Do you remember. . .when you got it free???

Okay, letting my age show a little, but can you guys remember when Madonna released an album and it was huge in NZ. I mean there were midnight openings so we could get the newest CD (Er once actually for me, it was Marbecks when they were down Queen St, Auckland. when Bedtime Stories was released, I got a poster where she's smoking a ciggy, a coffee mug with bedtime stories engraved - since broken and vanished - and a cool sweatshirt with the bedtime logo, all for buying her new CD) I also remember when the sex book was released and we were the first to get it, big news, I begged a woman at a bookshop in Christchurch to let me have the standee and I actually got it , never thought that would happen.

And. . . Well I was really young but when Like a Virgin was released, my friend had it on tape so I asked father xmas for it on LP, I didn't get it It was sold out everywhere (so my parents told me) but I got a cool Madonna annual instead and a record voucher which as soon as the shops opened again (And it was probably weeks in those days) I found the record at Farmers - at least I think it was farmers - at Northlands shopping Mall in Christchurch. I also got a few free things with it, the Angel cover poster, a t shirt with the album cover on it and Madonna's lace bra was kinda 3d (Long worn out)and a 7" of into the groove slipped into the cover + a cheap metal badge made in NZ. How cool was that??

I guess what I'm saying is, these days there is no free giveaways, really little promotion and hell we don't even get the 2nd single of her albums anymore. What the hell is going on here in this country??????

Here's another thing: True Blue when released I got a huge promo poster and the blue vinyl was the same price as the normal issue and another metal badge made in NZ, You can dance - I received a sticker (quickly placed on a school folder) and a free cassette when I bought the vinyl which was amazing then cause cassettes were the thing - walkmans Who's that Girl - a poster, Like a Prayer - a promo poster and another badge - not made in NZ. She's Breathless - a poster and some Macdonalds vouchers as they were promoting the movie big time, Oh and erotica I got a plastic badge.

The last big giveaway, at least for me was Ray of light. You ordered the limited edition album and got a video and poster.

When Music was released I had to beg for a poster and totally refused to buy the CD until I got something for free Since then, I've given up and basically got the albums from the warehouse or jb hi-fi. No more posters Thats all I can remember for now.

So sad these days. But would love to hear about you guy's and what got for free if you bought her newest album.

I feel like I've really missed out on some magic.

What with me being 19 and all, my first exposure to Madonna was "American Pie" in 2000 (the first single I ever bought with my pocket money, mainly for the radio remix, on cassette, lol). I would have been 10? 11?

And I listened to it obsessively. The music was heavenly and the photo on the sleeve was of an absolute angel. My mum noticed. She said "I'll go digging through my cd's, I'm sure I have an album of hers somewhere", and she pulled out "Like a Virgin".

Madonna's been a sideline commodity since then, unfortunately. I forgot about her for a few years after American Pie.

I remember walking into the living room one day and seeing my ex-step-dad, sprawled out like a big fat tub of clothing on the couch, with his sons and daughter, watching "Beautiful Stranger" on TV and it being eerily silent, everyone just watching her.

I remember "Music" from some subliminal memory.

I remember looking at "American Life" in Sounds one day, and being fixated by the picture of her, but not enough to ask my mum for a copy. (I would've been ... 14?)

I remember The Kiss being on the news. I remember seeing it on the tv, I don't know whose house I was in but I remember the grey carpet and the beige wallpaper and thinking, "Wow". And when "Me Against The Music" hit it big, I remember we had a radio set up in Science class, and it came on all the time.

When I first caught the "mp3 bug" as my new-step-dad called it, I found a Russian bootleg site selling tracks for 19c each, and one day in the "New" and "best sellers", I spotted Madonna's new album, and the red hair. At that stage for some reason I was fixated on redheads (Desperate Housewives was just out and Marcia Cross was my favourite character, and my favourite actess was Nicole Kidman at the time), so I decided to have a look at the redhead. I listened to a 30 second clip of "Hung Up" and went "Blech, she just stole the tune from Abba." And so I abandoned her.

My next, and last, chance encounter with her was 3 News, believe it or not!

They broadcast her performance of Hung Up at the Grammy's, which was just kick-ass wow, and it was still in my mind about a week later, when they announced they were premiering her new video on Nightline.

So I stayed up to see it, and it was Sorry. It started at the beginning of the cagefight, so I got to enjoy the build-up of the music (easily the best part of the song) until the end, and I got to watch her back-breaking gymnastics in that fight scene, and the roller-rink scene afterwards. At which point I asked my stepdad "Who is that?" (American Pie now long and truly forgotten), and he said "A woman trying to pretend she's half her actual age."

When I went to bed, "Hung Up" was, inexplicably, stuck in my head and I didn't know why.

So at some point later, I downloaded her entire album from the russian website, then I bought a copy at my local woolworths. I must've re-read that album booklet a hundred times while I listened to it. And then I thought, "What else has she done?" And I bought a copy of the Immaculate Collection.

The greatest moment for me, I think, was listening to "Material Girl" and "Like a Virgin" and going, hey, there's extra instruments in here than how I remember it. And then I dug up the old CD of Like a Virgin my mum had given me, and then I went to the library and read Taraborelli's biography, and then everything snowballed and now, two years later, I'm known as the guy with the obsessive Madonna collection problem.

So that's a young person's (LOL forgive me) discovery of Madonna. I wasn't even CONSIDERED, let alone conceived, when Like a Virgin hit it big. Hehe. I'm sure she's picked up newbies like me with "Hard Candy". We'll just have to wait for them to find us.

(edit: as I posted that, "Into The Groove" came on the radio)

Wow, they used to give away free stuff?

As a kid growing up, I only ever bought one record- You Can Dance. That was when I was 13, using my first pay and it cost me $15.00. Got nothing free

Dont think my older sister got anything free either, she used to buy tapes and I would dub them and make my own covers with magazine pics of Madonna and lots of glitter lol

I was living in Australia, and I almost never got anything free - and that was starting from buying the Holiday 7" . About the only free thing I got was a poster with the I'm Breathless cd. ....and just special 'tour' editions of Erotica and the Immaculate Collection. Although I did get a free Evita (Making Of) book when I bought the video in London.

Whats the tour edition of the CD's? Anything unique?

Yep, individually numbered, on gold discs - with inserts - I sold mine (doh!), they go for a BOMB on eBay now (unique to Aussie, yet again!!)

Did a quick search for them - found the Immaculate Collection for US$299.00 Buy It Now (wish I'd kept mine!).

Damn! There was one going on TradeMe a while back for $35. Waaaaaaaah.

gee I must have been lucky then.

Thaaaaaat pretty much sums it up, Corey. Heehee. To quote one of the characters in Bridget Jones' Diary:

"Congratulations, you happy bastard."