Promotion and Live Performances
I'm Breathless, alongside Madonna's previous album, Like A Prayer, was promoted in Madonna's third concert tour, the Blond Ambition World Tour, which spanned three different continents (Asia, North America and Europe). Consisting of 57 dates, the tour was divided into five sections, the first inspired by the 1927 German expressionist film Metropolis, the second by religious themes, the third by the film Dick Tracy and cabaret, the fourth by Art Deco, whilst the fifth was an encore. The show, with sexual themes, also contained Catholic imagery, such as in Madonna's performance of "Like a Prayer", which was based in church-like surroundings with Madonna wearing a crucifix and her backup dancers dressed like priests and nuns. The concert's sexual content and religious imagery proved controversial; in Toronto Canada, Madonna was threatened of being arrested for obscenity, and Pope John Paul II later called for a boycott, with one of the three Italian dates being cancelled. Despite this, the tour was a critical success, winning "Most Creative Stage Production" at the 1990 Pollstar Concert Industry Awards.
Songs from the album have been performed live in notable performances. At the 1991 Academy Awards, Madonna performed the Oscar-winning "Sooner or Later", clad in a Marilyn Monroe-inspired gown and a set resembling classic Hollywood. The performance was ranked as the seventh "most awesome" performance in the history of the award show by Billboard. The track "I'm Going Bananas" was performed during The Girlie Show Tour. The song "Vogue" was also famously performed at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards, where Madonna and her dancers were clad in 18th century-inspired fashions. The performance of "Vogue" was later ranked by Billboard as the sixth best performance in the history of the award show. Madonna has performed "Vogue" in five of her concert tours, including the Blond Ambition World Tour, The Girlie Show Tour, the Re-Invention Tour, the Sticky & Sweet Tour, and the MDNA Tour.
Read more about this topic: I'm Breathless
Famous quotes containing the words promotion, live and/or performances:
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Why, since man and woman were created for each other, had He made their desires so dissimilar? Why should one class of women be able to dwell in luxurious seclusion from the trials of life, while another class performed their loathsome tasks? Surely His wisdom had not decreed that one set of women should live in degradation and in the end should perish that others might live in security, preserve their frappeed chastity, and in the end be saved.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and “madam.” Madeleine, ch. 10 (1919)
“This play holds the season’s record [for early closing], thus far, with a run of four evening performances and one matinee. By an odd coincidence it ran just five performances too many.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)