“Madonna’s first video, for her superb, drivingly lascivious disco hit “Burning Up”, did not make much of an impression. The platinum blonde girl kneeling and emoting in the middle of a midnight highway just seemed to be a band member’s floozie. In retrospect, the video, with its rapid, cryptic surrealism, prefigures Madonna’s signature themes and contains moments of eerie erotic poetry.”
/ From “Madonna II: Venus of the Radio Waves” by Camille Paglia, The Independent Sunday Review, 1991 /
“Don't put me off 'cause I'm on fire / And I can't quench my desire …”
/ From the lyrics to “Burning Up” by Madonna /
Released on this day (9 March 1983): double-sided single “Physical Attraction” / “Burning Up” by a hungry young up-and-coming pop starlet called Madonna. Of the two songs, I infinitely prefer the urgent, punky siren call of “Burning Up.” Like all her best tunes, the lyrics cast Madonna as the romantic aggressor / pursuer, wailing sentiments like “You're always closing your door / Well, that only makes me want you more” and – even better! - “Unlike the others, I'd do anything / I'm not the same, I have no shame / I'm on fire!” The haunting video directed by Steve Barron – with cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof Madonna writhing, flailing and thrashing around in a sexual frenzy on an abandoned stretch of road – cemented her provocative bad girl persona. (Fun fact: the guy in the video (Ken Compton) was Madonna’s then-boyfriend). Note that there are multiple mixes of “Burning Up” circulating. The only version you need is the one with biting nasty New Wave guitar. Portrait of Madonna by Gary Heery, 1983.
*Stephen Bray produced demo of Madonna's "Burning Up" from 1981. As Stephen Bray himself noted about this track: "Looking back, it seems we nailed a 'Joan Jett' sitting in with 'New Order' kind of sound." This version of "Burning Up" (also known as "Burning Up '81") was originally released in 1997 on Stephen Bray's self-released album of early Madonna demos called "Pre-Madonna”. Note from YouTube
I was never a Madonna fan after her association with artist Michel Basquiat and the dance scene and Desperately Seeking Susan (her film highlight all downhill from there!) she seemed to become too knowingly ersatz and silly for me (Like a Virgin? Really?! dreadful tripe) but hey I made a stir by selling her Book SEX in vast numbers at my Blackwell Shop upon its release and laughed all the way to the bank with the shop's takings making them a goodly profit . Management were extremely doubtful but then this was a shop chain that had managers who wondered why we had a signing with Muhammad Ali!? "He’s not an author”!?
I actually quite like this track . . . . .
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