1983

 

 

1983 is where Madonna goes even more blonde.  For her official first album photo shoot, her hair is longer, and it has that interesting texture that's curly, yet wavy, wet, but dry. I chose these pictures to show the length and color contrast to her previous hair at the end of 1982.  When I first saw her first album cover, it was in 1988. I wasn't yet a fan.  All I knew at that point was her Desperately Seeking Susan look, Dress You Up, Live To Tell, The short white blonde hair of True Blue to Who's That Girl, and her "new" brown hair for Speed The Plow.  1988 did not play much Madonna videos until the end of the year when they had a show called rock blocks, and that is where I discovered "Burning Up"...so I figured her first album cover will have looked like that with the frosted bob she was sporting. So, when I saw her album cover, especially the back cover....it confused me.  It looked very similar to True Blue to me. The front had the part to the side, but the back it had no part too much like True Blue.  I felt like it was too similar. When I saw the inside picture, I felt like that made a better album cover, because that looks more different than True Blue.  I mean, I know my experience is quite backwards.  Like Madonna knew in 1983 she was going to chop her hair off in 1986 and have a similar look.  This makes me then rethink her thoughts of why she had a similar look in 1986 to 1983...she isn't supposed to repeat herself.  This is a phrase I will be using a lot in this blog. Of course it is not the same EXACT look, but I like Madonna contrasting and always having something extremely different. Of course, who am I to say these things? I am not.  I am just sharing my thoughts in a blog questioning.  Madonna says great artists make people question things.  Madonna is the master at making people, including me, question things.  

Now Madonna's hair is getting noticeably longer. I included this picture just for that reason. I want to keep this blog as contrasted as I can, but seeing her hair in this picture coming more into the bob style I know from the rest of the "Madonna" album promotion, it feels almost rare I see it without the bows and teasing and spiking that comes with this length. Madonna's hair versatility is captivating. This particular photo make me think of the song, "I Know It"...in that song, I see her on a rooftop like this, swirling around with a cute bratty attitude (bratitude) as the song feels.

Burning Up:

This is the earliest version of Madonna I knew for a period of time, as I previously mentioned. Madonna has many magical traits when it comes to her hair. A lot of times, she will offer at least two hairstyles in a video. This is one of them. First, we have her with the teased dry spiky hair with her bow, then we have it wet (or gelled) all natural with no bow.  To me, the versatility made me wonder how the video will have been if she only used one of the hairstyles, instead of two.  Sometimes, I wanted a separate video for each.

More waves:

As Madonna's hair grew, it looks increasingly thicker and fuller.  This photoshoot sees more waves and fullness that are starting to evolve into yet another variant of this bob hairstyle.  It looks more relaxed and casual, yet retaining a nice wildness to it. 

BRAIDS!

I was really hoping to keep all of the pictures in color, however, if there are color ones, I have not found them in all these years. I always prefer color! If you know me, you KNOW me!  Okay, so, this is the most important part of Madonna's hair evolution hairstory for me, personally.  

The braids, I think look incredible on her.  I was so happy to see her revisit them recently (2022). It appears to me, she was using braids not only as a hairstyle, but also to style her hair texture, when she did braid outs.  Braid outs are when you braid your hair for the purpose of having the wild waves braids create for keeping them in for a period of time.  Madonna sure takes full advantage of this styling technique in late 1983.  Braids also give the hair a break from other styling methods, giving it a chance to create natural oils, and even appear to help it grow, because it is not being styled, it has a chance to be protected to give more length. In the top  picture, Madonna uses the braids to make the top of her hair more wavy and stick up. The bottom picture, it is just all braided, and quite a sight to behold, but...it gets better...

Add a bow, and it appears longer, just as I said in the previous 1982 entry.  I will love to see these black and whites in color to see the true essence of the contrasting blonde braids with the dark roots with the bow.  These braided looks will have been so spectacular if they appeared in a video.  I feel like these are the most defining style of the "Madonna" first album era.  And...then there is this

With the hat, we are not too sure of what is going on, but without the hat comes...

what I call alternative extensions. I need color versions of this look!  This evolution revolutionary, as I call it, form of her braids ARE the braids that influenced how i braid my own hair to this day (in 2022). In 1996, I had just started to grow my own hair out, because I fried it from bleaching it and straightening it.  I wanted a new hair color, but I did not want to bleach it for a while, because it was still growing.  These pictures, thanks to the internet, and along with "My So called Life", there was a character who did something similar to her hair that brought me to first alternately style my hair with different colors to appear I have a new hair color, but keep my own hair natural. I first had cream colored Chinese staircases braided into my own hair,and I had them extend to my waist, so I can also have the illusion of long hair.  From there I continued to experiment with other materials to have whatever color or texture or length i wanted.  I have done everything from yarn to cyberlox, to foam to rexlace, to garland, to wired mesh, to well, you get the point.  This was a rare photoshoot that  changed my life and art in the way I style my own hair.  This hairstyle completely deserved a video...most likely Physical Attraction...one of my favorite songs from the debut album. 

Here are examples of the top of her hair having a braid out in color, and with the awesome alternative braid extensions!!!It's my Physical Attraction for sure!!!  It will have been great had Madonna experimented even more and used different colors other than black, like what I did, but this was pretty much a stepping stone of a lifetime of hairstyles for me to do! See, with Madonna, she will present ideas...I can spend all day saying, why doesn't she...but I rather say...why don't I! and do it!

Here is another version of the mix of alternative braided extensions with the top braided out and loose.  This is another personal favorite of mine, and it's in color!!! This part of her hairstory is so impactful to me.

I am very thrilled there was at least a live performance with her alternative braided extensions. This version is really cool, because she looks like she has a mohawk, and the top is forming into some of the ways she styles her hair through 1984 and 1985...I call it her bump.  I like seeing it like this the most.  Her bump returns many times through her career, with different lengths and styles, but this appears to be where it started. I love that she used this version of "Holiday" as her official video (even though it was a performance), but it makes me so happy this hairstyles is in it. I still will have loved to see it in a video setting, how do I say, not live? A video proper, as I may refer to it as (Burning Up, Lucky Star, Borderline, etc...)

When I saw pictures of  when Madonna's first album was re-released, I was extremely happy to see this as the new artwork.  This completely says "Madonna" to me....all though "the first album" feels strange to me...just call it "Madonna"...as it was. This, to me, is the best version (except having "the first album on it). I did not know about this until the internet in 1996, either.  I had seen these pictures used in fan magazine, and I was given a 12 inch single with this look in 1993, as well, so when I saw this used as a new presentation of "Madonna"...it was magic to my eyes!  

...and speaking of magic to my eyes, how about a Vision Quest, shall we...

Most people did not see this look until 1985, and may have even thought she looked like this in 1985, after seeing the "new video"...but I am sure the fans who payed attention may have figured out her hair was really 1983 here.  This is definitely a braid out style, and something I love seeing.  I have wondered if maybe she used a crimping iron, but the waves look more natural than what a crimping iron does, and in the previous pictures, we can see this wave pattern from the braids.  I do find this style interesting, because the hairstyle she has in both Crazy For You, and Gambler videos, and in the movie, Vision Quest, she has a bow, and not the side barrette. A side note away from hair: I was never into music videos with movie scenes in them. I used to want a version without the movie scenes.  I also felt that Gambler deserved a different looking video than Crazy For You, especially IN 1985, when her hair was all grown out, or with some of the extension styles she was wearing.  Actually, Crazy For You deserved its own video as well, not looking like the movie, either. I like when songs can have videos of their own rather than having movie scenes thrown in, or at least having their own looks.  I mean, imagine if the "Vogue" video was all littered with Dick Tracy scenes, and used clips of her singing "More", but with lyrics from "Vogue"...though the "More" look was cool, it is cool for "More". I will probably make this side note on all movie videos that have movies in them.  Fortunately, Die Another Day got its own video. Yeah, I get it, movies need the video promotion, videos use the movie promo, but that's how business makes things boring.  They can do both - have a movie clip version, and have an original video of its own.

Here is the bow version that we all know so very well from Vision Quest.  It's hard for me to decide which I like "better", because they both have their own special flare, as most of her hairstyles do.  I did find her using more of a neutral color, looking gray to me, an unusual touch...because I will have thought black to match her clothes. After seeing both video for Crazy For You and Gambler, I think it will have been more interesting if in one video (Crazy For You) she used the pinned back barrette look, because the song is slower and can handle her smooth moves.  Gambler needs the bow with her energy and passion. Of course, as I previously said, with these songs released in 1985, this hairstyle was "old". I put that in quotes, because I didn't even know who she was, yet until Into The Groove. Hey, I was only 11 years old, and all though I was a TV head through my childhood, some things were missed, and I wasn't quite paying attention to music, yet. I was a prime time sitcom tv watcher along with cartoons. My parents played oldies all the time, so I barely heard "modern music" unless if I was with one of my siblings or cousins or their friends, and their taste in music was Rock as in Heart, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Styx, Queen, etc...but albums, not the radio.  It's not like I was unaware of 80's music. My first crush was Tina Turner...okay, at the time, I didn't know she had been around for a while. Her spiked up hair made me an instant fan, because I never saw a hairstyle like that before, and I wanted it!!! Okay, So that is a brief moment of me in 1985, just so everyone knows where I was. I will go into details when those years are covered. As I have mentioned, I got MTV in 1988 in my room, and that is where I saw just about everything, and the puzzle pieces started coming together.  That is the year where I saw most of Madonna's videos up until that year, and that is when I saw Crazy For You and Gambler, and what I can say is I thought they WERE from 1983, because of her hairstyle.  Up until this point in time, I saw Burning Up, Lucky Star, and Borderline, and when I saw these videos, I thought they were from that time period. To me, 1985 was the glam waves of Material Girl, the very interesting at the time gelled/waved/what texture is this Into The Groove, and the short bangs, side top half up pony tail and half down long hair of Dress You Up. In 1990, when someone gave me the "Madonna" cassette tape, I was surprised, and I wondered where Crazy For You and Gambler were.  Of course I know when MTV shows a video, they say the name of the artist, the song title, the album title, and the record company, but I thought that those two songs were originally on her first album, (then put on the Vision Quest soundtrack) because of her hair. When I did find out they were released in 1985, I thought she needed new videos, just because her hair was past shoulder length, and it didn't match up with  her current Virgin Tour look.  I will cover this in the 1985 section even more.