Album: I’m Breathless - Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy
Songwriters/producers: Madonna/Patrick Leonard

How do you follow a career watershed, let alone one of the greatest singles of all time? In the case of Vogue, by not changing your plans one bit. It would’ve been bleedingly obvious - to Madonna, to Warner, to everyone - that Hanky Panky is nowhere near Vogue’s league, but more importantly, it’s stylistically different enough that its inferiority is not the listener’s only impression. Either way, the song was successful enough to reach number 10 on the Billboard charts, and number 2 in the UK, even if it’s now been eclipsed by everything around it.

Hanky Panky has nothing to do with sexual innuendo. No, innuendo involves hinting at the sexual - Hanky Panky’s “I just want you to spank me” come-ons are just blatant. The rather detailed (yet like the film and ’30s society, somehow PG) fantasies pile irony upon irony to the point that no one could possibly mistake it for a literal statement by Madonna. Though it works as a depiction of Breathless Mahoney’s blonde-bombshell archetype, it’s also self-parody, ridiculing the public’s oft-exaggerated perception of Madonna as some hypersexual nymphomaniac - that is, if statements like Oh Father weren’t enough. The song’s still somewhat novelty - but it at least helps that the lyrics are set to a rollicking, energetic take on swing.

Overall, I’m Breathless does succeed as a character study - an extension of the Breathless Mahoney character’s nightclub repertoire, it’s a near-total immersion in pre-rock and roll period music few popstars (Christina Aguilera aside) would attempt, let alone pull off convincingly. But though it works as a recreation of ’30s style, there’s nothing especially compelling about the album. He’s a Man - effectively Dick Tracy’s own Bond theme - and the Breathless-on-her-deathbed Something to Remember are hugely underrated, but offset by the mind-numbing, unlistenable camp of I’m Going Bananas and Cry Baby. The rest - even Stephen Sondheim’s contributions - doesn’t really stick. Singing from Breathless Mahoney’s perspective holds the album together conceptually, but the problem is that Madonna herself is a more interesting character - playing a lesser archetype’s role, it comes off as mere posturing. Madonna’s jaw-dropping performance of Sooner or Later at the 1991 Oscars is proof - free of Breathless’ shadow, and armed with a far more dynamic arrangement and vocal delivery, she instead aims for the heights of Marilyn Monroe, and practically outdoes her. Its ambition is everything I’m Breathless wasn’t - though the album in itself is a huge step outside the comfort zone of pop, its strict adherence to period authenticity makes it, in the end, not ambitious enough for a Madonna album.

(Sooner or Later, live from the 63rd Academy Awards)

Hanky Panky didn’t have a music video - not that any treatment would’ve worked anyway - instead, the studio version of the song was apparently dubbed over not-on-YouTube live footage from Toronto. The Blond Ambition performance has strangely minimal choreography - though expanded upon slightly on the Re-Invention Tour, the song’s now lost whatever relevance it had. And sure, it’s performed surprisingly well by a 46-year-old Madonna, but the irony of using the song’s original arrangement on a tour named after her greatest ability was somehow lost on her.

(live from Yokohama on the Blond Ambition Tour)