With two hit albums, “Like a Virgin” rising on the charts,
and a mesmerizing MTV wedding cake performance behind her, Madonna’s career was
in a very sweet spot in 1985. So it’s no wonder the ‘It Girl’ would make moves
in Hollywood, starring in Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan. “Into
the Groove”, penned by Madonna and songwriter Steve Bray, was written for the
film and it’s there, in the closing credits of the movie, that a demo version
of “Into the Groove” was not just heard, but also essentially released.
Into The Groove also managed to keep Madonna herself off
Number 1 – the rerelease of Holiday sat right behind it from 11–17 August 1985.
Coincidentally, that was the week of Madonna’s 27th birthday.
Madonna’s music has always felt as though she’s playing on a
completely different field than everyone else, and “Into the Groove” is her
ultimate anthem. Although “Holiday” is technically her most popular and
mainstream song, recognizable to everyone the world over, “Into the Groove” is
the hit that maintains the essence of what makes Madonna so amazing—she’s
cooler than you, and you know it.
The fact that Madonna would give the song such an
unconventional debut shows how strong her popularity was at the time and how
big of a hit the song really is. With filming finishing right before “Like a
Virgin” was out, Desperately Seeking Susan swiftly became a Madonna vehicle
before its release. Ratings were lowered specifically to accommodate the star’s
teen fan base and lead Rosanna Arquette was seen as a supporting actress in
Madonna’s shadow. The unpolished demo didn’t even land on the film’s soundtrack
and was only available as the B-side to “Angel” in the U.S., but it’s still
regarded as one of Madonna’s best dance tracks
It is Madonna’s finest single simply because it epitomizes
exactly why she’s maintained such a long and significant career, she’s the queen
of the dancefloor. She has made many remarks about it being a very simple tune
that she wrote in less than five minutes, and has never understood why it’s
become so popular. The songs inspiration was the dance floor, and she wrote it
while watching a handsome Puerto Rican man, across her balcony. Initially
written for her friend Mark Kamins, Madonna later decided to use it as the
soundtrack of her filmDesperately Seeking Susan.
The song was a commercial success, reaching the top of the
charts in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand,
Spain and the United Kingdom, where it was Madonna's first number-one single
and started off a run of 13 Number 1 singles, more than any other female artist
in British chart history. Despite not having a proper video and thanks in part
to not being available on Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” album – until a reissue
solved that problem later on – “Into The Groove” stormed to the top of the
Official Singles Chart and refused to budge for a month.
In the United States, the song was only available as the
B-side of the 12-inch single of "Angel", therefore it was ineligible
to chart on theBillboard Hot 100 according to the rules at the time.
The end of the 1980s honored “Into the Groove” honored by
Billboard magazine as the Dance Single of the Decade. The end of the 1980s
honored “Into the Groove” honored by Billboard magazine as the "Dance
Single of the Decade". In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their
top-twenty Madonna singles of all-time by Q magazine; "Into the
Groove" was allocated the number-three spot. In 2009, the song was ranked
at ninety on Blender magazine's "The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were
Born". Billboard ranked the song number three on a 2015 list of Madonna's
top 15 best songs, calling it "the Madonna club track." In 2015 the
British public as the nation’s 19th favorite 1980s number one in a poll voted
the song for ITV.
The music video is made up of clips from the film, with the
lyrics often matching the images. Doug Dowdle of Parallax Productions, a
company that pioneered in movie tie-in music videos during the 1980s, created
this video from edited footage of the movie, directed by Susan Seidelman. This
was done because there were five Madonna videos already on power rotation on
MTV, and Warner Bros. did not want the audience to be saturated with any new
video. Hence, they decided to use the shots from the film and made a music
video. During a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna commented:
"'Into the Groove' is another song I feel retarded singing, but everybody
seems to like it."
Mystified by its serendipitous success, she has tried many
times to duplicate the phenomenon that hit with “Into the Groove”—“Vogue”,
“Music”, “Deeper and Deeper”, “Where’s the Party?”, “Hung Up”, and “Give it to
Me” can all claim to be produced in the hopes of duplicating “Groove’s”
brilliance.
RELEASED: July 23, 1985
SALES: 871,300. Yep, that’s right, it’s not a million-seller. Madonna is one of the most successful acts of all time to still not nab a million-selling single.
CHART FACTS: Into The Groove is tied with Vogue for her longest stint at Number 1 – four weeks. It knocked Eurythmics’ There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) off the top. It was eventually toppled by UB40 and Chrissie Hynde with their cover of I Got You Babe.
MADGE FACT: Into The Groove would later feature in a jeans commercial, with a guest appearance from Missy Elliott and with refreshed lyrics. Missy would later team up with Madonna, Britney and Christina on that MTV VMAs performance in 2003.
