Let’s get unconscious…again!

America eagerly awaited the follow up to the mega-hit ‘Take A Bow‘ from Madonna‘s 1994 ‘Bedtime Stories‘ album. The track Maverick chose to follow the lush, R’n’B flavoured ballad couldn’t have been more different!

‘Bedtime Story‘, the Bjork/Nellee Hooper/Marius DeVries collaboration sounded like it was from a different planet. I’m sure that together with some US-friendly remixes by Junior Vasquez and arguably Madonna’s finest (ever?) video to accompany it, all involved thought it might shoot to the top of the charts like its predecessor despite being such a different sounding track.

Sadly, they were very, very wrong. It did the business in the UK where it reached No.4 (although cynics might attribute that to Madonna doing her first UK-specific promotion for a single for the first time since Like A Virgin by appearing at the Brit Awards to perform the song!), but in the US it limped to a woeful No.42 in the Billboard Hot 100. It did reach No.1 in the Dance Chart, but then, all of her singles do!

Maverick weren’t ready to give up though and commissioned some new remixes to try and inject a last gasp boost of radio interest in the song. These new mixes by Mark Picchiotti and Teri Bristol were collected together on two extremely limited Promotional only pressings and titled them “Bedtime Story – Chapter II” – a cute play on words relating to the song title.

These promos – a 4-track 12″ and 2-track CD – have gone on to become some of the highest prized collectables ever officially released in the US and have sold for up to $350 each!

The mixes contained – the Lush Vocal Mix and Lush Vocal Radio Edit on the CD and the Lush Vocal Mix, Lush Dub Mix, Percapella Mix and Unconcious In The Jungle Mix on the 12″ – remain for the most part unreleased on any other format to date. The only mix from this whole lot to have featured on any other product was the Lush Dub Mix which was included on the (again, promo only) GHV2 Remixed set issued in 2002 to promote the GHV2 album.

Sadly, Maverick’s ingenious ploy failed and the Bedtime Story single continued its downward spiral out of the chart.