andersson | The Genealogy of Style

Photo by Steven Klein

Hung Up is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It was written and produced in collaboration with Stuart Price, and released as the first single from her tenth studio album, Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). Songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus generally do not allow anyone to sample any of their tracks, an exception being Fugees, who sampled their song The Name of the Game for their single Rumble in the Jungle.

Originally the video for Hung Up was scheduled to be directed by photographer David LaChapelle. He wanted the video to have a “documentary”-style look, much like that of his 2005 film, Rize, in which five of the dancers from the Hung Up video appeared. LaChapelle and Madonna disagreed on the concept, prompting the project to be reassigned to Johan Renck, who worked with Madonna in her video for Nothing Really Matters. According to an interview with MTV, Renck was directing Kate Moss for a H&M commercial when he received a phone call from Madonna who desperately wanted to work with him. The next day he went to Los Angeles to meet the stylist and the choreographer hired by Madonna, who mailed him with her ideas for the video.The director explained that he “kind of liked that we didn’t have time to over-think this and be too clever, I like being out on a limb and not know what we’re doing and why. Just deal with it, the mayhem, you know?”

Madonna clarified that the video was a tribute to Giorgio Morode, John Travolta and to dance in general. Her dance moves for the video, which were inspired by Travolta’s movies like Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977), Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) and Perfect (James Bridges, 1985) took three hours to shoot. Madonna had broken eight bones in a horseback-riding accident a few weeks before shooting the video. Hence she faced difficulty doing the steps as devised by choreographer Jamie King. Renck said,

“She was such a trooper, […] She just fell off a horse! [Madonna said] ‘If you were a real dance choreographer, you could tell I can’t lift my left arm higher than this’ — and it was like, what, a 20-centimeter difference? […] But when she said it ‘hurts like f—,’ she’d take a break and sit down for two minutes. [Madonna]’I have broken ribs, remember that!’ I just can’t imagine dancing like that. Talk about priorities.”

Gucci creative director Frida Giannini designed this particular bomber model exclusively for Madonna in conjunction with her 2006 Confessions tour and television appearances supporting Confessions on a Dance Floor

To watch the music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style‘s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl

Artwork by Scott Jones

Mouth to Mouth is the debut album by disco act Lipps Inc with Cynthia Johnson on lead vocals. Lipps Inc was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota and was most known for the Double-Platinum-selling 1980 chart-topping hit Funkytown, which hit #1 in 28 different countries around the world. It consisted of a changing lineup of session musicians, including guitarist David Rivkin, guitarist Tom Riopelle and bassist Terry Grant. Steven Greenberg, the creator of the act, wrote and produced most of the group’s music.Lipps Inc.’s first release was a 1979 single, Rock It, on Greenberg’s own Flight imprint.

Funkytown, the second single from Mouth to Mouth, is often considered to be one of the last massive hits of the disco genre. This single held a unique record for reaching number one in 28 countries, more than any other single release until Madonna‘s Hung Up hit number one in 41 countries in 2005. Hung Up prominently features a sample of pop group ABBA‘s hit single Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), for which Madonna personally sought permission from ABBA songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.

To watch the music video, please take a gander at The Genealogy of Style’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Genealogy-of-Style/597542157001228?ref=hl