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Though soundtrack albums have an increasingly tenuous connection to the films they accompany into the marketplace - padded as they are with music that never even wafted through the background of the actual movie - one link remains strong: A box office hit may not guarantee boffo record sales, but an immensely successful soundtrack is virtually impossible without an immensely successful movie. Unless, of course, that movie is Madonna's 'Who's That Girl', whose immediate flop has not kept its soundtrack from bounding into Billboard's Top Ten in its fourth week on the charts. At least half of the songs on the 'Who's That Girl' album are buried in or absent from the film, but on celluloid or vinyl, even the best of them are likely to be perceived as filler. Forget Scritti Politti's charming 'Best Thing Ever', Club Noveau's crunchy 'Step By Step', Coati Mundi's rambunctious 'El Coco Loco' and Duncan Faure's uncannily Beatlesesque '24 Hours' - for most buyers, this is the new Madonna album. Her four cuts can't save the film, but they certainly make the LP. Madonna's songs here, produced in collaboration with old stand-bys Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, are instantly familiar, almost predictable. These are the trademark Madonna groove records - no revelations, no departures, no quirks - pure pop in its most potent form. But if the singer is taking no risks on these cuts, there's no sense that she's lying back and sinking into formula. A good deal of Madonna's appeal on record lies in her ability to invest the flimsiest material with feeling. Her sincerity is veside the point; it's the combination of enthusiasm and empathy she projects into the lyrics [the way an actress projects herself into a role] that clinches her songs. Madonna has an instinctive understanding of pop spirit, that timeless blend of the trashy and the sublime, and an unerring feel for the snagging hook. So the title tune, at first so unpromising, bobbing up in the wake of 'La Isla Bonita', grabs hold with its bright bilingual chant, its vaguely mournful undertow. 'Causing A Commotion' and, to a lesser extent, 'Can't Stop' match Stephen Bray's irrrepressible rythmic drive with Madonna's alluring, unsettling mix of warm maturity and chirpy adolescence. But 'Who's That Girl' cuts deepest with 'The Look Of Love', Pat Leonard's song of regret that obviously reprises his 'Live To Tell' but clicks just as surely. The song's hypnotically liquid quality and Madonna's soft, aching vocals combine for the soundtrack's one poignant moment, an emotional anchor in otherwise cheery, choppy seas. If Madonna's pop savvy won't sell her movie, it's more than enough to sell her songs. Source: Rolling Stone, Vince Aletti, October 8, 1987 |
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