About This Time 40 Years Ago… it’s The Hits Of December-ish 1984

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

I would like you to consider the possibility that “Like A Virgin” by Madonna is a Christmas song.

I know what you are thinking – squeaky voice: “HEY!” – but bear with me for a moment.

Also, Madonna released “Like A Virgin”, shortly before Christmas.

“Like A Virgin” reached Number One on the Hot 100 the week before Christmas, remaining there well into the New Year. It was, if nothing else, The Song Of The Winter!

Why may have record buyers rushed to the store the week before Christmas to buy such a record, other than the undeniable fact that it was one of the catchiest tunes around?

Let’s look at the name on the record first… Madonna.

So, “Like A Virgin”, was obviously a pun on the whole “I-can’t-believe-that’s-actually-her-name” thing.  Or was it? We’ll discuss that further below.

Possibly. Or they might be a representation of the beans of light shooting out of The Immaculate Heart Of Mary, as popularized through Renaissance paintings of Mary:

Maybe it is a reference to the “Immaculate Heart Of Mary”, maybe it’s not. But if there’s one thing we know about Madonna – and after 40 years we know way more than we ever wanted to – it’s that she’s a fan of religious-puns; she titled her greatest hits album “The Immaculate Collection” for Christ-sakes!

Madonna had already been the hottest pop starlet for a year or so by the time “Like A Virgin” came out, and already a nation of teenage girls was replicating “the Madonna look.” She’d already been rockin’ the crucifixes and rosary beads, but with “Like A Virgin” and the bustier-enhanced wedding dress – perfectly designed for the wedding night! – complemented by the “Boy Toy” belt, the look was complete.

“The Madonna look” turned out to be dead simple to replicate.

Madonna wasn’t just built for teenage girl dress-ups. Madonna was also built for news-segments about teenage girl dress-ups. “Madonna.” , an ABC news anchor began. “If you think we are referring to the sweet expressions of the painter Raphael” – I feel pretty confident that nobody was – “then you obviously don’t have a teenage daughter.”

ABC then proceeded to interview a series of talking heads to ask for their views on Madonna and her whole deal.

• Merle Ginsburg at Rolling Stone claimed that “she is the lowest common denominator of the American Dream,” which sounds far more like an insult than she probably intended.

• Famous feminist Betty Friedman was more supportive: “She’s a Marilyn Monroe look alike but she’s not a VICTIM!! She’s courageous! And gutsy!! And individual!!! And I think her appeal is, she’s feminine, she’s herself, she’s sexual, but she’s STRONG!!!”

University theses would eventually be written about Madonna. Not to mention books with such titles as Madonna As Postmodern Myth: How One Star’s Self-Construction Rewrites Sex, Gender, Hollywood, And The American Dream.

I think she would have been a fan: “She belongs to THE LIGHT!! She belongs to THE THUNDER!!! But at the same time, she belongs to NOBODY but HERSELF!!!!”

Much of the media coverage centred on Madonna’s “made for fame” name, even though I have my doubts whether the average American – or average American teenage girl for that matter – was familiar enough with Catholic Mariology to be aware of why it was the perfect name for her.

I mean, I was raised Catholic, and it took me far longer to make the connection between Mary and Madonna than you might think. It’s not impossible that the first time I was exposed to the Madonna=Mary equation was during a discussion about “the Madonna-whore complex”… needless to say, I was confused.

If I was confused then it must have been really confusing at the Vatican when they excommunicated Madonna… three times!

Or did they?

Madonna has insisted that she has been thrice excommunicated on multiple occasions. But that raises some interesting questions, such as: how can you possibly be excommunicated more than once? I’ve spent way too long going down a rabbit-hole of medieval papal bulls trying to figure this out, and it appears that being excommunicated is a long and laborious process and the Pope has more important shit to do.

Nonetheless, the Vatican has never really been fans of Madonna – preferring instead the sweet expressions of the painter Raphael – and their issues began with “Like A Virgin”, a song you might assume was written specifically for Madonna, as a pun on her name. It wasn’t.

“Like A Virgin” was initially conceived to be a very different song; not a flirty, disco romp, but a sad and sensitive ballad. Billy Steinberg wrote it about finding true love after a bruising break-up. Like Moses escaping Egypt, he’d made it through the wilderness… ANOTHER BIBLICAL REFERENCE!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!?!?

But again, total coincidence. Billy had no way of knowing when he wrote “Like A Virgin” in 1983 – when nobody knew who Madonna was – that the song would end up with someone for whom Biblical allusions were part of the package, someone who would one day have their own “Madonna and Religion” Wikipedia page.

What are the chances that, shortly after writing a heart-felt ballad about being “like a virgin,” you meet up with a guy responsible for finding songs for a new pop-starlet that happens to share the same name as the world’s most famous virgin? That stuff doesn’t just happen!!! Supernatural forces must be at work!!!

Or maybe that stuff does happen when you have already presented the song to every other pop-starlet and been told repeatedly that “nobody is ever going to sing a song with a title like that.” That they’d feel embarrassed too. Billy and Tom needed to find a pop starlet that didn’t know the meaning of the word “embarrassed.”

In the end “Like A Virgin” would become Madonna’s “Billie Jean”, or at least the song whose bass-hook sounds most like “Billie Jean.” So much so that Madonna would slip in a bit of “Billie Jean” into her live performances on the “Virgin” tour.

And like Michael’s moonwalking “Billie Jean” performance at the Motown 25 show, Madonna had her own iconic performance at the inaugural MTV VMA awards. She started off the performance wearing a wedding dress on top of a giant wedding cake, before falling to the floor and humping the stage, quite convincingly bringing herself to climax by the end.

Apparently the most subtle way Madonna could think of to cover up a loose shoe was to simulate sex on stage… don’t you love the way Madonna’s mind works?

Bette Midler – who was hosting the show – famously commented, “Well, now that the burning question of Madonna’s virginity has been answered…”

It had. Not only that, her pop immortality had been guaranteed. 

“Like A Virgin” is a 9.

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Meanwhile, in Synth-Goth Land:

Well, as if I haven’t been blasphemous enough…

The punks, the goths, the New Romantics… they all did something you might not have expected in the 80s: they all discovered God.

Let me rephrase that just a little: they discovered how much they were non-fans of God. Also, how much they liked to write songs about how they were non-fans of God. There was XTC with “Dear God” (and Midge Ure with “Dear God” for that matter), Pet Shop Boys with “It’s A Sin” (Neil and Chris obviously had their own reasons to be non-fans of organized religion). Just to mention the more obvious examples.

Because then there was Depeche Mode with “Blasphemous Rumours.”

Depeche Mode were going through a phase of tackling all the big issues. This was not something that you may have automatically expected from the band that gave us the dinky-ditty, and retro-party-starter, “Just Can’t Get Enough” (It’s a 9, but only if you are at the right kind of party and are very, very drunk.)

But Depeche Mode were a very different band in 1984 than they had been in 1981. Vince Clark – the genius behind “Just Can’t Get Enough” – had left Depeche Mode to form Yazoo with Alison Moyet, churning out classic bangers and ballads – “Don’t Go”, “Situation”, “Only You” – at such a rate that it appeared as though he had taken the brains of the band with him. How would the now Vince-less Depeche Mode survive? Could they survive?

It was now up to Martin to be the mastermind of Mode. Maybe that’s why Martin felt he had to prove his intellectual credentials and write about serious issues. Or maybe that’s just the kind of man he was.

What kind of man was Martin Gore?

For Martin was also the member of Mode most likely to have his shirt off in a video and/or photo shoot. No surprise then, that the “Blasphemous Rumours” B-side, “Somebody” – one of the occasional Depeche Mode songs to be sung by Martin – was recorded in the nude.

With Martin writing the tunes, Depeche Mode transformed themselves into enthusiastic members of a generation that believed they could save the world with rock’n’roll: the synth-pop division of the U2-“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” nexus.

Martin tackled racism. Capitalism. Religion. S&M. And every topic in between. And every topic he tackled, he tackled in the clunkiest manner imaginable. Fitting, really, given that Depeche Mode’s grooves – largely consisting of samples of household utensils and industrial machinery – are equally clunky.

Let’s have a look at each: First up, racism on “People Are People” (“People are people, so why should it be?/ You and I should get along so aw-ful-ly”).

“People Are People” was a Number One in West Germany where it was seen as a plea with East Germany, a reminder that Germans are Germans. And maybe the Germans were right.

“People Are People” was recorded in Berlin after all – in the same studio as Bowie and Iggy – a city divided against itself.

(Even though the band seems rather embarrassed about the song nowadays, “People Are People” is still a 9)

Martin tackled capitalism on “Everything Counts” (“it’s a com-pet-it-ive world”) inspired by a tour of Thailand, where he witnessed extreme inequality and where “you see all the women over there ‘n’ they’re all prostitutes.“ (“Everything Counts” is an 8; another song inspired by Thailand will feature in my next dispatch from the 80s)

And religion on “Blasphemous Rumours”, the story of a teenage girl who attempts to commit suicide, doesn’t succeed – “thank the Lord” – finds religion and then… irony of ironies, gets hit by a car, and ends up on a life-support machine (insert a not exactly subtle sample of said machine going “gurgle-gurgle, glug-glug”)

This is some dark shit, and the verses of “Blasphemous Rumours” are filled by creepy and creaking sounds – including a sample of a metal hammer being wacked against a block of cement – and a foreboding sense of doom.

Then the chorus hits, and everything goes DISCO!!!

“I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumours” Dave sings, but clearly this is a sorry-not-sorry-sort-of-situation, because he carries on anyway with “but I think that God’s got a sick sense of humour, and when I die, I expect to find him laugh-ing.”

“Blasphemous Rumours” isn’t that much more theologically sophisticated than “if God exists then why does he allow bad things to happen, such as all the starving children in Africa?”, although, to be fair, has anybody ever come up with a satisfactory answer to that question.

Unlike, let’s say, Madonna, Martin Gore wasn’t a lapsed-Catholic. But he did go to church with two Depeche Mode members – Andy and Vince – because he had nothing better to do on Sunday mornings. He was particularly intrigued by a part of the mass called “the prayer list”: 

“Every week they would sit and pray for people who were seriously ill, and you could guarantee that most of them, the majority of the people who they prayed for, would die.” 

If you are in any way offended by “Blasphemous Rumours” feel some comfort in the fact that you are not alone. Even within the band, Andy – one of the churchgoers that Martin went to church with – felt a little offended. And possibly a little disappointed. Up until then he had hoped that Martin might be converted. That didn’t quite work out.

“Blasphemous Rumours” is an 8.

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Meanwhile in Electro-Disco Land:

If Pete Burns gets to know your name, then Pete could trace your private num-ber, bab-y!

All Pete probably means by this is that he’ll look you up in the phone book, which was a perfectly normal thing to do back then. But Pete makes it sound creepy! He makes it sound as though he’s a hacker or something, an unlikely hobby for a pop star, particularly in 1984, since the Internet didn’t exist yet.

Dead Or Alive were always going to become pop stars. It was only a matter of time.

… all of which Dead Or Alive had accomplished even before they scored their one big hit.

1984 may have been the gayest year of the 20th century: Boy George, George Michael in Wham!, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Bronski Beat, Boy George’s mate Marilyn… and then, right at the end of the year; the popped cherry on top. The most sparkling slice of synthesized sleaze on the scene.

A pounding club track consisting almost entirely of pick-up lines and come-ons, as Pete engages on a single-minded quest to get you undressed. Pete has “set his sights on you,” and “no-one else will do.” Pete has “got to have his way now, baby.” Pete “wants some, wants some”.

If all you knew about Dead Or Alive was their name – and perhaps a couple of photos – you’d probably assume they were a metal band of some sort. Or if not metal, punk.

Pete had, in fact, been a punk. He’d been in punk bands in the 70s. He’d worked in a punk record store. Kids would come from miles around to have their purchases insulted by that guy wearing – and I quote – an “eighteenth-century shepherd’s smock, an upside-down straw top hat with his dreads cascading out of the top, full make-up and massive heeled boots.”

Pete Burns was not going to take anybody’s nonsense. He brought a similar approach to his singing and song writing.

Dead Or Alive’s music prior to “You Spin Me Round” had been an almost-industrial take on disco, as evidenced by their cover of KC & The Sunshine Band’s “That’s The Way (I Like It)”, a cover that turns the wedding reception staple into something you might hear at an S&M club.

This is also how the original version of “You Spin Me Round” sounded. But you can’t waste a song like “You Spin Me Round” on the underground, so Pete decided to give three studio boffins – Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman, aka Stock, Aitken & Waterman, aka SAW – a call.

SAW were not yet the chart-conquerors they would become later in the decade.

Pete hired SAW for the gig because he liked what they had done with “You Think You’re A Man”, a record they had made with Divine, probably the most famous drag queen of the era, whose most famous moment up until then had been eating dog faeces at the end of John Water’s Pink Flamingos.

“You Think You’re A Man” is not a good record, exactly. But if your idea of fun is a hi-NRG disco record performed by a drag queen who sounds a bit like Joe Cocker, then have I found the record for you?!?! (“You Think You’re A Man” is a 6.)

Dead Or Alive took the “You Spin Me Round” demo around to SAW HQ so that they could give it a polish. So they could make it sparkle. Make it more than just an industrial clunky thing. This, it turns out, was harder than it sounds. It took 36 hours. It almost ended in fisticuffs.

You might think that an undeniable pop classic such as “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” would instantly race up the charts the moment people first heard it. You might even expect a record with a name like “You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)” would race up the charts on the strength of its title alone. You would however be wrong.

But it finally edged into the Top 40, earning Dead Or Alive a slot on Top Of The Pops, beaming Pete Burns, his eye-patch and his iconic banger into the living rooms of a nation. A couple of weeks later it was Number One. Everyone was a fan.

And by “everyone,” I include Morrissey.

Morrissey had introduced himself to Pete in the toilet backstage at Top Of The Pops, and they quickly became fast friends. They sent each other flowers when they heard the other was feeling down. Pete must’ve spent a fortune on flowers.

At some point in the cover article, Morrissey made the following extremely supportive remark: “You Spin Me Round” is a hallmark in British music and it will never ever date.”

“You Spin Me Round” is a hallmark in British music. But it has also, very much dated.

There is no way that a song that sounds like that, by a performer who looks like Pete Burns, could possibly have been recorded at any other time than about 40 years ago.

“You Spin Me Round” is a 9.

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