Four Madonna number ones down; four very different sounds from the soon-to-be Queen of Pop…
La Isla Bonita, by Madonna (her 4th of thirteen #1s)
2 weeks, from 19th April – 3rd May 1987
‘La Isla Bonita’ is a Latin-funk tune, with a nice strong bass line, some horn blasts and a sharp Spanish guitar. Everything is fine-tuned, and tight. It has a gloss to it, a modernness to the production, that suggests Madonna had available to her the best studios and equipment. It’s got a steady beat, but it’s still likely to fill a dancefloor.
Except, yeah… I don’t love this one. It’s my least favourite of the four so far. Something about it feels gimmicky to me. Why is she singing in Spanish, for a start? Como puede ser verdad, she purrs in the intro. How can it be true…? If Madonna knows one foreign language, surely it’s Italian?
Anyway, Madonna has fallen in love. Not with a Cuban hunk, rather with an island. I fell in love with San Pedro… Tropical island breeze, All of nature wild and free, This is where I long to be, La isla bonita… Problem is, when non-Latina stars go Latina, they tend to resort to these cliches of warm breezes and Spanish lullabies.
To be fair to Madonna, ‘La Isla Bonita’ may have been her first attempt at Latin music, but it was far from her last. She has a love for it that goes beyond mere musical shapeshifting. Problem is, Madonna is a bit of a trendsetter. She opened the floodgates for every female pop star going to have a ‘Latin phase’: from Lady Gaga to Geri Halliwell. And I’m a traditionalist: no woman has done Latin nonsense better than Rosemary Clooney back in 1955!
So, to me, ‘La Isla Bonita’ feels like a default chart-topper from the biggest star in the world. It was the fifth single to be released from the ‘True Blue’ album, and you have to be pretty darn popular to get the fifth single off your album to number one. This was her 3rd of four #1s between the summers of 1986 and 1987. Again, not many artists manage four chart-toppers in a year.
I was amazed to see that this was Madonna’s 4th most listened-to song on Spotify, above ‘Like a Virgin’, ‘Like a Prayer’ and ‘Vogue’. It just feels like such an average moment in her back catalogue… Not terrible – far from it – but nowhere near her best. Rolling Stone has it as her 40th best song, apparently, and that sounds much more reasonable.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
Nice dress she is wearing….(*be positive *be positive *be positive)
Now, I have to say that, this one I like. One of just a few. My next fave song of hers won’t show up until 1998.
The only one I like wasn’t a number 1 hit…Borderline
Borderline was OK. I didn’t dislike it.
This is a bit meh for me… Not as meh as the next single though, which is just a retread of this. She has much better to come.
Well, nice try… 🙂
“La Isla Bonita” is among my favorite Madonna songs, along with “Borderline” and “Papa Don’t Preach”.
I also love this one, its just so warm and Spanish-y, the rhythms are fab, the latin rhythm is one i find i can dance to, though im as surprised as you to find it currently more popular than more famous madonna tracks. That said latin sounds are huge worldwide so maybe we shouldnt be. For which we dont thank Madonna we thank Gloria Estefan and her hubby songwriter producer. Global modern latin dance pop really began with Miami Sound Machine then madonna pet shop boys and others were inspired by it and hit huge in latin markets and led to the 90s 00s 10s monster tracks youll be covering down the line, not least despacito which might account for streaming success: alexa, play some latin pop. Or not! Her next one is the by-numbers effort tho… 🙂
Yeah it certainly is… I didn’t mean to suggest that Madonna started latin pop as a genre, more that she seemed to open the door for non-latina singers to have a go. Not that I’m against that in a misguided cultural appropriation kind of way, it’s just not my favourite type of music. Beyond Madonna, I guess another reason for the genres explosion in the 90s and 00s was that huge stars like Shakira, J-Lo and Christina were releasing music in both English and Spanish too
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