10 August 1985
Madonna’s first number one single in the UK and Ireland feels a little anachronistic for its time. ‘Into The Groove’ followed up Like A Virgin’s string of next-level hits and the epic power ballad ‘Crazy For You’, but it sounds more of a piece with her pre-Virgin dancefloor bops like ‘Holiday’, which was actually at number two this week in Ireland. In fact, she performed ‘Into The Groove’ and ‘Holiday’ in her Live Aid set that summer but none of her Like A Virgin singles; this and the uneasy vibe between her and the crowd (fuelled by controversy over pre-fame nude model photos of her being published in high-profile adult mags that summer) give the impression that Madonna’s new superstar status wasn’t starting off smoothly.
That new status now also included ‘movie star’; ‘Into The Groove’ was de facto publicity for Desperately Seeking Susan, which featured Madonna with Rosanna Arquette and our own Aidan Quinn. I haven’t seen this film, and anyone who’s opened a newspaper or magazine in the last 30 years will know that not seeing a Madonna film is pretty much the party line. Even before public ridicule of virtually her entire ’00s (to wit: Swept Away, Die Another Day, American Life, Guy Ritchie, Kabbalah conversion, controversial Malawi adoptions) irretrievably scuttled her cultural relevance, Madonna’s fame always came with priced-in snark about the movie-star aspirations we first saw here. Since Prince never seemed to attract such personal scorn for his films, this was probably also convenient cover for lashing back at a strong public female figure.
All this is to say that ‘Into The Groove’ was probably the first Madonna single release on our side of the Atlantic that really was wrapped in the superstar-Madonna hullabaloo. As a peer of ‘Holiday’ and a slice of ’80s disco nostalgia it sounds fine, but you wouldn’t call it classic Madonna to rank with the game-changing ‘Like A Virgin’ and ‘Material Girl’ the year before or her truly remarkable number one single in the summer of the year after. For now, this is an agreeable placeholder.
