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

TOOOO LOW!

my #5 - favorite part might be the luxuriously slow tempo, and of course the intro. And while she's obviously saying that he is her lucky star, the clear message is that HE is the lucky one for being the star that she has noticed...

Only three of her 80s singles didn't make the Top 50 and I can't even remember how two of them went. Gambler? Look of Love?

"I'm a famed high-school dropout, so don't believe anything they tell you"--thank you, Sarah Palin.

'gambler's the other song from vision quest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqTsP7gTPIw

'look of love' was only a single in europe, third single from who's that girl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HGfwg5OBAs

video is literally just random clips from the movie not even attempting to match up to the song

I don't think 108 BPM is "luxuriously slow"?

Bit late for this but Holiday Rap needed to be posted upthread.

"gambler" not making the list is a fucking scandal

i guess not enough ppl know about it? i'm just assuming that can be the only reason because nothing else makes sense to me

I don't know how I'd never heard of Holiday Rap, all its contemporaries were my jams as a nipper

I only just reacquainted myself with Gambler by watching the video and it's barely a song. It's more a sketch.

a very suave, urbane nipper

It was posted in the voting thread.

not a single in the united states either

yeah I just compared to the rest of the songs on the album and it's not particularly slow at all...oops. Maybe it's the emphasis on the downbeat that makes it sounds like there's more space there and the distance between the words in the verses. "Shine..on me...wher - ever - you - are..."

John Lennon: "I came out of the fuckin' sticks to take over the world."

Dick Clark (clip above): "What are your dreams, what's left?"
Madonna: "To rule the world."

that intro of "Lucky Star" is one of my favorite things that ever happened in music

^^^^

http://i.imgur.com/sPeO6TG.jpg

06. "LIKE A PRAYER" from Like a Prayer (1989) [39 votes, 938 points, 2 first place votes]

about right

well there's a point jump

Lennon was from Liverpool, what's he on about?

top five
open yr heart
deeper and deeper
borderline
live to tell
into the groove

what else is out there?

OK, so that's the exact same slot it landed on my ballot, but I'm still going to call you all nuts if you think there are 5 other Madonna songs better than that.

How much club play did this get? Did DJs often skip the quiet sections at the beginning?

"Gambler"'s on my list :(

It took me over a year to realize Mike Watt's "Burnin' Up" lyrics were the same as Madonna's. I always thought they were simply paying homage through using the song title. He doesn't complete the chorus lyric "burnin up burnin up for your love" so it wasn't obvious to me. Maybe I'm a little slow.

those look like locks for top 5.

Certainly the best climax of any Madonna song I can think of.

Guy Pratt, who played bass in "Like a Prayer," says it's the greatest line he ever played, and gave Madonna full credit for leading the band through the live studio performance.

btw even though there's a different remix poll i'd like to say i voted for "burning up" with the 12" mix specifically in mind, aka the only version

If only you *had* started at thirty, Fever, thread would be chaos right now

yeah, with Material Girl and Like A Virgin at 33 and 31 this would have been awesome.

Oh shit, I just realized I didn't email the spreadsheet to myself, so after I hit #1 I won't be able to share the full results until I get home tonight. Sorry!

Anyone else think this is great?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8glDEUij0vM

needs more sleaze and crying black saints

oscillating synth in "lucky star" is the sound of light

i almost didn't vote for "like a prayer" and "vogue" thinking that as much as i adore them they'd be locks for the top 3 - i'm shocked they've both underperformed! maybe they're just too weighty iconic cultural artifacts to feel intimately connected to idk

Like a Prayer hit me at the perfect age to get really excited about big event singles. I'm sure that in my head it was only just behind the fall of the Berlin Wall in importance.

haven't been this excited for a top 5 since the kate bush poll.

god there is so much going on in "lucky star," such a lush assembly

maybe they're just too weighty iconic cultural artifacts to feel intimately connected to idk

Think maybe everyone in the thread just voted for whatever was on the radio when they were 10?

The guitars in "Lucky Star" are so extra tangy.

Interviewer: You wrote "Lucky Star" alone. Did you write it on guitar?

Madonna: No, I wrote in on synthesizer.

Interviewer: Yeah? You say you’re not a musician and yet you play guitar and keyboards.

Madonna: I know, but I’m lazy and I don’t practice because I’ve gotten involved with so many other things in my life, and I just had to make a sacrifice.

Does that mean she made up that synth intro thing?

Anyone else think this is great?

I think that is a terrible, tbh; the tempo change makes no sense, they screw up the chord progression at the end up of the intro, the dynamics are completely arbitrary, the transition back from the block vocal to the soloists is clunky, the three soloists can't sing in unison together, and there is little to no connection to what they're singing, plus the whole thing is ragged and messy

yeah, but isn't it great?

haha

He convinced me.

btw the interview excerpt's from 1989. She plays guitar a little better now.

fascinated by madonna talking about patrick hernandez w/dick clark in the context of "i got into the music industry that way." i used to think there was a sea change somewhere in the '90s where aspiring musicians' ambitions changed from wanting to make it in "music" to wanting to make it in "the music industry," which always seemed like a very telling, and different, ambition, even if it often had the same result. the business-schooling of pop. i never would have associated that kind of language with a young madonna, nakedly ambitious as she was. but maybe it started way before that and i just wasn't aware.