Crazy for You (Madonna song)
"Crazy for You" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for the film Vision Quest (1985). It was released on March 2, 1985 by Geffen Records as the lead single from the film's soundtrack album. Film producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber, along with music director Phil Ramone, decided to use Madonna after listening to her previous recordings, employing John Bettis and Jon Lind to write the song. After reading the script of the film, Bettis and Lind wrote the song about the situation in which the lead characters meet at a nightclub. Initial recording sessions did not impress Bettis and Lind, and they felt that "Crazy for You" would be dropped from the soundtrack. However, a new version was recorded to their liking.
"Crazy for You"
John "Jellybean" Benitez was the record producer of "Crazy for You", and it was a challenge for him, as previously he was associated with recording dance-pop songs only. Initially Warner Bros. Records did not want the song to be released as a single, since they believed that it would take away the attention from Madonna's second studio album Like a Virgin (1984). In the end, Peters and Guber convinced Warner officials to greenlight its release. "Crazy for You" ushered a new musical direction for Madonna, as she had not previously released a ballad as a single. The track features instrumentation from snare drums, harp, bass synthesizer and electric guitar. Lyrically, the song speaks of sexual desire between two lovers and consists of innuendos.
"Crazy for You" received positive response from music critics and earned Madonna her first Grammy Award nomination in the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance category. The song became Madonna's second number-one single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, and reached the top of the charts of Australia and Canada. It also peaked at number two in Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, where it was released twice, in 1985 and 1991. Madonna has performed "Crazy for You" during the Virgin Tour in 1985, Re-Invention World Tour in 2004 and in some dates of Rebel Heart Tour in 2016. The performance from The Virgin Tour was included in the home video release on VHS and LaserDisc. "Crazy for You" appears on the compilation albums The Immaculate Collection (1990), Something to Remember (1995) and Celebration (2009). "Crazy for You" has also been covered by a number of artists.
Composition[edit]
"Crazy for You" was a new musical direction for Madonna, as she had not recorded ballad songs before. According to author Rikky Rooksby, the song is sophisticated compared to her previous singles. The introduction features a melody by an oboe and an electric guitar chord, sliding from one motif to the other. It has a snare drum on the last beat of the bar, leading to the spacey quality to most of the verses. Other instrumentation comes from a harp, a bass synthesizer and a chattering single note guitar lick. The fuller rhythm of the song does not start, until the chorus is reached. The turn of the melody allows Madonna's voice to stretch further on the higher notes.[3]
According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, "Crazy for You" is set in the time signature of common time, with a medium tempo of 104 beats per minute. It is set in the key of E major with Madonna's voice spanning between the high note of C♯5 to the low note of G♯3. The song has a basic sequence of E–A–B–A as its chord progression.[4] Unlike her previous singles, the chord sequence does not repeat itself and the chorus slowly unravels to the climax of the song. Lyrically, the song talks about extreme love for one another.[3] It contains innuendos similar to the Crystals' 1963 song "Then He Kissed Me". According to scholar Dave Marsh, the lyrics talk about frank sexual desire among two teenagers. He believed that the line "I'm crazy for you, Touch me once and you'll know it's true" was not ambiguous and it helped Madonna to capitalize on such disambiguation.[5]
Critical reception[edit]
Keith Caulfield of Billboard said that "Crazy for You" is "perhaps the ultimate slow-dance song."[6] Cash Box said that "though less infectiously danceable than her other two current singles 'Like a Virgin' and 'Material Girl'], 'Crazy For You' displays Madonna's voice in a different context, one that is more mature and ultimately marketable."[7] Rikky Rooksby, author of The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, called the song sophisticated.[3] Alex Henderson of Allmusic felt that the other Madonna song on the Vision Quest soundtrack, "Gambler", should have been the more successful single.[8] Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli characterized the song as "sassy" and commented that the song provided proof that Madonna was vocally capable of delivering a serious ballad.[9] Author Andrew Morton believed that the song cemented Madonna as a talented and serious singer which "had been missing from her past recordings."[10] Allen Metz and Carol Benson, authors of The Madonna Companion: Two Decades of Commentary, said that the song sounded like a "remake of sweet-sixteen Connie Francis tune, dripping with old-fashioned, hand-held romance" especially in the line "It's so brand new; I'm really crazy for you."[11] Edna Gundersen from USA Today felt that the song is "touching and beautifully arranged."[12]
Dave Marsh, author of The Heart of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made, felt that with the coda of the song, Madonna transformed her record into an adult love song.[5] William McKeen, author of Rock and Roll is Here to Stay: An Anthology, said that the song "offered an aggressive sexuality for women".[13] Maria Raha, author of Cinderella's Big Score: Women of the Punk and Indie Underground, said that with the song, "Madonna brought a trunk full of trite lyrics on the long-standing tradition of pop music, love."[14]
"Crazy for You" was nominated for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at 1986 Grammy Awards, but lost to Whitney Houston's "Saving All My Love for You".[15] The song was ranked number 38 on VH1's "100 Greatest Love Songs", and during the special it was revealed that "Crazy for You" was recorded in one take.[16] In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their Top 20 Madonna singles of all time by Q; "Crazy for You" was allocated the eleventh spot.[17]
Chart performance[edit]
In the United States, "Crazy for You" became Madonna's second number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. The song debuted on the chart at number 55 on the issue dated March 2, 1985.[18] After 11 weeks, the song reached the top of the chart, replacing "We Are the World" by USA for Africa.[19] "Crazy for You" was the second number-one song for Bettis as a songwriter, after "Top of the World" by the Carpenters (1973). With "Crazy for You", Bettis was in doubt whether the song would reach the top, after it was stuck at number two for three weeks, behind "We Are the World". Both he and Lind commented, "If you gotta lose to something, it might as well be 'We Are the World'. Luckily enough, the final week of the upsurge of the record, we topped 'We Are the World', which lets you know how hot the song and how hot the artist [Madonna] was."[1]
"Crazy for You" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on July 16, 1985, for shipment of one million copies of the single across United States—the requirement for a gold single prior to 1989.[20][21][22] The song reached number two on the Adult Contemporary Singles (behind "Rhythm of the Night" by DeBarge), and 80 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.[23][24] It placed at nine on the year-end chart for 1985, with Madonna becoming the top pop artist for the year.[25] In Canada, the song debuted at number 70 on the RPM issue dated March 16, 1985.[26] On its eleventh week on the chart, the song reached the top position.[27] It was present on the chart for a total of 25 weeks[28] and was ranked seventh on the RPM Year-end chart for 1985.[29] A music video was released, featuring Madonna singing the song in a night-club. The video was included in Celebration: The Video Collection, released in 2009.[30]
"Crazy for You" reached number one in Australia and displaced another Madonna release, "Angel"/"Into the Groove", from the top spot on the Kent Music Report chart, making Madonna one of the few acts in Australian chart history to replace themselves at the number-one spot.[31] After the song was released in the United Kingdom on June 8, 1985, it debuted at number 25 and peaked at number two. On February 18, 1991,[32] the QSound version of the song (as remixed by Shep Pettibone for The Immaculate Collection) was released and debuted in the peak position of number two in the Official UK Singles chart.[33][34][35][36][37] It would equal the chart position of the 1985 original, as it was kept off the number-one slot by another record from the 1980s, namely "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by the Clash.[38] "Crazy for You" was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipment of 500,000 copies across United Kingdom.[39] "Crazy For You" was 16th-best-selling single of 1985 in United Kingdom.[40] Such was Madonna's popularity that when Vision Quest was released on home video in the UK it was renamed as Crazy for You, to cash in on her success.[3] According to the Official Charts Company, the song had sold 782,000 copies there as of August 2017.[41] "Crazy for You" was also a number-two hit in Ireland and New Zealand.[42][43] The song reached the top 20 in Belgium, Europe, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland[43][44][45][46] and top 40 in Austria, France and Germany.[43][47]
Credits adapted from the soundtrack's liner notes.[73]