Madonna True Blue is the third studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on June 30, 1986, by Sire Records. Madonna assumed greater control over the creative direction of True Blue, attempting to establish herself as a serious artist and to appeal to a broader, mature audience.
Madonna recorded the album between 1985 and 1986, collaborating with Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray on its writing and production. She had previously worked with the latter on her second studio album, Like a Virgin (1984). For the first time in her career, Madonna co-wrote and co-produced all of the tracks on True Blue. Its themes—primarily love, romance, marriage, and devotion—draw in part on her personal life and her marriage to actor Sean Penn. Musically, True Blue is a pop and dance-pop album with a soundscape characterized by synthesizers, guitars, drum machines, and backing vocal arrangements, influenced by the Motown sound, girl groups, and Latin pop.
Madonna – True Blue
True Blue was promoted with the Who’s That Girl World Tour, the second highest-grossing female concert tour of 1987. Five singles supported the album: the US Billboard Hot 100 number-ones “Live to Tell”, “Papa Don’t Preach”, and “Open Your Heart”, as well as the top-five entries “True Blue” and “La Isla Bonita”. An immediate global success, True Blue topped the music charts in a record-breaking twenty-eight countries worldwide and received multi-platinum certifications across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia–Pacific region. In the United States, it remained atop the Billboard 200 for five consecutive weeks and was certified septuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
On release, True Blue garnered critical acclaim for its dance-pop production and Madonna’s maturity as a vocalist, songwriter, and producer. Retrospectively, the album has been regarded as an archetype of popular music from the 1980s and is credited with solidifying her position as the most commercially successful female pop superstar of the decade and establishing her credibility as an artist. Globally, True Blue was the best-selling album of 1986 and the best-selling album of the 1980s by a female artist. It remains Madonna’s best-selling studio album and one of the best-selling albums of all time, with sales exceeding 25 million copies worldwide.
Background
American singer and songwriter Madonna released her sophomore album, Like a Virgin, in 1984. She selected all of the songs herself, five of which she wrote or co-wrote It became her first number-one album in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. All four of its singles reached the top five of the US Billboard Hot 100, with the lead single and title track, “Like a Virgin”, becoming her first chart-topper; the second single, “Material Girl”, reached number two.[4] It has sold over 21 million copies globally, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time However, the album was not as successful critically as it was commercially; Madonna’s vocals were criticized, though Nile Rodgers’s production was acclaimed.
Madonna – True Blue
After meeting on the set of the music video for “Material Girl”, Madonna and actor Sean Penn began dating in February 1985. She mentioned that Penn was someone whose work she admired, and she believed he felt the same. Madonna said they had “so much in common” and that “he [was] almost like [her] brother”. After dating casually for six months, the pair married on Madonna’s twenty-seventh birthday on August 16.Soon after, the newlyweds co-starred in Shanghai Surprise (1986), an adventure comedy film that became a critical and commercial failure.During her Virgin Tour in 1985, Madonna met producer Patrick Leonard, who was hired as the tour’s musical director.After the tour, Madonna asked Leonard if he wanted to work with her.] They met at a barbecue at his home, during which he presented her with a song he had composed in his studio, titled “Love Makes the World Go Round”. Madonna performed it at the Live Aid benefit concert in Philadelphia in July 1985
