The Immaculate Little Sister
The singles chart in the UK moves so much faster than the US that Sire UK had the opportunity to release a whopping four singles to promote The Immaculate Collection in the space of time that the US had ‘Justify My Love‘ and ‘Rescue Me‘!
To remind the public of the genius of Madonna‘s back catalogue the first re-release was ‘Crazy For You‘ in February 1991 which managed to match the original 1985 chart position by hitting No.2!
However, it was the second re-release which allowed Sire to go some way to making up for the rather skimpy choice of singles which made up ‘The Immaculate Collection‘. The ‘Holiday‘ single, which closed the Immaculate chapter not only captured the fun of the summer season like it previously had in 1985, but it gave them the chance to release a mini-supplement to ‘The Immaculate Collection’ which they imaginatively titled ‘The Holiday Collection‘…
The Mini-hits set came housed in a lovely maroon variation on the album’s artwork and allowed the public to add two more No.1 singles and a No.4 single to the celebration of Madonna’s hits in the shape of True Blue (a UK 1986 No.1), Who’s That Girl (a UK 1987 No.1) and Causing A Commotion (a UK 1987 No.4) although this last one was mysteriously renamed ‘Causin’ A Commotion‘ for this release only. Quite why that extra ‘g’ was so apparently offensive in 1991 is anyone’s guess! The insert panels also gave the opportunity for reprinting some gratuitously gorgeous shots of the great lady herself – bravo!
Anyway, back to the story… the release, in addition to the regular ‘Holiday‘ 7″, 12″, 12″ Picture Disc and cassette single also threw up two super rarities. Firstly a cassette EP version of the ‘Collection’ which was printed in such small numbers that most fans didn’t even know it existed.
And more intriguingly, some copies of ‘The Holiday Collection‘ were mis-pressed with one of the most completely and utterly baffling mistakes known to exist in Madonna’s recorded catalogue! Certain, still annoyingly externally unidentifiable, copies of the CD included a totally unique version of the song ‘Who’s That Girl‘. What makes this version unique? Well, the track length is the same. The lyrics are the same. The music is the same. However, on the intriguing mis-pressed copies – at precisely 29 seconds in – you hear Murray, the cougar from ‘Who’s That Girl‘ the film, roar quite spectacularly! Quite how this came to feature on a compilation EP four years after the release of the film, having never appeared anywhere before – not even in the film or on its own soundtrack – is one of life’s great mysteries!