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

my least fave confessions single but only cuz i'm really really really crazy about all the other confessions singles

well i definitely remembered the True Blue video A LOT differently. weird.

I remembered her not being in that dress thing but the bustier and capris...even the backup girls were kinda crappy in the video? what the hell madge, I was CERTAIN you were way cooler. I dunno, I had this memory of her showing off her upper arms and being way less twee.
oh well. i still love the song for reasons words would not sufficiently explain.

woah, Get Together is fantastic. I didn't really notice it first time around

okay I should have kept "Impressive Instant" on my ballot I think

although I still maintain that her best 00s single is "What It Feels Like For a Girl"

― "Bellini." (DJP)

Agree with this.

Interesting list so far, plenty of songs I never knew were rated so highly, especially Die Another Day.

Never got the fuss over the Confessions album, I always found it too samey. Should probably give it another go.

I dunno, Get Together suffers, for me, from that stiff vocal style that characterizes so much of the latter day Madonna.

That said, if she opted to just make records that sounded like Confessions for the rest of her career, I'd be okay with that.

50. "WORDS" from Erotica (1992) [7 votes, 136 points]
49. "I'LL REMEMBER" from the motion picture soundtrack With Honors (1994) [6 votes, 142 points]
48. "THE POWER OF GOOD-BYE" from Ray of Light (1998) [8 votes, 144 points]
47. "KEEP IT TOGETHER" from Like a Prayer (1989) [9 votes, 148 points]
46. "DIE ANOTHER DAY" from the motion picture soundtrack Die Another Day (2002) [7 votes, 149 points]
(TIE) 44. "WHITE HEAT" from True Blue (1986) [7 votes, 161 points]
(TIE) 44. "SECRET GARDEN" from Erotica (1992) [7 votes, 161 points]
43. "WAITING" from Erotica (1992) [8 votes, 189 points]
42. "WHO'S THAT GIRL" from the motion picture soundtrack Who's That Girl (1987) [11 votes, 194 points]
41. "PHYSICAL ATTRACTION" from Madonna (1983) [10 votes, 195 points]
40. "CAUSING A COMMOTION" from the motion picture soundtrack Who's That Girl (1987) [11 votes, 201 points]
39. "RAIN" from Erotica (1992) [11 votes, 217 points]
38. "BEDTIME STORY" from Bedtime Stories (1994) [13 votes, 238 points]
37. "TRUE BLUE" from True Blue (1986) [12 votes, 240 points, 1 first place vote]
36. "GET TOGETHER" from Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) [11 votes, 246 points, 1 first place vote]

fun rollout so far, JF! looking forward to tomorrow!

bollocks, i missed 'get together'. TOO LOW anyway, that was when she (and stuart price obv) really nailed that mid 00s euro electrohouse sound. would love to have heard it dropped into a set when i was out.

"missed" as in missed it showing up, voted it 11 i think.

oh no and 'physical attraction' too. that feels like quintessential early madonna to me, the little shimmery synth noise. could listen to it forever.

No first-place votes 'til no.37? Going to be quite a condensed poll indeed.

I love Get Together (it was my #5). I love most of Confessions, as well, but that one just leaps out of the speakers and right into my nervous system.

No first-place votes 'til no.37?

There were some outside the top 50, but I don't have the spreadsheet on hand to tell you how many.

Excited! Gorgeous images, JF.

Glad to see "Die Another Day" place (it was the first Madonna single that I remember paying attention to as an event or whatever, probably via FT/ILM). I think one of the reasons it's so sonically uncompromising is that she'd gotten any Bond theme pastiche elements out of her system via doing "Beautiful Stranger" for, well, Bond pastiche Austin Powers a few years earlier.

Love this, because I didn't have a chance to vote but wouldn't have voted for most of these so far. Or maybe I ultimately would have! Regardless, love how I have no idea what's coming next, at least not this far down the list. Reminds me how little I've listened to most of Madonna's albums.

Just catching up. Very distinctive images. My favourite song so far is "Who's That Girl," a bit of a surprise I would think.

although I still maintain that her best 00s single is "What It Feels Like For a Girl"

― "Bellini." (DJP)

agree w/ this with the caveat that the album version is so much better than the video (and i guess single?) mix.

I love both, tbh

There is plenty of room in my life for both pensive guitar elegies and face-stomping monster trance

Yeah, I really don't have a favorite between the two. Remix definitely suits the amazing video better, but the album version is like curling up in a blanket.

i don't really pay attention to the song mix at all when i watch the "what it feels like for a girl" video, i'm too in awe of the visuals

don't get what's any good about the video tbh. vocal is just so much more well matched to the original track. i'm assuming it's still to come, though, we can debate it later i guess.

don't get what's any good about the video tbh.

If you don't by simply watching it, no amount of ILM convincing is going to get you there. But really... o_O

Hey everyone! Just got here. So sad to be missing all the fun. Thread looks great so far. Love the pictures.
Only two from my ballot for now, "Bedtime Story" my #8 and "Get Together" my #5.

i dunno maybe the video has a point or an idea that went over my head? on the surface it just seems like the kind of barely coherent, needlessly 'provocative' thing that i'd expect as the worst case scenario of a Madonna/Guy Ritchie collaboration.

Re. "Bedtime Story":

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.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), jeudi 7 mars 2013 20:29 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought she could too! If anybody could have it was her. She had done it with "Justify My Love" and "Erotica". I think it would've worked had it been the first single off the album.
But radio play was never a garanty after Erotica and Sex.

i dunno maybe the video has a point or an idea that went over my head? on the surface it just seems like the kind of barely coherent, needlessly 'provocative' thing that i'd expect as the worst case scenario of a Madonna/Guy Ritchie collaboration.

It's really all in the details. She does most of the acting with her face. Plus the plates on the car, the water pistol, the french fries, the motel door, the tazer, the zippo, all that stuff. It was like the first video designed with animated gifs in mind.

did animated gifs even exist yet in 2001?

Not the way we think of them today.

haha. Didn't you have to play them in a media player, iirc?

they played in browsers they were just usually burning flames or a rotating logo or a death knight from warcraft 2 spinning around on his horse

http://www.animatedlighting.com/images/SpinningStar.gif

Animated gifs have been around since the earliest days of the internet. Video capture and compression made them what they are now.

more madonna wink <3

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzre74yeHb1qdpp3so1_250.gif

tho this gets me more

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1hfah9djz1r9rem3o1_500.gif

Yeah, that's my favorite one.

this will probably come up when we do the video results but i really don't get how she could be so brilliant and enigmatic in her videos but then prove so hopeless on the big screen

i guess because in the latter she wasn't controlling her vision or something?

I said it on the True Blue poll thread: how can she project so much avidity in the "Open Your Heart" video yet onscreen look the sort of vamp that Carol Burnett would parody?

I'd like to think she was just not very good at choosing material, movie wise? Like she knows her way around her own music choices but I just think she could have been steered in a better direction

don't ask me what

though I still think Desperately Seeking Susan is great, i wouldn't fuck with that

Madonna films I've seen:

Dick Tracy
Truth or Dare
A League of Their Own
Four Rooms
Girl 6 (though I don't remember her)

Madonna films I've not seen:

All the others

Outside of Dick Tracy, which was cartoonish by design, I think she does okay-to-very well in movies. I guess I haven't seen the bad ones, though.

JF you should watch Desperately Seeking Susan this weekend

oh yeah and League is unfuckwithable

I will.

Also, otfm.

:D

JF you should watch Desperately Seeking Susan this weekend

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, March 7, 2013 7:13 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^

nothing i voted for so far unless i voted for power of goodbye im not sure, it might have been #21. i sortof expect at least 19 of my ballot to place, i was mad obvious. i dont see how you couldnt be. madonna is severely obvious, it is the best and worst thing about her.

"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

― ferreira rocher (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 7 March 2013 20:41 (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah so true, the other day i was trying to think when i last heard it irl not of my own volition and idk probably like 1998 at the latest and quite possibly earlier

despite that (and never being too much of a madonna lifer beyond radio) i have still unconsciously sung raaaaaiiiinnnn quietly to myself most times it rained in the last 20 years

Radio programmers probably felt a certain...relief when they got this straightforward track.

By the way, the songwriting credits are curious. Shep Pettibone is credited but I don't think him capable of the music. Unless Madonna had a ghostwriter I tend to credit her for its melody and structure.

I think Madonna is absolutely capable of plunking something out on a piano and collaborating with someone else to turn it into what it becomes. If she rode Shep hard to get to what she was hearing in her head, I think it's entirely possible.

PLEASE do not forget

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

"League" and "DSS" show that she is best not as an anchor/star but as a supporting player, and maybe even as a character actor.