Madonna's third album, featuring "Papa Don't Preach" and "Open Your Heart."

2.5/4 (Okay).

A couple songs are enjoyable. At its worst, it's at least tolerable, which is pretty good for a Madonna album. ( )

Product Details

* Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
* Number of Discs: 1
* Label: Warner Bros / Wea
* Catalog Number: 25442
* ASIN: B000002L9S
* Average Customer Review: based on 52 reviews. (Write a review.)
* Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,660 in Music (See Top Sellers in Music)
Yesterday: #42,345 in Music

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1. Papa Don't Preach Listen Listen
2. Open Your Heart Listen Listen
3. White Heat Listen Listen
4. Live To Tell Listen Listen
5. Where's The Party Listen
6. True Blue Listen Listen
7. La Isla Bonita Listen
8. Jimmy Jimmy Listen
9. Love Makes The World Go Round Listen

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
A quintessential '80s pop artifact, Madonna's third album was a huge musical leap forward and ranks with Like a Prayer and Ray of Light in the top echelon of her works. Only the title track (a bit too obviously a '60s girl-group homage) and the fine-but-nothing-special "Jimmy Jimmy" slightly lower the quality bar. Most of the songs share a jittery dance-pop sound, edgy, distracted, and nerve-jangling but simultaneously invigorating and exhilarating and almost dangerously giddy--a perfect soundtrack for the mid-'80s. Highlights include the hedonist's credo of "Where's the Party," the subtle and pretty Latin pastiche "La Isla Bonita," and, towering above all, three stunning mega-hits. "Papa Don't Preach," with its gorgeous pseudo-classical strings intro, is a sumptuous airwaves banquet, as Madonna wrestles with the have-the-baby-or-give-it-up dilemma (abortion's not in the picture) in newly gritty tones. "Open Your Heart"'s marriage of jitter-pop and wistful melody underscores the singer's yearning but forceful stance ("You better open your heart to me, buster"). And "Live to Tell" is a riveting ballad, lushly melodic yet spare and haunting--a place, as the song says, where beauty lives. --Ken Barnes
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Remember the first controversial Madonna album?, April 2, 2004
Reviewer: Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City: Duluth, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER) (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)
One of the most interesting American pop culture phenomenons of 1986 was the conviction of so many people that the Madonna song "Papa Don't Preach" (written by Brian Elliot with additional lyrics by Madonna) was an anti-abortion song. Certainly I can appreciate the idea that Madonna, whose public persona from the start was always far closer to libertine than liberal, could be co-opted to represent conservative (nee traditional) family values. But all you have to do is read the lyrics of the song to see that this makes no sense." The pivotal line from the chorus is (altogether now) "But I made up my mind, I'm keeping my baby." Now, this is simple: the opposite of "keeping" your baby, is giving it up for adoption. The opposite of having an abortion would have been "having" your baby. This not even a close call and is right up there with President Reagan quoting Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." as evidence of American pride (again, the lesson is easy, just read the lyrics, boys and girls, just read the lyrics).

Anyhow, "True Blue" was the third Madonna album and constituted a major makeover at least in terms of her physical image projected by the first two albums which inspired all those young Madonna wannabees. However, the change in her musical choices lagged behind a bit, so you still have "dance" numbers like "Where's the Party" and "Open Your Heart," and there are strong dance rhythms to many of the songs. Still Madonna was also starting to move in other directions at his point. "La Isla Bonita" offers a bit of Latino flair, but I have always thought "Live to Tell" was the key track on this album. The video matched the essence of the song: this is Madonna relying on her voice rather than her moves. She has never had a great voice and it was always a question of what she could do with it; on this song, really for the first time, she shows that she can be a singer rather than just a performer. If we want to point to the song where Madonna grew up, it would this slow, atmospheric ballad, co-written with Patrick Leonard, who had a hand in five other tracks on the album.

How much have things changed since this album was first released? Well, it is dedicated to "My husband, the coolest guy in the universe," and I am sure most of us have lost count of how many specific instantiations of the Madonna icon we have seen in the last couple of decades. More importantly, enough time has finally passed that we can listen to the title track without cringing as hundreds and hundreds of music videos by amateur auteurs parade through our mind for days and days on end. Thank goodness MTV did not do that to one of the really good songs on this album.