La Isla Bonita

"La Isla Bonita" (Spanish for "The Beautiful Island") is a song by American singer Madonna from her third studio album True Blue (1986). Patrick Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch created it as an instrumental demo and offered it to singer Michael Jackson, who turned it down. When Leonard met Madonna to start working on True Blue, he played the demo for her. Madonna came up with the title, wrote the lyrics and produced the song with Leonard. It is her first song with Latin influences. Its instrumentation features flamenco guitar, Latin percussion, maracas, and includes four lines sung in Spanish. The lyrics talk of an island named San Pedro, whose location has been debated. Madonna said the song was her tribute to Latin Americans.
Upon its release as the fifth and final single from True Blue on February 25, 1987, "La Isla Bonita" received generally positive reviews from music critics, who praised its Latin-inspired sound. Retrospective reviewers ranked the song as one of Madonna's best, and it features on her compilation albums The Immaculate Collection (1990) and Celebration (2009). Influence of the song has been noted in the work of contemporary artists. "La Isla Bonita" was commercially successful, becoming her eleventh top-five single on the Billboard Hot 100, and second Adult Contemporary number one. It topped the charts in Canada and several countries in Europe, including the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, and Austria.
In the accompanying music video, directed by Mary Lambert, Madonna portrays two opposite characters: A young Catholic woman and a flamenco dancer. The clip received mixed reviews from authors and contemporary critics; some saw the use of Hispanic imagery as a successful marketing strategy, while others accused the singer of cultural appropriation. Madonna has performed "La Isla Bonita" on eight of her concert tours, the most recent being the Celebration Tour (2023–2024). Additionally, it has been covered by multiple artists, including Ricky Martin, Alizée, and The Bright Light Social Hour.
In the fall of 1985, Madonna began writing and recording songs for her third studio album, True Blue. For the project, she brought back Stephen Bray ―with whom she had worked on her previous album Like a Virgin (1984)― and the Virgin Tour's musical director, producer Patrick Leonard. Prior to working with Madonna, Leonard had worked on the Jacksons' 1984 Victory Tour. After the tour concluded, he kept in touch with Michael Jackson and his producer Quincy Jones, who contacted him and asked him to write "something sort of Sade-like" for Jackson. "La Isla Bonita" was one of the instrumental demos Leonard created for Jackson's approval. According to musician Bruce Gaitsch, who collaborated on the track, it started out as an instrumental without any lyrics or even a title, and it was Leonard's idea to incorporate Latin sounds. When he presented the demo to Jackson and Jones, however, they did not like it and turned it down. After meeting with Madonna to start working on True Blue, Leonard presented her the demo and she began working on it.
She came up with the title "La Isla Bonita", which roughly translates to "The Beautiful Island", and wrote the lyrics while in Hong Kong filming Shanghai Surprise (1986). Gaitsch was not fond of the title, fearing it to be "uncommercial". Madonna went on to describe the song as a tribute to the "beauty and mystery of Latin American people", further adding: "I'm very influenced by Spanish music. When I lived in New York for so many years I was constantly listening to salsa and merengue. I mean, that stuff was constantly blaring out of everybody's radio on the street". She also said: "[Patrick and I] both think that we were Latin in another life [...] [because] Latin rhythms often dominate our uptempo compositions". They would go on to work together on other Latin-inspired songs, such as "Who's That Girl"―from the film of the same name―and "Spanish Eyes"―from Like a Prayer (1989). "La Isla Bonita" was released as the fifth and final single from True Blue on February 25, 1987. The sleeve cover of the single shows Madonna wearing a Spanish-styled embroidered bolero jacket. "La Isla Bonita" was also included on the compilation albums The Immaculate Collection (1990) and Celebration (2009). It was further added as bonus track to the Japanese edition of 1995's Something to Remember.
"La Isla Bonita" was written and produced by Madonna and Leonard, with additional lyrics by Gaitsch. Personnel working on the song included Leonard on keyboard arrangement and programming, Gaitsch on guitars, and Paulinho da Costa as percussionist. Background vocals were performed by Siedah Garrett and Edie Lehmann. The song has been described as a "Latino-pop dance ballad", while its sound has been compared to Bossa nova. Author Mary Cross pointed out that "La Isla Bonita" marked a departure in Madonna's sound, as it combines flamenco guitar, Latin percussion, electronic sounds, maracas, and includes four lines sung in Spanish. To get the correct translations, Leonard and Madonna talked over the phone with a Hispanic housekeeper. According to the sheet music published by Alfred Publishing Inc. on Musicnotes.com, "La Isla Bonita" is set in the key of C♯ minor (with the bridge in F♯ minor) and was set in the time signature of common time with a tempo of 100 beats per minute. Madonna's voice spans between G♯3 to C♯5.
Lyrically, "La Isla Bonita" talks about a "humble observer, captured by the rhythm of an imagined island" named San Pedro, with mentions of "tropical breeze" and "nature wild and free". Madonna is a tourist who "prays that the days would last/they went so fast", while the island's inhabitants are referred to as people with "beautiful faces" and "no cares in this world". The song starts with an introduction performed on bongos, before descending into castanets. Madonna then utters the phrase "¿Cómo puede ser verdad?" ("How can it be true?"). In one line, she specifically sings, "Last night, I dreamt of San Pedro/Just like I'd never gone, I knew the song". The geographic location of said place has been debated, with Cuba, Belize, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic being cited as possibilities. Certain authors have speculated that San Pedro Town in Ambergris Caye, Belize, is the actual place mentioned on the song. On its official website, the island's Victoria House Resort & Spa posted that the town has been nicknamed "La Isla Bonita" because of the song.
During an interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna admitted to not knowing where San Pedro was: "At that point, I wasn't a person who went on holidays to beautiful islands. I may have been on the way to the studio and seen an exit ramp for San Pedro". Authors Eduardo Viñuela, Igor Paskual and Lara González, noted that although the song features characteristic elements of Spanish music, such as flamenco guitar, its lyrics make mention of Brazilian music genre samba. The authors held that this "complicates" the location of the island, thereby making it a fictitious "utopic" place rather than an actual one. Similarly, Daniel Garrán from Spanish radio station Los 40 argued that the lyrics are a "tribute to the Latin community from New York [Madonna] has always been close to", and do not talk about a real place.
In 2014, while working on her thirteenth studio album Rebel Heart (2015) with producer Diplo, Madonna recorded a dubplate of "La Isla Bonita". This version replaces the original's Latin beats with "vaguely dancehall" ones, and includes lyrics such as "Last night, I dreamed of Major Lazer, a sound I never thought I heard before/Sound Boy, your sound is so over, your sound is like yesterday, so far away". It premiered in March 2015 on BBC Radio 1Xtra.
Critical reception towards "La Isla Bonita" has been generally positive. It has often been referred to as one of Madonna's best and most romantic songs. John Leland from Spin deemed it "spunky", while Jan DeKnock from the Chicago Tribune said it was "charming". For Creem's Ken Barnes, "['La Isla Bonita'] is no 'Open Your Heart', but its lilting (yet reflective) quality transcends the south-of-the-border cliches". William McKeen, author of Rock and Roll is Here to Stay, deemed the song "tranquil", and compared its lyrical theme of an "imaginary escape from the big city" to that of the Drifters' "Up on the Roof" (1962). Similarly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, writing for The A.V. Club, applauded its "breezy charm" that "creates a fantasy of an extended tropical vacation". Dawn Keetley in Public Women, Public Words, said it was "smooth [and] transparent", as well as one of Madonna's "most perfect" songs. For Entertainment Weekly's Chuck Arnold, it's "one of the loveliest tunes [Madonna] has ever done".
Daryl Easlea, author of Madonna: Blond Ambition, wrote that "La Isla Bonita" and the other singles are "so strong that they overshadow the reminder of [True Blue]". AllMusic's Stewart Mason named "La Isla Bonita" True Blue's "most prescient" track. The song's production and Latin influence were singled out for praise. Of the production, Paul Schrodt from Slant Magazine said it "gave a dynanism to [Madonna's] music that finally perished the thoughts, based on her earliest hits, that she was simply a Danceteria pop tart". By his part, David Browne from Entertainment Weekly added that Leonard and Bray's input turned the song into a "perfectly conceived pop record". Both Stuart Mason and Billboard's Bianca Gracie referred to Madonna's vocals as the best part of the song. Author Matthew Rettenmund wrote: "Madonna's voice is always laced with immediacy and unimpeachable emotion. She imbues even her most pedestrian lyrics with a sense of purpose", citing "La Isla Bonita" as an example.
In more mixed reviews, Stereogum's Tom Breihan deemed the single "pure risible kitsch [...] [a] clumsy fetishization of [an] exoticized culture", but nonetheless felt it was "one of the swooniest jams in a career full of swoony jams". From the Observer–Reporter, John Quayle felt the song was more suited for Sade rather than Madonna. In his book The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, Rikky Rooksby wrote: "This is one of those songs where you just know the [music] video is going to be marginally more interesting". The HuffPost's Matthew Jacobs opined that, "you have to be in the right mood for ['La Isla Bonita'] – its middling tempo can feel like a slog". Wendy Tuohy from Australian newspaper The Age referred to "La Isla Bonita" as a "commercial sleeping pill [rather] than a 'Spanish lullaby'". Eleni P. Austin writing for The Desert Sun said it was cheesy. More negative was David Bauder from the Associated Press, who deemed the song forgettable and criticized its inclusion on The Immaculate Collection.
"La Isla Bonita" was noted by Chuck Arnold a song that explored Latin pop "long before it became trendy". Influence has been perceived in later Latin-tinged songs, such as "Viva Forever" (1998) by Spice Girls, Geri Halliwell's "Mi Chico Latino" (1999), Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" (2010), and "Despacito" (2016) by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee. Judy Cantor-Navas, writing for Billboard, said that "La Isla Bonita" was a precursor to the "Ricky Martin-led 'Latin Pop Explosion'" of the late 1990s. Echoes of "La Isla Bonita", "pop up more than once" on J.Lo (2001), the second studio album by American singer Jennifer Lopez, as noted by Natalie Nichols from the Los Angeles Times. "La Isla Bonita" was included on Bruce Pollock's Rock Song Index: The 7500 Most Important Songs for the Rock & Roll Era (2005).
On March 21, 1987, "La Isla Bonita" debuted at number 49 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Madonna's eleventh consecutive single to be named the week's top new entry –a streak that began with "Lucky Star" in 1984. By April 25, "La Isla Bonita" became Madonna's twelfth consecutive top-ten single, a record shared with Michael Jackson. "La Isla Bonita" was the fifth top-ten single from True Blue, making it the second album by a female artist to score five top-tens, the other being Janet Jackson's Control (1986). On May 2, the song reached its peak at number 4, becoming Madonna's eleventh single to reach the chart's first five spots, a feat surpassed at the time only by the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
On the Adult Contemporary chart, the single debuted at number 31 on the week of April 4, peaking at number one more than a month later. It was Madonna's second Adult Contemporary chart-topper after "Live to Tell" the previous year. "La Isla Bonita" also reached number one on the Hot Dance Singles Sales chart. Billboard reported that 75,000 copies of the 12-inch single had been sold by July 1987. "La Isla Bonita" came in at number 58 on Billboard's Hot 100 year-end chart for 1987, and at 34 of the Adult Contemporary year-end chart. As of October 2024, it is Madonna's 23rd most successful song on the Hot 100. In Canada, the single debuted in the 58th position of RPM's Top Singles chart on the week of April 4. After ten weeks on the chart, it reached the top position on June 6, 1987. "La Isla Bonita" placed at number 22 on the RPM Year-end chart for 1987. The song reached the fourth spot in Panama, and the first spot in Chile.
In the United Kingdom, "La Isla Bonita" debuted at the fifth position of the singles chart on April 4; it reached the first position three weeks later on April 25, spending two weeks at number one and eleven on the chart overall. It was Madonna's fourth number one in the country. The Hull Daily Mail reported that on the week the song reached number one, it had sold a mere 50,000 copies, making it the country's lowest-selling number one in five years. "La Isla Bonita" was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for shipment of 400,000 copies. According to Music Week magazine, 421,760 copies had been sold in the United Kingdom as of 2008. "La Isla Bonita" was Madonna's first number one song in France, where it spent three weeks at the top spot in July 1987, and was certified gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP) for shipment of 500,000 copies. It remains one of Madonna's highest-selling singles in the country, with reported sales exceeding 620,000 units. The song was successful across Europe as well, topping the charts in Switzerland, West Germany, and Austria. "La Isla Bonita" also topped the European Hot 100 Singles chart the week of June 20, 1987. It reached the top-eight in Spain, and the top-five in Ireland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
The music video for "La Isla Bonita" was directed by Mary Lambert, who had previously worked with Madonna in the videos for "Borderline" and "Like a Virgin" (1984). Filming took place in Los Angeles and lasted over three days. According to Sharon Oreck, in her book Video Slut (2010), it was a very "simple" shooting. Over 500 extras of Hispanic descent participated in the visual. One of them was a then-unknown Benicio del Toro, who portrayed a teenager sitting on a car hood, and received a payment of $150. Percussionist Paulinho da Costa appears in the video's opening sequence playing bongo drums.
The clip shows Madonna in two different sequences, playing different characters: A short-haired Catholic woman and a "flamboyant" flamenco dancer. In one scene, she is in a New York City apartment dressed in white, lighting candles at a living room altar, reminiscing about the song's titular island. She cries as she watches a group of latinos dance in the street, and reluctantly ignores the invitation to join them. In the memory sequence, she is seen in an apartment filled with lit candles, donning the flamenco dress. Still in the dress, she dances, writhes on the floor, and leaves the place to join the dancers.
"La Isla Bonita" had its world premiere on MTV on March 6, 1987, and became the most requested video in the channel's history for a record-breaking 20 consecutive weeks. In Europe, it was the year's most heavily rotated video on television. It can be found on Madonna's video compilations The Immaculate Collection (1990) and Celebration: The Video Collection (2009).
Both author Victoria Chow and Juan Sanguino, from the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair, pointed out that the video for "La Isla Bonita" marked the moment Madonna began borrowing elements from other cultures, but the latter also accused her of cultural appropriation: "[She] looks more like a drunken tart at the Feria de Abril than a [flamenco] dancer [...] but at least she had the decency to grow her eyebrows", Sanguino wrote. In his book Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity, and Politics Between the Modern and the Postmodern, Douglas Kellner noted that Madonna's use of "fantasy images of Hispanic fashion as an icon of beauty and romanticism", helped her successfully appeal to a larger, more varied audience. Lucy O'Brien concluded that the image of Madonna in the red flamenco dress is, "as iconic as the boy toy or the black corseted siren". This opinion was shared by People's Cara Lynn Shultz and Aaron Parsley, who named the flamenco look one of the singer's "most unforgettable". Santiago Fouz-Hernández and Freya Jarman-Ivens, authors of Madonna's Drowned Worlds, noted a contrast between the singer's characters: The "austerity and the passivity" of the Catholic character, and the "passion and activity" of the flamenco dancer.
The staff of Rolling Stone described it as one of the singer's most "theatrical" clips. By contrast Ryan Murphy, writing for the Miami Herald, panned it for being "lame, overdone, [and] almost absurd". He went on to compare it negatively to the previous True Blue videos, further noticing a "pervading sense of humor [that is] not supposed to be there", specifically in the scene when Madonna dances out in the street. On his review of The Immaculate Collection video compilation, Colin Jacobson from website DVD Movie Guide also reacted negatively towards "La Isla Bonita", referring to it as a "bland and uninteresting video, especially compared with the gems that preceded and followed it". "La Isla Bonita" was named Madonna's 34th and 20th best music video by Louis Virtel from TheBacklot, and Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine, respectively. As of 2018, it is one of her most viewed music videos on YouTube.
"La Isla Bonita" has been included on eight of Madonna's concert tours: Who's That Girl (1987), the Girlie Show (1993), Drowned World (2001), Confessions (2006), Sticky & Sweet (2008–2009), Rebel Heart (2015–2016), Madame X (2019–2020), and Celebration (2023–2024). On the first one, she wore a Spanish cabaret dress and was surrounded by dancers dressed as matadors, with the stage set up as a "Spanish fantasy", as noted by authors Carol Benson and Allen Metz. From The New York Times, Jon Pareles opined that Madonna resembled a "tropical temptress" during the number. A performance of the song can be found on the video Ciao Italia: Live from Italy (1988).
On the Girlie Show, Madonna performed the song decked in horizontal stripes and a bandana, while the dancers were dressed as sailors. The number also included a bit where the singer pretended to fall and had to be dragged from the stage. The Baltimore Sun's J. D. Considine praised Madonna's "musical chemistry" with "her first-rate backing band" during the song. The performance from one of the Sydney concerts was recorded and included on The Girlie Show: Live Down Under home video release (1994).
"La Isla Bonita" was one of only two of Madonna's 1980s singles performed on the Drowned World Tour. Decked out in black slacks and backless dress, and surrounded by a "gaggle of percussionists and dancers", she played acoustic guitar in an "unplugged flamenco" version of the song. Reviewing one of the London concerts, NME's Alex Needham pointed out that, "by the time 'La Isla Bonita' rolls around, the relief in the audience is palpable and Madonna also finally seems relaxed". The performance on August 26, 2001, at Detroit's Palace of Auburn Hills, was recorded and released on the live video album Drowned World Tour 2001.
Madonna sang a "disco-enhanced" version of "La Isla Bonita" on her Confessions Tour. She wore a white leotard while the backdrop screen showed colored images of a tropical island that mirrored the "voluptuousness of [her] dancing", according to Slant Magazine's Ed Gonzalez. The performance from the August 15–16 London concerts was included on the singer's second live album, The Confessions Tour (2007).
On July 7, 2007, Madonna and gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello performed a "crazed hoedown" version of "La Isla Bonita" at the London Live Earth concert. For the Sticky & Sweet Tour, it was given a gypsy theme and mashed up with Gogol Bordello's "Lela Pala Tute". It featured instrumentation from fiddles and accordions. Madonna wore a Givenchy gypsy-inspired black dress embellished with colored ribbons, gripped a rose in her teeth and was joined by Romani musicians and dancers, including the Ukrainian group Kolpakov Trio. The Denver Post's Ricardo Baca considered the number, "the show's brightest, boldest, most daring moment — a triumph of reinvention, like Madonna herself". The performance was included on the Sticky & Sweet Tour live album release (2010), recorded in Buenos Aires.
On the Rebel Heart Tour, Madonna did a flamenco rendition of the song complete with "stomps, claps and shouts". She wore matador-inspired pants made from black tulle, with transparent beaded side paneling, and a black and fuchsia jacket covered in Swarovski crystals, adorned with the letter M. Pitchfork's T. Cole Rachel noted that "La Isla Bonita" was one of the tour's numbers that, "resulted in nearly deafening arena-sized sing-alongs". The song's performance at the March 19–20, 2016 shows in Sydney's Allphones Arena was recorded and released on Madonna's fifth live album, Rebel Heart Tour (2017). On July 27, 2017, Madonna sang "La Isla Bonita" at Leonardo DiCaprio's annual fundraising gala in Saint-Tropez, France.
A guitar cha-cha-chá mashup of "La Isla Bonita" and a song titled "Welcome to My Fado Club" was performed on the singer's Madame X Tour. The stage was set up as a Lisbon nightclub, and Madonna —who portrayed a "beguiling hostess"— changed the lyrics to "my Portuguese lullaby". At one point, she took off one of her gloves and said, "this is as X-rated as it's gonna get tonight". For the Los Angeles Daily News, Kelli Skye Fadroski opined that Madonna "soared" through the number. The performance was included on the film that chronicled the tour, Madame X (2021).
On October 9, 2021, Madonna gave an "intimate performance" in the basement of Marcus Samuelsson's Harlem restaurant Red Rooster, and sang lounge renditions of "La Isla Bonita", Madame X album tracks "Dark Ballet" and "Crazy" (2019), and Cape Verdean coladeira song "Sodade". She was dressed in a black cocktail dress with a "dramatic leg slit", lace gloves, and a long blonde wig. "La Isla Bonita" was then included on Madonna's Celebration Tour, where it was mashed up with "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (1996). Her son David Banda played guitar as she sang. Reviewing the opening night at London, Variety's Mark Sutherland highlighted the number's "sheer, irresistible pizazz".
Between 1986 and 1987, Madonna signed a $3-million deal with Mitsubishi Motors. As part of this deal, she made a TV commercial dancing to "La Isla Bonita". In December 1986, before the song was officially released as a single, Italian singer Micaela released a cover, which peaked at number 25 in the Netherlands. Music & Media magazine gave a positive review of the rendition: "Although the vocals are sometimes too hasty and the sophistication that Madonna puts into this stack is lost, the track is so commercial, one can hardly spoil it". In July 1987, a cover by Mexican singer Byanka reached number 45 on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart. In 1989, when she was just 13 years old, Colombian singer Shakira appeared on Colombian television show De los Sueños... Hasta Hoy and sang the song. Ten years later, "La Isla Bonita" was sampled by Chilean singer Deetah on "El Paraiso Rico", a track from her album Deadly Cha Cha. Also in 1999, salsa singer Corrine covered "La Isla Bonita" in both English and Spanish for her second studio album Un Poco Más. This cover was produced by Wyclef Jean.
American rapper Black Rob's song "Spanish Fly", included on his album Life Story (2000), features Jennifer Lopez singing a chorus based on "La Isla Bonita". In 2004, American actor David Hasselhoff included a rendition of "La Isla Bonita" on his album Sings America, which was criticized for being "decidedly karaoke" by the BBC's Jake Jakeman. That same year, American rapper Mase sampled the song's hook for his own "My Harlem Lullaby", found on the album Welcome Back. In early June 2008, French singer Alizée posted a cover of the song on her official MySpace page. The cover was then included on the Mexican Tour Edition of her third studio album, Psychédélices, and reached the first ten spots of the charts in Mexico. On his review of a concert Alizée offered in Mexico City, Arturo Cruz Bárcenas from La Jornada was not impressed with the cover: "[She] dreams of being like Madonna [...] but [her rendition of 'La Isla Bonita'] only shows how far she is from that goal".
In May 2010, American blogger Perez Hilton released "Gagalupe", a parody of "La Isla Bonita" with lyrics that mock Madonna's "New Age beliefs". The next year, "Love 2 Love U", an unreleased song by American singer Britney Spears that heavily sampled "La Isla Bonita", leaked online. It was described as having a "Jamaican-dance rhythm" by the staff of Los 40, who also noted that the melody and structure is the same as "La Isla Bonita". Aired on February 7, 2012, the twelfth episode of the third season of American television series Glee, "The Spanish Teacher", had guest star Ricky Martin singing the song with actress Naya Rivera, who played the character Santana Lopez. From Digital Spy, Catriona Wightman highlighted the "stonking" performance. This cover peaked at number 99 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number 93 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart. American band Deerhoof named their twelfth studio album (2014) after the song. Band member Greg Saunier explained the album was a homage to Madonna and Janet Jackson, describing it as the band's "rawest, punkiest" work since their 1997 debut. "Mamacita", a 2020 song by American group Black Eyed Peas and Puerto Rican singer Ozuna, samples "La Isla Bonita". According to producer Johnny Goldstein, it was will.i.am's idea to sample the song. In 2022, American psychedelic rock band The Bright Light Social Hour released a cover of the song, featuring backing vocals from American singer Israel Nash, and "searing slide guitar, reggaeton percussion and pulsating synth bass", as noted by the staff of OrcaSound.
Credits are adapted from the True Blue album and 12-inch single liner notes.