You Can Dance [CD]

for a lot of my short life (18 years currently as i write this review of the album) Madonna has been a literal hero for me, an artist that i have witnessed push boundaries through her material,artisty,performance art, and always a pivotal and important musician and my all time favourite artist! You Can Dance always gets severely overlooked and i purchased the album two weeks ago and i am so mightily glad that i did!! it's a definitive masterpiece of a remix/dance album containing some underrated classic,unreleased album tracks and a newbie each segued together to make one fantastic listening experience.

For me it is a lot of Madonna's under acknowledged albums usually spark a plethora of creativity (see Erotica,The First Album and Music) alongside her BLOCKBUSTER masterpiece albums (Confessions on A Dance Floor (more on that later),Ray Of Light,Like A Prayer,True Blue and Like A Virgin)and i can confirm that You Can Dance literally sparked something of a revolution in being the very first remix album in music history influencing Michael Jackson,Janet Jackson,Jennifer Lopez,Britney Spears and Paula Abdul amongst other to make some of their own (to mixed successes)but You Can Dance has currently shipped 6 million copies worldwide and remains something of pure excitement and wonder.

It all kick starts with a mini masterpiece of an epic tune with Spotlight which truely is a timeless song that i kick myself that Madonna didn't release with an EPIC video in 1987 to really promote this album (You Can Dance was promoted almost solely by her name!)it truely is an underrated song that in everyway matches the uptempo and dark synths of Into The Groove...speaking of which that too is expanded upon in a huge remix which makes it sound all the more of the blockbuster that it is, and a true hit single of the 1980's evoking that pure uptempo bliss and thumpy synth anthemic flourish that remains symbolic of the era. Over & Over from Like A Virgin is also enhanced on this album to such a fantastic effect, Physical Attraction is also given something of a thumpy rethink from The First Album. While Underappreciated anthem Everybody from The First Album (and Madonna's DEBUT single!) also reflects that timeless appeal of the neo-disco flourish and excitement that will be revisited a few times in her career demanding people onto the dancefloor!

While, Holiday on this album just proves why it is something of a genuine power anthem that reflects Madonna's own knack for making her material just pure timeless material none can match. For me however it's that charm of the remix Where's The Party from her True Blue album that is given something of a real HUGE enhancement from the powerful original in the aforementioned album that evokes a very Marvin Gaye What's Going On style dark groove and real old skool R&B Synth percussion and real high power style tuning remixed by Shep Pettibone (who also did Into The Groove on here) who would be a major collaborator on her I'm Breathless soundtrack with Vogue and on the underrated masterpiece Erotica album it just really revisits her inspirations for the album and messages to the listener why she is such a phenomenal talent and how she can control her listeners and audiences to really let themselves go free and feel the sounds and live the lyrics. Something no artist can ever match!

I would have loved it if Madonna followed You Can Dance up with a remix album in the 90's after her like A Prayer,Erotica and Bedtime Stories albums and see Express Yourself,Deeper & Deeper,Erotica,Keep It Together,Human Nature,Cherish,Why's It So Hard and Waiting remixed and segued but that album never materialised, nor did it after the success of Ray Of light and Music where we could have had Ray Of Light,Nothing Really Matters,Sky Fits Heaven,Don't Tell Me,Impressive Instant and Swim remixed to full power. And of course in the 00's delivered a real career hight with Confessions on A Dance Floor which in itself is a thematic triumph that reignited that flare this album has with the songs segued together like a DJ night-set and really crafting the record as a piece of artform.

One hopes that Madonna will release another remix album to this standard soon! as You Can Dance is an underrated masterpiece of a dance recording and an album i highly recommend for their album collection!

10/10

I bought Madonna's two underrated albums on the same day -"Erotica" and "You Can Dance". I thought that "Erotica" was alot better and as a result, I didn't really play this CD that much. However, now I am addicted to this fantastic remix CD, which faetures mixes of Madonna's best, most loved and most popular hits of the 80s from her first 3 albums.

"Spotlight" is a great track, released on no other. "Holiday" has an 12" mix plus a dub mix. The dub mix flows nicely, as the 12" mix was changed only slightly. "Everybody" has a 12" mix, which, again, is very good! "Physical Attraction", besides "Spotlight", is my favourite track on the whole disc aswell as the remix for: "Into The Groove" which is completely original and great! (Another favourite) There are also remixes for "Over And Over", from "Like A Virgin" and "Where's The Party", from "True Blue", also excellent. There are dub versions of "Into The Groove" and "Where's The Party", which are also brilliant!

Overall - 10/10

Yet another splendid Madonna album, as she does me proud! Buy it!

I'm one of those rare Madonna fans that has owned a copy of You Can Dance since its 1987 release. It features remixes or remastering of her best dance tracks from her first three albums, including the remixed "Into the Groove." It's interesting to note that this was the only Madonna album that that song was available on until the Immaculate Collection was released, and the remixed version that appeared on You Can Dance is the one that Madonna continues to perform live.

The album also features one track that, to my knowledge, was never released on any other: Spotlight. It's the last throwback to Madonna's 80s sound; her albums became more soundscape-y and much more advanced technologically after this. The entire album is a great throwback to mid-80s dance music and the remixes of "Over and Over" themselves make the album worth the price. Back in 1987, NOBODY was making music like this; and you can see where many of today's "chillout" and "trance" DJs got their inspiration. The remixes on this album are all inspired.