Burning Up (Madonna song)
The accompanying music video for "Burning Up" was directed by Steve Barron, and depicts the singer in a white dress, writhing on an empty road waiting for her lover.[5][2] The song's success led to the label approving the recording of an album, but the singer chose not to work with either Bray or Kamins, opting instead for Warner Bros. producer Reggie Lucas.[6] Recording took place at New York's Sigma Sound Studios; personnel working on the song included Bray on programming and guitars, alongside Paul Pesco; Butch Jones, Fred Zarr, and Ed Walsh were in charge of the synthesizers, while Bobby Malach played tenor saxophone.[9] A "yearning" New wave-influenced dance track, with lyrics that conflate sex with ambition, it has a "starker" arrangement brought about by bass, single guitar and drum machine.[28] The Portland Mercury's Mark Lore referred to "Burning Up" and previous single "Everybody" as "true gems, gritty New York anthems", that were overshadowed by the more known "Holiday" and "Borderline".[31] "Burning Up" came in at number 21 on rankings done by The Backlot and The Arizona Republic; writing for the former, Louis Virtel held that, "as much as Madonna was something of a tartier Pat Benatar when she first arrived, she was also inspired by the punks of NYC – and this barebones, breathy war cry proves it", while Ed Masley ―from the latter publication― compared it to Michael Jackson's "Beat It", and said it had "the personality that would go on to help define the decade fully formed — playful, assertive and sexy".[36] Billboard deemed it Madonna's eleventh greatest: "No early '80s pop album was complete without one song that threw a scorching rock riff into the synth-dance mix, and on her self-titled debut, that was the irrepressible 'Burning Up' [...] [she] sounds less like a doormat and more like a pioneer of female Big Dick Energy", wrote Joe Lynch.[43] The music video for "Burning Up" was directed by Steve Barron, who had previously worked on Toto's "Africa" (1982), Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" (1983).[4][46] Actress Debi Mazar, a personal friend of the singer, was hired as make-up artist, while her then boyfriend Ken Compton played the role of her onscreen lover.[16] The video was described as a juxtaposition of "disparate images of illuminated busts and cars driving on water with Madonna writhing in the middle of the road", by the staff of Rolling Stone.[50] The tone of her voice and the look she gives at the camera, however, portray a hardness and defiance that contradict the submissiveness of her body posture, turning the question of the line into a challenge.[7] Allen compared it to "Material Girl" (1985), as both videos have an undermining ending, employ a consistent series of puns, and exhibit a parodic amount of excess associated with Madonna's style.[50] The author also noted discourses of sexuality and religion: Madonna, knelt down and singing about "Burning in love", depicted the traditional ideological work of using women's subordination and powerlessness in Christianity to naturalize their equally submissive position in patriarchy.[44] Jill Mapes wrote that it was Madonna's "first great wink to her signature subversion of power through sex"; adding that, although her 1984 MTV Video Music Awards performance is considered "erotic lore on the level of Elvis' censored hips, that writhing set to 'Like a Virgin' would have had little context without the slow, sensual burn of ['Burning Up']".On the first one, it was performed before the encore and found Madonna, decked in a black outfit of matching fringed top and mini-skirt, suggestively posing around her band; orange lights bathed the stage.[62] She was dressed in military fatigues while the screens behind her depicted scenes of war and sex which, according to The New York Times' Kelefa Sanneh, looked like they were filmed with a camcorder and were reminiscent of the prisons in Abu Ghraib.[64] On the Rebel Heart Tour, "Burning Up" was performed as the third number; similar to Re-Invention, the artist sang a rock rendition of the track and played a Gibson Flying V electric guitar.Dressed in a "punky" tailcoat designed by Dilara Fındıkoğlu —inspired by one she wore for a performance in Japan— Madonna sang as "VHS-style projections that recalled her days bouncing off the walls at CBGB" played on the backdrops.[76] The performance found Spears straddling a giant, glittering guitar; it received a mixed review from Rolling Stone's Barry Walters, who felt it "lacked Madge's authority".
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