Phil Collins, Elton John, and Gloria Estefan dominated Adult Contemporary radio back in the 1980s and '90s, yet have disappeared from modern radio. Seemingly, the only time you ever hear them is at the grocery store or your local CVS. This blog remembers the music, the stories and the quirky characters from my days working in Adult Contemporary radio.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Madonna "Don't Cry for Me Argentina"
When your name is Madonna and you get handed one of the world's most recognized songs ("Don't Cry for Me Argentina"), what do you do? Since we're talking about Madonna, we can easily guess she will push the envelope and do something completely different to the song. Of course, that's exactly what she did. Madonna took the sleepy ballad famous for being delivered on a balcony and morphed it into a high-octane Latin-flavored dance tune. Not only did Top 40 radio stations take notice and put Madonna's "Miami Mix" of the song in heavy rotation, but dance clubs, discos and even Adult Contemporary radio stations embraced the high-energy take on the classic song. Critical reception to the song helped justify the decision to cast the controversial Madonna as Eva Peron in Evita. In Madonna's four-page letter to the movie's writer/director Alan Parker in 1994, she cited the video to "Take A Bow" as part of her audition for a role Madonna once told Vanity Fair that she was "born to play".