I'm burning up, burning up for your VOTES! — ILM Artist Poll #31 is Madonna

left off ROL only because Madonna wanted the number of tracks on the album to be 13 - the perfect number in Kabbalah

LOL

she should've chucked "shanti/ashtangi" off instead

I totally agree with Lex that RoL may be the closest she has come to a definitive album statement, but at the same time, the album's far from ... defining. With those other monster selling acts, I would be confident saying, you know, grab "Purple Rain" and you'll get the idea with Prince, or grab "Born in the USA" or "Thriller" to get a sense of why those acts dominated. But I'm not sure I would tell a total Madonna neophyte that "True Blue" or especially "Like a Virgin" would do the same, let alone "Ray of Light." Same thing with Bowie. I would never suggest that "Let's Dance," his biggest selling album by far, would be in any way shape or form the place to start. I would probably say start with the singles, I guess, but as with the aforementioned three, the singles paint a slightly skewed picture of the artist.

like a prayer is totally that one album. that you would tell people to listen to. to get the whole domination thing.

i mean it has every madonna flavor. like a prayer, express yourself, cherish, oh father, keep it together. that's a whole lot of what makes madonna tick right there.

Madonna is absolutely defined by her singles; the problem is that there are 76 of them

listening to stuff from Music on youtube yesterday and it sounds fine its just the songs that i don't care that much about. sorry mirwais. i don't even own that album. i should get a copy. i always liked "don't tell me". and i DO love the sound of so much stuff prior to that. feel like i didn't give enough credit to the best stuff yesterday on here. man, oh father just kills me so hard. love the sound on that. and when will that video not give me chills? i'm 44 years old for heaven's sake. but it gets me every time.

For the first five seconds, I thought "Had To Be" was McCartney's "Secret Friend."

good call, Eric

Madonna is absolutely defined by her singles; the problem is that there are 76 of them

Yeah, exactly.

Have bands like Depeche Mode or New Order been defined by their singles? Certainly the former has a clear definitive album statement under its belt. The latter less so, I guess.

Interesting stats, Madonna's worldwide album sales:

True Blue, 25M
Like A Virgin, 21M
Ray Of Light, 18M
Like A Prayer, 15M
Music, 15M
Confessions, 11M
Madonna, 10M
Bed Time Stories, 6M
Erotica, 5M
Hard Candy, 4.5M
American Life, 4M
MDNA, 1.6M

The Immaculate Collection wins at 30M.

Was Erotica banned in a lot of countries?

I think it was greeted with gales of laughter in many countries.

I'm amazed that Music sold as much as Like A Prayer since it didn't have nearly as many hits. I think people were seeing her more as an album artist by that time and were interested in hearing the whole thing. I'm sure she sold more singles during the LAP era.

album sales were pretty much at an all-time high around 2000, is the thing i think

^^^

plus Music coming off the heels of a huge "comeback" album that didn't hit #1 thanks to Titanic soundtrack.

every album after ROL has hit #1 while none of her nineties albums did.

Surprised that "Confessions" sold as much as it did, given that was well within the download era.

i mostly focused on '80s and early-'90s madonna in my already submitted ballot but let me say how much i regret not voting for "sky fits heaven" or something deeper off american life or confessions don't make my mistake

i was listening to ray of light last night and i was like "ughhhhh so much of this is ethereal and indistinct" and then BOOM out of nowhere "nothing really matters" and "sky fits heaven"

I don't really see how "Skin" is ethereal and indistinct, personally

i never remember that one

ultimately I think that's my favorite ROL song

"I wonder had Madonna continued in the path of using relatively unknown electronic producers who she could have used after Orbit, Mirwais, and JLC ?"

JLC could have made "Celebration" sound cool. he's good at making things sound cool. oakenfold blah!

With 7 ballots, there are still 2 unanimous tracks in the results. I wish I could say what they are.

Water-wiggle overlays aside, "Nothing Really Matters" is just good '90s chug-house. It's Crystal Waters in neon blue.

oh i guess i never realized before now how garbage-y "candy perfume girl" is

The verse melodies she sings on "Nothing Really Matters" brings out the opera-lesson hater in me.

The live version of "Candy Perfume Girl" fro 2001 is amazing for her two-note guitar solo and the power chord freakout at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf5Xzzeoz4w

xp All comes back to that.

Drove to work listening to Erotica today. I am really quite infatuated with this now that so much time has passed.
I was still in high school when it came and truth be told, a bit of a prude w/r/t ~all of that~ so I think however good it was got drowned out by all the sensationalism surrounding it. For me, anyway.

Confessions I do definitely like now that I've had a chance to hear it but I'm not really hearing anything that I'm in love with - above the tracks I've already selected for my ballot, that is. I mean, I'm pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy listening to it but I'm not really feeling any of the distinguished tracks as far as voting goes, aside from Hung Up which I was going to vote for anyway.

oh now i remember "skin"! the chorus just kind of meanders and i'm not a fan

I re-listened to the Let It Will Be-Forbidden Love-Jump sequence and it blew me away anew.

I love the chorus in "Skin"! So melodic after the manic and erratic verse.

Also "Candy Perfume Girl" was totally Garbage-y. (x-post)

the blooms of percussion in "frozen" still sound totally awesome imo

there are literally a zillion remixes of "frozen" on youtube. many of them from 2011/2012. people really love to mess with that song. and rightfully so.

The video's color scheme matches the song's mood.

i love that video

me too. i didn't see it until years after the ROL era had passed and remember being totally confused by her goth hair. ROL the album seemed to have such a strong visual identity and colour scheme and for the video of the lead single to go so totally against that...

Yeah I was psyched about the black hair and that, i dunno, stillness that she has in that video. Plus it felt like at any moment Trent Reznor would appear and it would be the most normal thing in the world

It peaked at #2 in the United States. It became her sixth number-two single in the United States, making Madonna the artist with most number-two hits in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

The others:

Material Girl
Causing a Commotion
Express Yourself
Cherish
I'll Remember

I feel like there is a line where Madonna went from "singer with flawed technique" to "sound effect with vocal training" and the main reason ROL works so well as an album is because it lies directly in the center of that transition.

i always forget how many incredible sonic details there are in ROL's big dancefloor moments - they're almost designed to be like the tracky, immersive bits of the set rather than the peak-time anthemic bits (which is what confessions was shooting for)

the incredible percussion on "skin" >>>>
the dual vocal lines at the end of "nothing really matters" >>>>>>

Surprised that "Confessions" sold as much as it did, given that was well within the download era.

"worldwide" album sales figures tend to be a little bit made up.

William Orbit was really a fantastic producer pre-"American Pie"; I also highly recommend the remix he did of The Cure's "Inbetween Days" which first put me on the Orbit bandwagon back in 1990

also his remix of The Shamen's "Hyperreal" which went on to subsume and overshadow the original mix