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

Listening again, I think I had one reservation about "Oh Father" at the time: what I perceived to be 'little girl' vocals in the chorus (the multiple higher pitch tracks in unison) seemed kind of hackneyed to me. But I now suspect it was simply that it vaguely recalled Martika's "Toy Soldiers" from a year earlier!

xpost the ~balloon~ for smuggling beautiful stranger into the top 20

You can't hurrrt me now
I got away from you
I never thought I would
(WON'T YA COME OUT AND PLAY WITH ME)

Erotica already has 6 entries on the poll and there are only 8 tracks total on the s/t (and who's voting "I Know It" or "Think Of Me"?)

I voted 'Think of Me'! Not expecting it to place though.

'Swim' isn't going to make it, is it? :(

If "Swim" does make it, I will be super shocked and happy

Pretty sure ILM's love for Creedence Clearwater Revival will smuggle "Beautiful Stranger" into the top 20.

As a CCR fan, I find the comparison offensive.

I also voted for Think of Me, I could have put everything from the first album on my list. It's easily my favourite album of hers.

I'm v happy Take A Bow got in nice and high - I went back and forth on it and had to cut it in the end. I love the slight asian nod with the strings/percussion. Gentle and lovely.

not here for "swim", too much eye-roll worthy didatic moralising students rape their teachers new age stuff in the verses

when i listen to ray of light i have to skip the first four tracks which are the worst and start with SKIN which is great.

not here for "swim", too much eye-roll worthy didatic moralising students rape their teachers new age stuff in the verses

you're thinking of "Give Me All Your Luvin'"

dammit I keep doing this, every time someone says "Swim" I think they meant "Skin"

all of my upthread boosterism should be for "SKIN" not "SWIM"

yea i always get confused

which is the one about like she's carrying these sins on her back

that's "Swim"

"Skin" is "... Do I know you from somewhere? Why do you leave me wanting more? PUT YOUR HANDS ON MY SKIN/I'M NOT LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME"

ohhhhhhhh uh huh, uh huh

god the "take a bow" video is super gorgeous

Swim: I love the (a) guitar and (b) her octave leap in the chorus.

xp her boobs are ridic

"i'm not like this all the time" definitely one of the best lines ever

IIRC Bow was her post-baby body

i did forget that she has sex with a tv in this video

Swim: I love the (a) guitar and (b) her octave leap in the chorus.

I have some bad news for you, Alfred; that's a fifth, not an octave

o fuck

sonned

lol just watched the 'oh father' video and cried my eyes out

'beautiful stranger' is an arthur lee vamp, totally in line w/ 'ray of light' and coming to full, er, fruition w/ american life. never woulda guessed i'd miss ol' hippie madonna.

btw can I just say that the glut of Erotica songs beating out "White Heat" really bums me the fuck out

she looks wow holy shit ridic beautiful here

<3 babyface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI_Q2L-bLs8

for some reason i got it in my head way back when this started that given ILM's age demographic and general sensibility, "Frozen" would be, like, top 10 or top 15 at least, so surprised to see it this low.

<i>who's voting "I Know It" or "Think Of Me"?</i>

I may have voted for one of those, but I don't like revealing votes for songs that haven't placed before the full results have been posted.

I like her self-titled album an unhealthy amount and think it towers over any of her other work. It's too bad her electro period didn't last longer.

(bunch of x-posts)

stupid HTML vs. BBcode argh

agreed regarding that period needing more room to breathe

yeah the self-titled album really has a great sound, definitely wish she'd done at least one more album in that style.

had s/t as my #1 album, obv shuffling off danceteria for nile rodgers was canny and vaulted her to peerdom w/ bruce/prince/michael but i do wish there were a few more singles from that jellybean era (which reminds me that 'sidewalk talk' definitely ain't appearing is it).

She's always downplayed the autobiographical aspects of this song, but it's pretty much where she was at in her life, wasn't it? Especially considering the video. Didn't her mother die when she was just a girl, or am I making that up?

i know i'm gonna sound really psychoanalysy here and everything but i think her mother's death when she was child is pretty much the defining moment in her life and makes for the central overarching subnarrative for a large bulk of her career. death and mortality pervades her work more than any other popstar i can think of (i swear it comes just as much if not more than sex in her work) and there's usually at least one song dedicated to her mother on her albums once she started getting confessional from LAP onwards (promise to try, deeper and deeper, probably rain, inside of me, mer girl, mother and father, probably quite a few more). i think the way she felt the need to impose her so absolutely and with such tremendous willpower upon the world to be known and loved ("burning up" and "open your heart" address this musically the best of course) was to fill the space left by not having her mother's love, and she kinda goes through seeking fame and lovers (for most of erotica and bedtime stories tho she has her eureka moment on "secret garden") and then only reaches full contentment on ray of light when she becomes her mother herself ("drowned world" seems to state that quite openly) - that's one thing than makes me the think the album is less contrived than it appears, it's not just someone making a big deal out of being a new mom like woah my worldview has changed but coming full circle and being able to be the mother she never had and really feel proper love that she'd sought for so long. not that she doesn't acknowledge on the album's closer that her mother's ghost will still always haunt her despite this. i kinda feel that by everything fitting into its place on ROL that she lost that hunger and restlessness before lourdes and that's partly why her ambition has dipped but hey i can't begrudge her her happiness. her endless obsession with fitness and health and refusal to slow down or stop def seem rooted in trying to overcome any bodily and fragility that plagued her mother tho. i just really can't imagine who madonna ciccone would have been without her mother's passing.

yup these things change it all

While I realize she has used sex appeal and sexual imagery to market herself throughout her career, reading so many comments about Madonna's supposed 'hotness' is totally weirding me out. In the future I will have to stick to discussing Madonna strictly with women and gay guys.

great post prolego

xpost prolego otm

Funny thing about the Erotica "glut" is that only two so far got my vote.

reading so many comments about Madonna's supposed 'hotness' is totally weirding me out. In the future I will have to stick to discussing Madonna strictly with women and gay guys.

lol I don't think this has happened a whole lot in the thread. Some, yes. Also, the most recent comment on her beauty was by a woman, so wtf.

balls's "jesus that pic"/"brb" couplet after Secret Garden was p classic, though!

I mean, she's not been any more objectified in this thread than Bruce was in his.

get down with the hotness

The rushed transition from verse to chorus kills "oh father" for me

that's exactly what makes that song for me, that chorus crashing in so suddenly and cathartically.

^ otm

compared to the springsteen rollout this thread is nothing

xpost lol

yeah we haven't even STARTED with madge's hotness itt, or even in the voting thread

the thing about her is you forget how uncannily pretty she is

bc all of the other stuff going on

^^^

hi

http://style.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/100421M5_MADONNA_B-GR_01.jpg

:D

Avoided most of the Springsteen thread cos I didn't care much and didn't vote.

There's a difference between saying someone is pretty/beautiful and panting like a horny teenager. It sounds juvenile and sexist to me, but whatever. I'll just pay attention to the actual results and ignore the nonsense.