The "Like a Virgin" Back Cover Explained!

"Despite Madonna appearing on the sleeve in a wedding dress, thus reinforcing the supposed traditional concept of being a virgin on her wedding night, the addition of the Boy Toy belt and the (by then) notoriety surrounding the singer's onstage antics could have been viewed as poking fun at the religious 'no sex before marriage' doctrine. Also, her rather prominent pair of boobies and the sultry look on her face may have met with raised eyebrows at how one could consider her a 'virgin bride'. Many thought Madonna had never looked so beautiful and sexy, but Sire were concerned that retailers in certain areas, particularly the so-called 'Bible Belt', might be met with hostility by the suggestive sleeve.

Thus, in a move which has inadvertantly led to the confusion of many fans for decades, they came up with the genius idea of giving retailers two options on which sleeve they displayed instore to potential shoppers, and thus gave fans two options from which to chose at home. The suggestive and potentially 'offensive' front one we know and love, and a less provocative but equally attractive alternative.

Have you ever wondered why all copies of the LP were pressed with the rear sleeve upside down? Well, Sire hit upon the snag that if they pressed this alternate cover the correct way up then when stacked in stores and on fans' shelves at home it would mean that the spine of the album was pointing into the shelf rather than out to the customer/owner. How would you know what record that was in amongst a bunch of others? Thus, to enable the spines of the album to point outwards irrespective of which cover was displayed, they printed the main sleeve the correct way up, and flipped the other one over for the rear.

This may sound silly, but if you look at the two sleeves side by side you will see that the album title and Madonna's name are given exactly the same prominence and feature in exactly the same position. Also, the credits and song titles are printed so small as to detract from the main picture as little as possible. Compare this to most other album covers. On those the tracklisting is usually given extreme prominence, and not crowded in down the at bottom out of the way of the main picture. Sire seem to have successfully averted the feared controversy as, at its height, the album was famously selling 80,000 copies a day in the US where it eventually went on to sell over 10,000,000 copies! (Thanks to Tony.)"

FINALLY: AN ANSWER.

I always thought it was just to make it easier to 'flip' as you were looking through the racks instore, to see the tracklisting on the back LOL

"Ohh, nice belt..*flip* ...hmmm Angel, Track 2...

Nup, it's cos the front cover might be considered "scandalous", "shocking" or "so so controversial it'll make the prudes just, like, DIE in the record shop".

Fast-forward twenty years to Christina Aguilera's "Stripped" album sleeve. Boy have we moved on as a society. To what, though?

Hey, btw: "...hmmm Angel, Track 2..." ...

Did you notice? The re-pressing that included "Into The Groove" chopped Angel off the tracklist on the sleeve. I saw that and went "Arrrgh!!" But nope, its on the vinyl. They also chopped the last twenty seconds or so off "Stay", the evil little pork chops.