Don't go for second best, baby. Put your ILM ARTIST POLL #31: MADONNA to the test.

Causing A Commotion is fab, I love it

xpost Yeah that would be hard to karaoke - you forget how much 'oomph' she has in her voice, it's hard enough to GET up there let alone stay up there for the chorus, it's exhausting. I give up just singing it out loud in the car, lol

Oh fuck yes for "Waiting" placing

Proof of how, just, overflowing with hits Madonna was in the 80s: when "Causing a Commotion" hit the charts, the TV version of Casey Kasem's Top 40 that aired on Saturday mornings after cartoons, they didn't even have a video to show, so the clip was just the song playing over a spinning image of the Who's That Girl album cover. Like the song hit so fast its like they didn't even have time to prepare for it.

"Causing a Commotion" was at #2 for three weeks in the U.S. I should poll her #2 hits.

http://i.imgur.com/rMv8Onl.jpg

39. "RAIN" from Erotica (1992) [11 votes, 217 points]

Cut Rain from my ballot in favour of Waiting at the last second. Glad to see it place anyway.

"Rain" and "I'll Remember" were record company exhalations of relief after sexxytime Madonna.

cept "Open Your Heart" is flawless.

i could write a book about "open your heart." and i probably still wouldn't discover any flaws.

late late single from erotica, after the album had (relatively) flopped, the only erotica song i ever hear on the radio anymore

I never heard this song on the radio but saw the video a bazillion times

the bridge is beautiful

I remember thinking the double tracked vocals on Rain were the coolest thing I'd ever heard at the time.

Erotica album tracks > Erotica singles IMO.

the bridge is incredible yeah

i read somewhere that the song is actually about a dead lover (or maybe her mother cf. "kisses from heaven above" in "deeper and deeper"), which actually makes a lot of sense. even the straight up radio friendly love ballad on the album is dark stuff

Let's say that the album tracks are as fab as "Deeper and Deeper" and "Bad Girl."

My first vote to place so far!

only two of mine have placed so far ('i'll remember' and 'white heat') but my ballot beyond the top five or so was just throwing stuff at the wall, there's only a couple of tracks so far i really doubt could pop up in my top twenty at any random moment ('dad' and 'who's that girl').

http://i.imgur.com/QauiGvo.jpg

38. "BEDTIME STORY" from Bedtime Stories (1994) [13 votes, 238 points]

Lots of people dislike "Bedtime Stories" but I get off on its garishness: she Madonna-izes trip-hop like she'd do with "electronica" four years later.

I still dig the shit out of this song

didn't make my ballot though

I didn't think I liked this, but when I heard it again I was really impressed. It missed my 20 but not by much.

an impressive instant?

trying to remember how much pop house was still getting on the radio when erotica hit, it was definitely all over the radio circa 90 when 'vogue' blew up (and credit madonna for being a factor in that moment happening), wondering if maybe the moment passing (on radio, the moment never passed in my heart) was a secret factor in erotica underperforming. when did cece peniston hit? totally want to dj a night of house of style bumper music.

I remember seeing her do a rubbish performance of it at The Brits I think, it soured me unfairly.

CeCe Peniston was '93 IIRC

and after two consecutive top fives, one of which became her longest-running #1 ever, she thought she could release an "experimental" single and get it into the top forty.

Peniston's "Finally" was very late '91 and early '92

what i remember most about the first time i heard bedtime story was being happy that madonna was into bjork and that bjork was cool/smart enough to give madonna a song.

crystalwatersvevo going on in my other tab

trying to remember how much pop house was still getting on the radio when erotica hit, it was definitely all over the radio circa 90 when 'vogue' blew up

"Vogue" was the height of the Late 80s/Early 90s Dance and Pop Songs with that Latin-ish Thing of Going Up and Down an Octave with the Same Chord era.

I think in large part due to "Bedtime Story," 1994 is kind of the mental demarcation in my head between old-Madonna and nu-Madonna. Erotica seemed to me like the early part of her career taken to its absolute extreme, and Bedtime Stories seemed like a complete and total fresh start. I still don't like much of that album, but "Bedtime Story" is all-time.

i mentally divide her career into pre-evita and post-evita

That makes just as much sense. Bedtime Stories was pre-voice training, but I think it's also the thing that freed her up to go after something like Evita.

Erotica and even Bedtime Stories felt like an extension of the fantasy-life Dita persona in the Sex book. Ray of Light felt like leaving the 80s behind (more successfully than U2 did at the time).

"Rain" seems like one of those tracks that was all over when it came out but has since completely disappeared from the radio or Muzak or any of that. It is one of my favorites and I have v fond memories of watching donna rouge dump a glass of water on his head during the key change while singing it at karaoke at a country/western gay bar in LA (and then getting yelled at by the mc)

http://i.imgur.com/KXWRspO.jpg

37. "TRUE BLUE" from True Blue (1986) [12 votes, 240 points, 1 first place vote]

argh! hang on..

Bedtime Stories had an absolute rave 9/10 review in the NME accompanied by an amazing cartoon of her in bed with the Big Bad Wolf.

http://i.imgur.com/PAYXM4F.jpg

37. "TRUE BLUE" from True Blue (1986) [12 votes, 240 points, 1 first place vote]

when all is said and done i have to say both videos for 'true blue' kinda suck

think the bridge lifts it above the generic pastiche charge thrown at it

I'd love to hear an arrangement of this song done Supremes style.

there's more than one "True Blue" video? I only vaguely remember one with her wandering through a thrift store maybe?

whatever it was, it did suck

love the song though, kind of hate "Cherish" for being a rehash of the style

There's hers, and there's the one that won an MTV contest.

More like true poo

man i think they spent twenty minutes working on the official (and pretty much not seen in america when true blue was a hit) video. debi mazar looks crazy young.

"Cherish" at least has the v beautiful "don't underestimate my point of view" bit.

haha I'm thinking of the fan video

it was terrible

the video is easily her most dated, but

http://24.media.tumblr.com/99d09e7b7b910bda7d66ce1c12e4720c/tumblr_mizt4sC72b1rl00x0o1_400.gif

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