Madonna - 4x Japanese First Pressed CD (1983-1987) Combined RE-UP

Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, dancer and entrepreneur. She has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records. Considered to be one of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, she is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry. Critics have praised her diverse musical productions which have also served as a lightning rod for controversy. This collection of the Japanese first pressed CDs contains the albums: Madonna (1983), Like A Virgin (1984), True Blue (1986), and Who's That Girl (OST from 1987). Nice uncompressed sound.

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Madonna is the debut album of American recording artist Madonna, released on July 27, 1983 by Sire Records. The album was re-released in 1985 for the European market and re-packaged as "Madonna – The First Album". Contemporary critics have applauded the album, but it received negative feedback when it was released in 1983. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly named it as the fifth of "Top 100 Best Albums of Past 25 Years." The album was successful on the charts, reaching number eight on the Billboard 200, and the top ten of the charts in Australia, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and United Kingdom. It was certified five-times platinum, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of five million copies across the United States. Worldwide, the album has sold ten million copies.

allmusic.com says: Although she never left it behind, it's been easy to overlook that Madonna began her career as a disco diva in an era that didn't have disco divas. It was an era where disco was anathema to the mainstream pop, and she had a huge role in popularizing dance music as a popular music again, crashing through the door Michael Jackson opened with Thriller. Certainly, her undeniable charisma, chutzpah, and sex appeal had a lot to do with that — it always did, throughout her career — but she wouldn't have broken through if the music wasn't so good. And her eponymous debut isn't simply good, it set the standard for dance-pop for the next 20 years. Why did it do so? Because it cleverly incorporated great pop songs with stylish, state-of-the-art beats, and it shrewdly walked a line between being a rush of sound and a showcase for a dynamic lead singer. This is music where all of the elements may not particularly impressive on their own — the arrangement, synth, and drum programming are fairly rudimentary; Madonna's singing isn't particularly strong; the songs, while hooky and memorable, couldn't necessarily hold up on their own without the production — but taken together, it's utterly irresistible. And that's the hallmark of dance-pop: every element blends together into an intoxicating sound, where the hooks and rhythms are so hooky, the shallowness is something to celebrate. And there are some great songs here, whether it's the effervescent "Lucky Star," "Borderline," and "Holiday" or the darker, carnal urgency of "Burning Up" and "Physical Attraction." And if Madonna would later sing better, she illustrates here that a good voice is secondary to dance-pop. What's really necessary is personality, since that sells a song where there are no instruments that sound real. Here, Madonna is on fire, and that's the reason why it launched her career, launched dance-pop, and remains a terrific, nearly timeless, listen. /5 stars/

Tracks:

01. Lucky Star
02. Borderline
03. Burning Up
04. I Know It
05. Holiday
06. Think Of Me
07. Physical Attraction
08. Everybody

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Like a Virgin is the second studio album by American recording artist Madonna, released on November 12, 1984 by Sire Records. It was re-released worldwide in 1985, with the bonus track "Into the Groove". Like a Virgin was recorded and finished by April 1984, but the release of the album was held up, much to Madonna's frustration, by the continuing sales of her debut album, which was approaching two million sales in United States. The album entered the Billboard 200 at number three on December 22, 1984 and stayed within the top ten for the next month, before reaching number one on February 9, 1985, where it stayed for three weeks. In the final way the album has sold more than 21 million copies worldwide and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.

allmusic.com says: Madonna had hits with her first album, even reaching the Top Ten twice with "Borderline" and "Lucky Star," but she didn't become a superstar, an icon, until her second album, Like a Virgin. She saw the opening for this kind of explosion and seized it, bringing in former Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers in as a producer, to help her expand her sound, and then carefully constructed her image as an ironic, ferociously sexy Boy Toy; the Steven Meisel-shot cover, capturing her as a buxom bride with a Boy Toy belt buckle on the front, and dressing after a night of passion, was as key to her reinvention as the music itself. Yet, there's no discounting the best songs on the record, the moments when her grand concepts are married to music that transcends the mere classification of dance-pop. These, of course, are "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin," the two songs that made her an icon, and the two songs that remain definitive statements. They overshadow the rest of the record, not just because they are a perfect match of theme and sound, but because the rest of the album vacillates wildly in terms of quality. The other two singles, "Angel" and "Dress You Up," are excellent standard-issue dance-pop, and there are other moments that work well ("Over and Over," "Stay," the earnest cover of Rose Royce's "Love Don't Live Here"), but overall, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts — partially because the singles are so good, but also because on the first album, she stunned with style and a certain joy. Here, the calculation is apparent, and while that's part of Madonna's essence — even something that makes her fun — it throws the record's balance off a little too much for it to be consistent, even if it justifiably made her a star.

Tracks:

01. Material Girl
02. Angel
03. Like A Virgin
04. Over And Over
05. Love Don't Live Here Anymore
06. Dress You Up
07. Shoo-Bee-Doo
08. Pretender
09. Stay

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True Blue is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released in June 1986 by Sire Records. Deemed as Madonna's most girlish album, True Blue deals with her visions of love, work, dreams as well as disappointments, and was inspired by her then husband Sean Penn, to whom Madonna dedicated the album. Musically, the songs on the album took a different direction from her previous endeavours, incorporating classical music in order to engage an older audience who had been skeptical of her music.

True Blue features instrumentation from acoustic guitars, drums, synthesizers and Cuban musical instruments. After its release, True Blue received generally positive reviews from critics. They complimented the album, with one calling it a great dance-pop and described it as the archetype of the late '80s and early '90s pop albums. They also praised the fact that Madonna's voice sounded stronger than it did on her previous efforts, while commending Madonna's skills as a singer, songwriter and entertainer.
Commercially, True Blue became an international success, reaching the top of the charts in 28 countries, an unprecedented achievement at that time. It also became the world's top-selling album of 1986. Worldwide sales of the album stand at 24 million copies, seven million of those being sold in United States, which earned it a seven times platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America.

allmusic.com says: True Blue is the album where Madonna truly became Madonna the Superstar — the endlessly ambitious, fearlessly provocative entertainer that knew how to outrage, spark debates, get good reviews — and make good music while she's at it. To complain that True Blue is calculated is to not get Madonna — that's a large part of what she does, and she is exceptional at it, but she also makes fine music. What's brilliant about True Blue is that she does both here, using the music to hook in critics just as she's baiting a mass audience with such masterstrokes as "Papa Don't Preach," where she defiantly states she's keeping her baby. It's easy to position anti-abortionism as feminism, but what's tricky is to transcend your status as a dance-pop diva by consciously recalling classic girl-group pop ("True Blue," "Jimmy Jimmy") to snag the critics, while deepening the dance grooves ("Open Your Heart," "Where's the Party"), touching on Latin rhythms ("La Isla Bonita"), making a plea for world peace ("Love Makes the World Go Round"), and delivering a tremendous ballad that rewrites the rules of adult contemporary crossover ("Live to Tell"). It's even harder to have the entire album play as an organic, cohesive work. Certainly, there's some calculation behind the entire thing, but what matters is the end result, one of the great dance-pop albums, a record that demonstrates Madonna's true skills as a songwriter, record-maker, provocateur, and entertainer through its wide reach, accomplishment, and sheer sense of fun.

Tracks:

01. Papa Don't Preach
02. Open Your Heart
03. White Heat
04. Live To Tell
05. Where's The Party
06. True Blue
07. La Isla Bonita
08. Jimmy Jimmy
09. Love Makes The World Go Round

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Who's That Girl is the first soundtrack by American singer-songwriter Madonna and was released on July 21, 1987 by Sire Records. The album was released to accompany the motion picture Who's That Girl, which also stars Madonna. Although half of the album's tracks are performed by other artists, Who's That Girl is considered a Madonna album by the record label, RIAA and the worldwide charts. It was certified Gold & Platinum in the U.S., denoting one million shipments in the United States.

allmusic.com says: In the strictest sense, Who's That Girl isn't a Madonna album — it's a soundtrack album to her 1987 comedy, featuring competent but uninspiring dance-pop by Club Nouveau, Scritti Politti, Coati Mundi, Michael Davidson, and Duncan Faure. Madonna has four new tracks on the record, including the number one "Who's That Girl" and the number two "Causing a Commotion."

Tracks:

01. Madonna - Who's That Girl
02. Madonna - Causing A Commotion
03. Madonna - The Look Of Love
04. Duncan Faure - 24 Hours
05. Club Nouveau - Step By Step
06. Michael Davidson - Turn It Up
07. Scritti Politti - Best Thing Ever
08. Madonna - Can't Stop
09. Coati Mundi - El Coco Loco (So So Bad)

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Dynamic range(s): 14 / 15 / 12 / 14.
All thanks goes to NL & yury_usa!