Category: Entertainment

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Released 40 Years Ago Today

Madonna: True Blue (1986)

From Behind the Grooves: (sadly, link is broken as of 2026)

“True Blue”, the third album by Madonna is released. Produced by Madonna, Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, it is recorded at Channel Recording in Los Angeles, CA from December 1985 – April 1986. After the massive whirlwind success of the “Like A Virgin” album and “The Virgin Tour”, the pop superstar does not rest on her laurels, beginning work on the crucial follow up at the end of 1985. Working with long time collaborator Stephen Bray and new producer Patrick Leonard (Michael Jackson, Jody Watley), the album is praised upon its release as her strongest effort to date, and is widely regarded today as one of the best albums of her career. It spins off five top five hits including “Live To Tell” (#1 Pop), “Papa Don’t Preach” (#1 Pop), “Open Your Heart” (#1 Pop) and the title track (#3 Pop). “True Blue” also marks the beginning Madonna’s long association with famed fashion photographer Herb Ritts who shoots the LP’s iconic cover photo. The original LP package also includes a poster of the album cover shot. As a promotion for the album, MTV sponsors the “Make My Video” contest, inviting viewers to submit their own visual interpretations of the title track. The winning entry comes from Angel Gracia and Cliff Guest, whose black & white clip is rotated heavily on the video channel. The pair are awarded a check for $25,000 by the pop superstar herself at MTV’s New York studios. The alternate video directed by James Foley, featuring Madonna with close friends actress Debi Mazur and fashion designer Erika Belle is shown largely outside the US. Madonna also supports the album with the worldwide “Who’s That Girl Tour” beginning in June of 1987. It is remastered and reissued on CD in 2001, with the extended 12″ mixes of “La Isla Bonita” and the title track included as bonus tracks. The vinyl LP is reissued in Europe in 2012, including the original inner sleeve lyric sheet and poster featured in the original release. In October of 2016, a limited edition release of the LP pressed on blue vinyl, is issued as exclusive through the European supermarket chain Sainsbury’s. “True Blue” spends five weeks at number one on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified 7x Platinum in the US by the RIAA.

I mean, the whole album is bangin’ and deserves to be played at 1 am disco-packed-with-big-sweaty-menz volume, but the title track especially moves me. It’s one of those songs that when it comes on I have to stop what I’m doing, crank the volume to angelic heaven-is-a-disco, make your ears bleed volume and DANCE. La Isla Bonita is a close second in that category.

My unbridled love for this album and the accompanying quest to acquire it on “true blue” vinyl has been well documented on this blog, so I won’t add anything more and instead will sign off and go listen to it.

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Afternoon Soundtrack

George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice (1990)

George Michael – Patience (2004)

Both are severely underrated albums.

When I think of George Michael, I think of Faith (1987) and him getting busted in a Los Angeles park toilet. Sorry, but that’s where my mind goes (and the number of times I narrowly avoided a similar fate as a young man – DON’T ACT ALL SHOCKED AND SURPRISED, I never claimed to be an angel).

Faith is one of my go-to high fidelity recordings. By that I mean the recording itself—along with the performance—is the type of disc I would take to an audio salon to audition equipment. It’s intimate. It’s expansive. You can almost hear every breath as he sings.

But I realized today that his 1990 followup, Listen Without Prejudice shares many of those qualities. I find myself just getting lost in Cowboys and Angels. As we used to say, it just plays me.

Patience (2004) feels different from the other two, but it stands proudly on its own right—and retains the impeccable sonic qualities of its brethren. Amazing and Flawless (Go To The City) are two cuts that make we want to get up off my tired, sagging ass and dance.

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J’Adore

One week of break-in, and I’m loving these more and more. No regrets. They really are as good as everyone says they are.

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Released 42 Years Ago Today

Prince: Purple Rain (1984)

One of my grails is to own this on purple vinyl, but sadly prices on the resale market remain astronomical.

Cheaper than last year, but selling for way more money than I’m willing to spend on a piece of vinyl…

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Balenciaga!

I was a huge fan of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story from the beginning, but I completely lost interest after the first episode of Season 12, Delicate. (I struggled to get through Season 5, Cult) and I  almost gave up then, but I’m glad I came back and thoroughly enjoyed the second half of “Double Feature” Season 10, Death Valley.

My favorite seasons, however, were Season 3, Coven, Season 5, Hotel, and Season 7, Apocalypse. Of those, Coven is my all-time favorite. I loved the characters, the story, and the acting. All were stellar. (In fact I have our house labeled The Robichaux Academy (aka Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies).

So imagine my genuine excitement when I just read that the Coven universe is returning for Season 13—and Frances Conroy (along with most of the original case) will reprise her role as bitch witch of all bitch witches—Myrtle Snow.

Coming October 31st this year.

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Late Again. 😢

I saw this on opening night at Cine Capri (the original location) in 1979. It left me so shaken I drove home constantly looking out the rear window at the bed of my truck to make sure nothing was there.

And don’t even get me started on Aliens (1985). I came home from that and turned on every light in the apartment and opened every door interior door!

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And Suddenly…

…it’s 1979 and I’m 21 again! 🥲 It’s Friday night and I’m getting ready to go out and meet my buddy Kent at Moon’s Truck for a night of dance, drink, and hopefully to catch the eye of a handsome stranger to round it all out with some unbridled debauchery. More often than not however, it would just be dance, drink, and slinking off to Denny’s on 7th Street for food at 3 am with the rest of the boys before heading home to finally get some sleep.

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Released 44 Years Ago Today

An absolute masterpiece.

“Describe your mother.”

“Do you like our owl?”

“He say you Brade Runner!”

“Like tears in the rain.”

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Released 50—FIFTY—Years Ago Today

Damn, I’m old.

Alan Parsons Project: Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1976)

And thus began my love affair with the music of APP…

I first heard this at my buddy Gary’s house the summer immediately following our high school graduation. He had, in my mind, an absolutely killer system: a Kenwood KR-7400 receiver, Infinity 1001A Speakers, and a Technics SL-1400 turntable. I remember sitting there just mesmerized as this album played.

Gary and I had been friends since grade school. I remember him being a brilliant kid and we shared the same dry sense of humor as we moved into high school. We stayed in contact for years after graduation. He worked in high school as a stock boy for one of the local supermarket chains, and as I understand it, he went on—following the American dream of old—of rising up in the ranks, eventually becoming store—and later regional—manager.

We lost touch after I moved to Tucson in ’85. Though a mutual friend we briefly reconnected via email a couple years ago, exchanging photos and a brief outline of what had happened in our lives over the past 40-odd years. I never heard back from him after the second round of emails, but he seemed uninterested in rekindling our friendship. I have a feeling that in the intervening years he—like so fucking many of my absolute best friends from that period—had found religion and/or taken a political hard right and judged my lifestyle unacceptable. (There’s a reason you can never go home again.) But I’ll always be grateful to him for introducing me to the Alan Parsons Project.

*There are a couple different dates on the internet as to when this album was officially released, but I’m going with this one.

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Early Afternoon Listening

Alan Parsons Project: Ammonia Avenue (1984)

While this wasn’t the first album I bought on CD, it was among the first half dozen for sure and was the one I most vividly remember playing the fuck out of after I got it.  Don’t Answer Me and Pipeline at angelic, make-your-ears-bleed volume. That front-and-center sax riff in Pipeline…chef’s kiss. That’s all I can say.

One of these days I need to make a compilation Minidisc of nothing but the instrumental cuts from APP’s albums.

Pet Shop Boys: Please (1986)

The soundtrack of my life for the first few months I lived in San Francisco.

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