The Immaculate Collection

The Immaculate Collection is Madonna's first greatest hits album, released on November 13, 1990. The album was later certified 10 million copies in the USA which contains two new tracks, "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me".

Related Topics:
Madonna - November 13 - 1990

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Many of the songs on The Immaculate Collection were remixed and edited down from their original studio versions, in order to increase the overall running time. It was decided that a mixture of ballads and pop-dance hits would be included, although there wasn't space for every Madonna single released; the following songs are absent: Everybody, Burning Up, Angel, Dress You Up, Gambler, True Blue, Who's That Girl, Causing A Commotion, The Look Of Love, Dear Jessie, Oh Father, Keep It Together and Hanky Panky.

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Justify My Love became the first single to promote the album, and after a furore over the R-Rated video and the controversy as to who wrote it (poet Ingrid Chavez claimed she wrote part of the lyrics alongside credited lyricist Lenny Kravitz), it shot to number 1 in the USA and number 2 in the UK. A second release, Rescue Me, was released in early 1991 but failed to reach the heights of it's predecessor.

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Many fans were quick to point out the shortcomings of the album, particularly the missing hits, so Warner Brothers released an EP in Europe entitled "The Holiday Collection" which had the same design as the Immaculate Collection. The full-length version of Holiday was included alongside True Blue, Who's That Girl (which had both reached number 1 in the UK) and Causing A Commotion. The re-released Holiday eventually went to number 2 in the charts, as did a re-release of the ballad Crazy For You.

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By the late 1990's, and after 20 million copies had been sold, the Guiness Book of World Records declared the Immaculate Collection to be the biggest selling "greatest hits" album by a female artist and was placed in several "albums of the millenium" lists.

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