Promotion
Prior to the album's release, Madonna premiered "Love Makes the World Go Round" at the 1985 Live Aid series of concerts. The rest of the album's tracks were included on the setlist of her 1987 Who's That Girl World Tour except "Jimmy Jimmy" which remains still the only song Madonna did not perform on any live appearance. It was her second concert tour and promoted True Blue alongside the film project Who's That Girl. It was Madonna's first world tour, reaching Asia, North America and Europe. Musically and technically superior to her previous Virgin Tour, the Who's That Girl tour incorporated multimedia components to make the show more appealing. Madonna trained herself physically with aerobics, jogging and weight-lifting, to cope with the choreography and the dance routines. For the costumes, she collaborated with designer Marlene Stewart, expanding on the idea of bringing her popular video characters to life onstage, reworking scenes from "True Blue", "Open Your Heart", "Papa Don't Preach" and "La Isla Bonita". The stage was huge, with four video screens, multimedia projectors and a flight of stairs in the middle. Leonard became the music director and encouraged Madonna to go with the idea of rearranging her older songs and presenting them in a new format. Madonna named the tour 'Who's That Girl', after looking up at a gigantic image of herself projected on a screen on the stage during rehearsals.
The show consisted of seven costume changes, with song-and-dance routines and theatrics with an encore consisting of the title song "Who's That Girl" and "Holiday". The tour also addressed social causes like AIDS, during "Papa Don't Preach". Who's That Girl was critically appreciated, with reviewers commenting on the extravagant nature of the concert and complimenting Madonna for her dancing, costume changes and dynamic pacing. Who's That Girl was a commercial success, grossing a total of U.S. $25 million, with Madonna playing in front of 1.5 million people over the course of the tour. According to Pollstar, it was the second top female concert tour of 1987, behind Tina Turner's Break Every Rule Tour. Two concerts from the Who's That Girl tour were later released on on the VHS Ciao, Italia! – Live from Italy. Taraborrelli commented that "Many female artists behave like a diva for a period when they reach superstar status, and the 'Who's That Girl?' tour marked the beginning of Madonna's." The tour is also noted for giving rise to the new Madonna persona, a stronger and more intelligent sexual image of her former self which had given rise to the term Madonna wannabe. A statue of Madonna, wearing a conical bra was erected in her name, at the center of the town of Pacentro in Italy, where her ancestors used to live.
Read more about this topic: True Blue (Madonna album)
Famous quotes containing the word promotion:
“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)
“I am asked if I would not be gratified if my friends would procure me promotion to a brigadier-generalship. My feeling is that I would rather be one of the good colonels than one of the poor generals. The colonel of a regiment has one of the most agreeable positions in the service, and one of the most useful. “A good colonel makes a good regiment,” is an axiom.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)