liner notes

On this day thirty five years ago, Madonna released her eponymous debut album, including the songs “Borderline, “Lucky Star” and “Holiday.” Dismissed by some critics at the time as a one hit-wonder, the artist thanked them during her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a quarter of a century after the album’s release offering that “they pushed me to be better and I am grateful for their resistance.” In that spirit, we should take a moment to appreciate the influence and the legacy of this opening opus.

arc of narrative

Our faithful chronicler, Doctor Caligari, informs that among many other notable events, on this day in 1983 an audience of over one hundred million Americans tuned in to watch the made-for-television movie, “The Day After.”
Suppressing a potential military coup in East Germany, Soviet forces blockade West Berlin—an act that NATO forces interpret as an act of war and responds in kind. Things escalate rather quickly with Russia pushing towards the Rhein and nuclear bombs used on the US Army bastions of Wiesbaden and Frankfurt. As the war expands beyond the German frontier, a nuclear exchange takes place, culminating with a high-altitude burst that results in an electro-magnetic pulse that disables the remaining technologies that the survivors of the first strike can avail themselves of. The director, Nicolas Meyer (also known for his cinematic Star Trek adaptations), reported suffered influenza-like symptoms during production, and when doctors could find no somatic cause, they determined Meyer was suffering under a bout of severe depression due to having to contemplate the horrors of war.