper and Deeper with original Warhol Superstar Holly Woodlawn and, of course, one of her greatest videos to date - in the purest form of today's extremely overused word - David Fincher's truly 'Epic' Bad Girl .

I know it's many fans favorite album and it could have been be for me, too, had she shaved a few songs off and rearranged the track-listing. Thank God for iTunes. In a perfect world, Erotica would have been released as such:

Erotica
Fever
Words
Waiting
Bad Girl
Deeper and Deeper
Secret Garden
In This Life
Rain

This is the commercial that ran on television for the Erotica album in 1992.