The Immaculate Collection is the first greatest hits album by American singer Madonna, released on November 12, 1990, by Sire Records. It contains fifteen of her hit singles recorded throughout the 1980s, as well as two new tracks, "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me". All the previously released material was reworked using QSound audio technology, making it the first album to use the process. For the new material, Madonna worked with Lenny Kravitz and Shep Pettibone. The album's title is a pun on the Immaculate Conception, a Marian dogma of the Catholic Church.
The release of the album was accompanied by a home video of the same name, an EP titled The Holiday Collection, and a box set titled The Royal Box. "Justify My Love" was released as the lead single from the album, with a controversial music video featuring overtly sexual imagery. After being banned by MTV, the video was released on VHS and became the best-selling video single of all time. It also became Madonna's ninth number-one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The second single, "Rescue Me", achieved the highest debut on the chart since the Beatles' "Let It Be" (1970) and peaked at number nine.
The Immaculate Collection received universal acclaim from critics, who deemed it a defining retrospective of 1980s music. The album reached number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, while topping the charts in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It was certified 11× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making it Madonna's second diamond-certified album in the United States. The Immaculate Collection has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it her best-selling album, the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist, and one of the best-selling albums of all time. It has been featured on all-time critic lists by several publications, including Blender which named it the greatest American album of all time.
Background and development
By the end of the 1980s, Madonna had become the biggest female singles artist in history, with more number-one and top-ten hit songs than any other woman in both the United States and the United Kingdom. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Madonna: An Intimate Biography, noted that Madonna's greatest hits album was warranted by that point, serving as "a proud landmark" in a career that had progressed steadily since she entered the music scene in 1982. After completing the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, Madonna began preparing the project for release in time for that year's Christmas season. On October 13, 1990, Billboard magazine confirmed that Madonna had been working on new material for the album with Shep Pettibone and Lenny Kravitz.
The Immaculate Collection contains fifteen previously released Madonna singles in chronological order, from "Holiday" (1983) to "Vogue" (1990). All of them were reworked using QSound by Pettibone, alongside Goh Hotoda and Michael Hutchinson over a month and a half. It became the first album to use QSound, which was then a new technology that gave recordings three-dimensional sound on standard stereo systems. The tracks were shortened from their original versions to reduce the album's overall running time. Every track received minor alterations or additions; for example, "Material Girl" has a new outro instead of the original fade-out. Pettibone also remixed "Into the Groove", "Like a Prayer", and "Express Yourself", with productions that differ from their original album versions. Pettibone later commented: Well, actually some of the songs we changed up a bit, but most of the songs we kept in their original form. Like "Holiday", "Lucky Star", et cetera, et cetera, those were all the original productions. The remix was just really to create the QSound, and make the song kind of envelop you when you listened to it in a certain sweet spot in front of the speakers [...] That wasn't easy to do. But then again, that was one of those—you know, "Hurry up, this has to be out last week". That was a rush rush job.
Two new songs, "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me", were included on the album to build public interest. "Justify My Love" is a trip hop song, featuring Madonna's spoken word vocals over a "grinding, sparse" hip hop groove. It was first written as a love letter by Ingrid Chavez, who was having an affair with Kravitz at the time. He invited her to a studio to record the letter and later took a master copy of the song to Virgin Records after their relationship ended. Months later, Kravitz told Chavez that the song would be released by Madonna and he asked her to sign a document saying that Chavez would receive 12.5% publishing royalties, but no writing credit. She signed the paper, and was then invited to meet Madonna in the studio while they mixed the track. However, Chavez later sued Kravitz in 1992 and reached an out-of-court settlement whereby she received a co-writing credit. The second new song, "Rescue Me", is a dance-pop and gospel-house track written and produced by Madonna and Pettibone. Lyrically, "Rescue Me" expresses the extinguishing of deranged behavior in a relationship and features spoken word verses, like on "Justify My Love".
Packaging, release, and promotion
The album was packaged in a gatefold sleeve that did not feature Madonna's image on the cover. Instead, a short-haired, brunette Madonna was featured on the two inner sleeves along with lyrics for the two previously unreleased tracks. Photographer Herb Ritts shot the booklet's black-and-white images, which had previously appeared in the June 1990 issue of Interview magazine. Madonna continued referencing Catholicism on The Immaculate Collection, dedicating the album to "The Pope, my divine inspiration" on its booklet. This led many to believe it was dedicated to Pope John Paul II, but it was actually dedicated to her brother, Christopher Ciccone, who had spent the year on tour with Madonna on the Blond Ambition World Tour and whose nickname is "The Pope". The album's title is a pun on the Immaculate Conception, the conception of the Virgin Mary without the stain of original sin. In The Everything Mary Book (2006), editors explained "the album's colors of blue and gold resonate with some of the colors used in traditional images of the Virgin Mary". The album was originally titled Ultra Madonna, but the title was changed because it was too similar to the name of Ultra Naté, a then-new artist at Warner Bros. However, it was marketed in Japan with the title Ultra Madonna: Greatest Hits.
The Immaculate Collection was released in the United Kingdom on November 12, 1990, and in the United States on November 13, 1990, by Sire Records. A home video of the same name was also released, containing 13 music videos, including the live performance of "Vogue" at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards. A box set titled The Royal Box was issued on December 4, 1990, containing the album, VHS, a poster, and postcards. An extended play (EP) titled The Holiday Collection was also released in Europe with the same design as The Immaculate Collection. The full-length album version of "Holiday" was included on the EP, alongside three worldwide chart hits omitted from the album: "True Blue", "Who's That Girl", and "Causing a Commotion". In 1993, a "limited edition" of The Immaculate Collection was released in Australia to commemorate Madonna's visit to the country with the Girlie Show tour. A Dolby Atmos mix of The Immaculate Collection was released in May 2023 via Apple Music.
"Justify My Love" was released as the album's lead single on November 6, 1990. It became her ninth number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top ten in many other countries. The black-and-white music video caused controversy for its sexually explicit imagery and was banned by MTV. After the ban, the music video was commercially released as a video single and became the best-selling release in the format of all time. Liz Smith from Sarasota Herald-Tribune commented that the headlines and gossip would generate even more interest in the album.
Before it was released as a single, "Rescue Me" received radio airplay as an album cut. It was released commercially on February 25, 1991. "Rescue Me" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 15, the highest debut for a single since the Beatles' "Let It Be" (1970)—and peaked at number nine. The single also reached number three on the European Hot 100 Singles chart.
"Crazy for You" was reissued as a single in the UK, and later peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart. "Holiday" was also reissued as a UK-only single on May 27, 1991, and peaked at number five on the chart.
Critical reception
The Immaculate Collection received widespread acclaim from music critics. AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the album "remains a necessary purchase, because it captures everything Madonna is about and it proves that she was one of the finest singles artists of the '80s." However, he felt that "while all the hits are present, they're simply not in their correct versions" because of the QSound remastering and significant changes to several songs. Billboard commented that the album was "irresistible holiday buying fare", and praised the QSound process for adding "unheard detail and depth to the recordings". David Browne from Entertainment Weekly opined that the album was "as relentless as the woman herself", and "refocuses our attention on how brilliant her records have been over the years—and gives us a peek into the obstacles she might face as her career enters the '90s." Jim Farber of the same magazine stated: "More than a mere greatest-hits set, it's hands down the catchiest collection of '80s singles." Peter Buckley, author of the book The Rough Guide to Rock, wrote that the album "stakes Madonna's claim to be the best singles act of the 80s."
Rolling Stone called the album the "standard bearer for Madonna compilations", summing up the first stage of Madonna's career "flawlessly" with the addition of "worthy sensual" new tracks. In a review for Music & Media, Pieter de Bruyn Kops complimented the album's new material, calling it "brilliant" and said that "Madonna proves again she is the ruling Queen of Pop." Danny Eccleston from Q magazine said the album's "ambitious title" was justified by "magnificent content: 17-track best of enhanced by the hard-faced sexiness of Lenny Kravitz-aided Justify My Love (and Rescue Me)." Robert Christgau called it "the greatest album of [Madonna's] mortal life" featuring "seventeen hits, more than half of them indelible classics." Writing for Stereogum, Tom Breihan commented the compilation "is even more impressive when you think about what didn't make it onto the album." Ross Bennett from Mojo called the album "truly the best of the best-of albums" and stated: "This has to be right up there with ABBA Gold as a collection of singles so deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness [...] But there is no denying the pop nous behind Ms Ciccone's first 15 years of hit singles, here brilliantly packaged in, gasp, chronological order."