Happy 10th: Madonna, I’m Going to Tell You a Secret
10 years ago today, Madonna released her first live album, one which shares its title – and, indeed, its music – from a documentary about her music which had been released nine months earlier.
It might be surprising to some that it took Madonna so many years into her career to release a live album, but when you consider how prolific she’s always been as a recording artist, it’s not like she ever needed one to fill the void between studio albums. Plus, I’m Going to Tell You a Secret was a relatively low-impact affair in terms of its release, since – as noted – the songs had already been recorded and mixed for the behind-the-scenes documentary about her 2004 Re-Invention World Tour.
I’m Going to Tell You a Secret definitely captures Madonna at a very precise moment in her musical career, leaning heavily on her more recent material – “American Life,” “Die Another Day,” and “Music” are but three tracks which leap to mind on that front – while offering a limited number of classic tracks. Not that there are any complaints about the decision to include “Vogue,” “Like a Prayer,” “Into the Groove,” and “Holiday” in the mix, but it’s definitely not what you would call a full-fledged greatest-hits set. Additionally, the latter two tracks have been arranged in a new fashion, making them fit better into the overall feel of the show, so it’s clear that Madonna was making a statement: this is who I am now. The end result of this statement, however, was a success, with Rolling Stone making note of how the performance revealed Madonna to be a better singer than one might have realized without having heard her in concert.
I’m Going to Tell You a Secret ended up earning a Grammy nomination for Best Long Form Music Video, which certainly serves to underline that it only came into existence because it was the soundtrack to an existing video, but in addition to topping Billboard’s Top Music Videos chart, it also hit #33 on the Top 200 Albums chart, which is a pretty strong showing as live albums go.
