"Don't Cry For Me Argentina"

[dth1971]

In honor of our new Pope of the Vatican named Pope Francis who comes from Argentina, which version of the Argentina related song "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical "Evita" is better?
Patti Lupone's version from the original Broadway cast?
The 1980 dance/disco version by Festival?
The 1987 version by Madonna from the movie version of Evita?

[dawhite76]

Olivia Newton-John's from her 1977 album, "Making A Good Thing Better." Biggest mystery of her career why this was never released as a single. (Her record company included this as the B-side of her "I Honestly Love You" re-release in 1977.) The song was new then and her career was waning before "Grease" took her to another level.

[HolidayGuy]

There are loads of other versions out there, too. Julie Covington scored a UK No. 1 with her original recording.

Patti LuPone's is commanding and probably the template, at least in the USA. Madonna did a fine job with the track, but it's not one of her recordings that I seek out. The Mimi Mix was fun.

[Deleted]

Madonna > all

[glenpwood]

Mar 13, 2013 16:10:00 GMT -5 dawhite76 said:

Olivia Newton-John's from her 1977 album, "Making A Good Thing Better." Biggest mystery of her career why this was never released as a single. (Her record company included this as the B-side of her "I Honestly Love You" re-release in 1977.) The song was new then and her career was waning before "Grease" took her to another level.

Well she was suing MCA at that point for failure to adequately promote her albums hence why the whole Making A Good Thing Better era flopped and only one single was issued.

It's a tie for me between ONJ and Donna Summer's original mix of it for her I'm A Rainbow album...

[Juanca]

My favorite is by far the Spanish version that was a BIG HIT throughout Latin America. The video below practically became the signature performance of Spanish balladeer Paloma San Basilio. She already had other popular songs and later had other hits, but "No Llores Por Mi Argentina" became her signature song. Her moving performance that ended in her crying was put in high rotation in several TV stations back in Peru in the early 1980s.
L-O-V-E- IT! Her tone, emotion and control are perfect, IMO


There were lots of comments back in 1996-7 in South America, when there were news of Madonna being casted to perform Evita, and sort of mocking how the hell Madonna could try to top or equal Paloma's performance. I think Madonna did a good job, in terms of emoting and doing the best she could with her voice, but it was just too big of a song for her.

After Paloma, I would rank Patti, Julie, Olivia and then Madonna... but the Miami mix should be somewhere up in third place just because of how ridiculous but fun it is Eviiiiitaa Eviiiiitaa Eviiiiitaaaaaaaaaa And even more fun was the Spanglish version! People were pulling their hair off when we heard the dance flamenco version (mmm, why Spanish Flamenco rhythm for a song about Argentina????) of a classic sad song, that it became a sort of parody... so hearing Madonna sing in Spanish added to the entertainment value of the song. Guilty pleasure -- placer culpable!