The 500 - #184 - The Immaculate Collection - Madonna

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #184
Album Title: The Immaculate Collection
Artist: Madonna

Genre: Pop

Recorded: Multiple Studios (1983-1990)

Released: November, 1990
My age at release: 25
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #138, moving up 46 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Justify My Love

In the summer of 1994, at the age of 28, I was in the best shape of my life. I worked out religiously at a gym and biked or roller-bladed nearly everywhere. I played hockey two or three times a week, even in the summer. It was a time when I was at my vainest, buying “fashionable” clothing and tanning, which gave my pasty English complexion a healthier-looking glow.

Tanning beds have fallen out of fashion -- but studios were ubiquitous
in the 90s -- a sneaky hack for Canadians hoping to look more Hollywood.

I was also trying to become more cosmopolitan, taking up photography and digging deep into my pockets for a good-quality camera and even dark-room equipment. Intensifying the “new me” project, I began collecting classic movies on video cassette (a fool's errand in retrospect), and decided to broaden my music-listening habits. My snobbish music pretenses involved eschewing pop songs, dismissing them as pablum for teeny-boppers. Now that I was maturing, I was more open to listening to all manner of music, especially albums and songs suggested by the eclectic group of restaurant co-workers with whom I worked.

At a road hockey tournament in the summer of 1994.

One of my favourite co-workers was an effervescent and riotously funny waitress named Kelly Maynard-- (I mentioned her in my December, 2022 post about The Grateful Dead's Anthem Of The Sun (#288 on The 500).

A busy restaurant is a high-stress environment and successfully navigating a packed house on a weekend night has a way of bonding people. Consequently, the crew sweating it out in the kitchen and those appeasing hungry customers out front became a tightly-knit social group who partied as hard as they worked. When there was a chance to blow off steam with a trip to a downtown club, a pre-arranged staff event or at a house party, you took it. These gatherings were energized by the presence of Kelly -- a fearless, gregarious extrovert who could get the most reluctant among us laughing, dancing or singing.

Out on the town with Kelly (left) and fellow co-worker Kari.
I snapped this during my camera-hobby phase. (May, 1994).

Kelly was also a Madonna fanatic and it was she who worked tirelessly to get me to appreciate the Queen of Pop. At the time, Madonna was on hiatus following her incredibly successful 1993 tour, The Girlie Show, in support of her fifth studio record, Erotica. The day after the release of Erotica (October 20, 1992) Madonna's controversial coffee table book Sex, hit the shelves. The 128-page tome featured adult-themed photographs featuring nudity; soft-core pornography; and simulated sex acts, including sadomasochism. For decades, Madonna has had a knack for inserting herself into the pop culture conversation. As I wrote in my June, 2021, post about her album Ray Of Light (#367 on The 500), "Madonna, much like David Bowie, has managed to stay ahead of the curve by being the curve.

Sex hit bookstore shelves wrapped in 
protective Mylar packaging.

I am not sure if Kelly lent me her cassettes or if she made me copies. Regardless, I ended up owning Erotica and The Immaculate Collection (Madonna's first Greatest Hits Collection). Both got plenty of play on my headphones during workouts, bike-rides and roller-blading excursions. I'd also take them with me to sessions at the now-shuttered, but masterfully named Sun Your Buns tanning studio on Wharncliffe Road in my hometown of London, Ontario.

Album cover for Erotica, the firth studio record for Madonna.

I'm not sure if it was maturity, or the repeated listens, or buying into Kelly’s unbridled enthusiasm for Madonna, but I started to relinquish my music snobbery and gain a better appreciation for The Queen of Pop. I remember being particularly enamoured with the track, Justify My Love -- one of two new songs added to the 15 established hits on The Immaculate Collection. Composed by pop music contemporary Lenny Kravitz, it marked another shift in Madonna's ever evolving sound. It was her first venture into trip-hop -- a genre that blended psychedelia with hip hop and electronica.

Madonna and Kravitz backstage at the Video Music Awards in 2018.

It was a nostalgic delight lining up this blog to relisten to The Immaculate Collection all week. TIC presents, in chronological order, Madonna's biggest hits – from her debut single, Holiday (1983), to her smash, Vogue, which appeared on the 1990 album, I'm Breathless, which was, in part, a soundtrack to the film Dick Tracy (in which she also starred).

I'm Breathless album cover, featuring Warren Beatty, as Dick Tracy,
and Madonna, as Breathless "The Blank" Mahoney in the film Dick Tracy.

I'm still in touch with Kelly, although like many of my collegial relationships from the ‘90s, we connect mainly through social media. In August, 2017, Kelly helped arrange a 25th reunion of the Kelsey's Restaurant crew from 1992-1995. About 20 of us arrived for a night of ‘90s music, cocktails and memories. We could not help notice that the serving staff were all younger than 25, but they let us wander through the front (dining room) and the back of the house (kitchen), snapping photos, laughing and sharing stories. I am glad we got that opportunity. The restaurant plaza was demolished in 2020 to make way for new retail outlets.

A group photo on the steps that led to the
"deck" at Kelsey's South - London, Ontario
Saturday, August 12, 2017.

Those four years at Kelsey's Restaurant in the ‘90s somehow feel as if they happened last month and, simultaneously, a lifetime ago. It is remarkable how much we bonded during that time -- a random group of strangers figuring out how to "adult" their fast-approaching thirties. There are touchstones that will trigger my memories of that time -- and the music of Madonna is certainly one of them. Thanks, Kelly, for making me a fan.

A collage of photos from our time at Kelsey' - Christmas 1993.