ESSENTIAL for Madonna fans! (In The Beginning - Madonna)

Member Name: josh_debbarman

Product:	In The Beginning - Madonna
Date:	09/05/02 (374 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The earliest commerically available recordings of Madonna, Madonna plays guitar on some tracks, Totally original material

Disadvantages: , Remixes not as interesting (minor gripe!)

Crimes Of Passion is a happy, bouncy song which apparently was a prototype for 'Into The Groove' and other songs. This song, however, is not the original but a recreation, as nothing was salvageable from the original tapes. There is an endearingly teenage quality about this song, typified by the lyrics "if you can keep it a secret darling, we can have some fun..."

Everybody '97 is digitally altered, the vocals being reduced from 117 beats per minute to 105, and this results in a more tropical, dancey feel than the song released on The First Album, and the effect is groovy and mellow in equal measure. Excellent.

Ain't No Big Deal '97 is based on the first dance song that Bray and Madonna did together. This reworked version is equally dance-orientated, but in a more '90s way, with the aid of digital MIDI sequencing.

Laugh To Keep From Crying is a MEGA song. Inspired by Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders, you can hardly tell this is Madonna. Incredibly cool in a rocky way, she tells how she has nothing and must laugh or else she will cry. Oh, and I almost forgot, that's Madonna on the guitar. Yes, that's right. Madonna on the guitar. I'll say it again, in case you missed it - MADONNA ON THE GUITAR, which is a left-over from her days in Emmy (Madonna's band, before she went solo) - she can also play the drums. This is mind-blowing and underlines in case you didn't already know that Madonna is a serious musician not just a pop singer. One of the best tracks on the album, it's a pity we never saw it at the time. The guitar intro is warm and leaves you unprepared for the harder rock style in the song itself. Madonna's undulating singing style in this song is a dead-ringer for a lot of Hynde's work.

Burning Up is the blueprint for the version which made it in The First Album. There are tape speed effects, and robotic vocals which didn't make it into the final version
, but which are cool nonetheless. The resulting song with its stripped-down rock guitar is a harder rock version of the song that made it into The First Album, which although clearly rock-influenced, also has a leaning towards pop. The last four songs are the ones which featured on the tape which convinced Sire to give Madonna a recording contract in the first place. It's harder to say which is the better song; certainly the final song had more commercial appeal than this song, which purists may prefer.

Ain't No Big Deal was the first song Bray wrote for Emmy. Apparently, as they didn't have a vocoder then, Madonna squeezed the end of her nose at the end of the song - a far cry from William Orbit and Mirwais's electronica! The lead track for the presentation tape, this song is vitally important as a part of the Madonna legend.

Everybody '81 is similar to the first single released by Sire, Madonna's original recording company, but it has many tape speed and flanging effects, and it was number two on the tape. I think that on this album this song really gets a chance to shine, whereas it is slightly overshadowed in the First Album by the colossally successful Holiday, Lucky Star and Borderline.

Stay '81 bears little resemblence to the song on Like A Virgin, but is important, as it was the last song on the presentation tape. In addition, this track sounds at times so much like a dance hit of the '90s, it's spooky, showing just how far ahead of its time the Madonna/Bray partnership. Thrilling for this time-travelling effect.

Don't You Know?, however IS the forerunner of Stay from Like A Virgin, though it might take you a while to work that out, as it is more dancey. This one features a riot of late '70s synth sounds, but doesn't suffer for it! Rather, it was the third track on the presentation. The percussion beat sounds like people clapping along to the song, and that is exactly wha
t the song makes you want to do. A great end for an album which is partly rock and partly dance.

Formerly known by the inspired title ‘Pre-Madonna’ this album is truly amazing, a real eye-opener. Some songs will be familiar (but subtly different) to collectors of Madonna's later work, but a couple are genuinely 'new'. The last four songs show you what the Sire Recording Company had in front of it when it signed up Madonna. A major point of interest is given by "Laugh To Keep From Crying", where Madonna does a Chrissie Hynde impression and plays the rock guitar - a little-known skill of hers. The time-warped feel of this album sends shivers down my spine every time I listen to it, as it signifies a period before the legend of Madonna. Paradoxically, songs like "Don’t You Know" and "Stay" sound way ahead of their time in places, showing how groundbreaking this material was at the time. The ’97 remixes are not bad, but not nearly as interesting as the original songs. This is a vital piece of any die-hard Madonna fan's collection.

Do not confuse this CD with another of the same name produced by Otto Von Wernherr who released his awful cheap sounding techno-punk with backing vocals made from Madonna's pre-fame days.

Summary: