Why did Borderline flop on its initial UK release?
- Thread starter Suedehead
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Sardonicus
HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE
My best guess is she wasn't around to promote it & unlike "Like A Virgin", which exploded shortly afterwards, there wasn't a scandalous lyric with both video & song being nice, but not controversial. So there wasn’t anything for the press to latch on to without her around promoting it.
Of course, there'd be no need for that by mid 1985 anyway - she was guaranteed a top 10 by then even without coming near the UK.
Of course, there'd be no need for that by mid 1985 anyway - she was guaranteed a top 10 by then even without coming near the UK.
BoysForSeles
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I imagine it was because she wasn’t yet the tour de force she’d become by any means and probably didn’t have much radio or tv support with it. She was coming off a respectable #6 for Holiday and #14 for Lucky Star so doubt it’s release was seen as a priority by anyone at that stage.
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AGinAg (37)
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Lucky Star was the moderate follow up. Borderline was the third single, by someone who was feasibly a one hit wonder. I can't imagine radio and TV got behind an already diminishing star.
I'm not sure if Like A Virgin hadn't happened, that she'd be anything more than that.
I'm not sure if Like A Virgin hadn't happened, that she'd be anything more than that.
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AGinAg (37)
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So what @BoysForSeles said.
funky
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It seems almost normal again now to not have a huge hit straight out the gate but exploding later on, as that has happened to most of the current pop queens of today, but there was about three decades in between there where if you didn't get a smash with your first couple of singles, you were dropped. But in the 80s there was still some sense of patience or realistic expectation. I mean Prince's first three albums delivered very little.
I doubt they would have kept putting out flop Madonna singles forever though - crazy to think that she might have been only a couple more tepid releases away from them dropping investment in LAV, and then maybe she would never have starred in Desperately, and then we wouldn't have had True Blue. How different the music world would be.
I doubt they would have kept putting out flop Madonna singles forever though - crazy to think that she might have been only a couple more tepid releases away from them dropping investment in LAV, and then maybe she would never have starred in Desperately, and then we wouldn't have had True Blue. How different the music world would be.
I get that but wasn’t it already big in the US? It’s just odd because Borderline being so big in the US is what delayed LAV being released
funnily enough it remains one of her most loved 80s songs in the UK and certainly one of her most played on radio (CBOS - Cwej Book of Stats)
I think Borderline was done because it was so huge in the States so it was a case of “making it right” for the UK
Burning Up was never a hit anywhere and I suspect the label would have worried about it re-flopping
Sheena
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Borderline was a long stayer rather than an instant smash in the US. It was way bigger than its peak.
I’m not sure that kind of status had been achieved by the time it came out over here.
Burning Up, I can take your point about too, but a reissue at the time wouldn’t have been off the cards and by ‘86, of course, they could have released anything and had a hit. I also feel post- Who’s That Girl and during the gap in ‘88 it could have done well too.
I’m not sure that kind of status had been achieved by the time it came out over here.
Burning Up, I can take your point about too, but a reissue at the time wouldn’t have been off the cards and by ‘86, of course, they could have released anything and had a hit. I also feel post- Who’s That Girl and during the gap in ‘88 it could have done well too.
lolly
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I think you're probably right - although it was released in the US in Feb 84, it didn't peak until mid June - a couple of weeks after it was released in the UK. So it wasn't released in the UK on the back of being a big US hit. And at that stage in her career, she would have needed that more than she would not that much later.
And I wonder if as the success of it in the US was slow burn which clearly caught Sire by surprise as it delayed the release of LAV, they purposely didn't push it very hard anywhere else later again to complicate matters further? I can well imagine by that fifth single point, all they were hoping for was to keep her name out there and perhaps wring a few more album sales out of the wider public.
