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

fewer synths is a good thing?

"Borderline" is my second favorite from S/T. Which doesn't mean I want it in the top 10 or 20, but still, better that than "Holiday" or "Burning Up."

i think my friend dan voted in this bc we had a conversation before ballots were due and he talked about how hard the early jellybean madonna songs are to perform at karaoke, especially "borderline"

very much a time, a place, the status of a particular voice. i always get ridiculously happy when i hear it. the chorus is so simple but its drama is incredible

"love tried to welcome me, but my soul drew back" is a far more affecting sentiment than anything in "live to tell"

when George Herbert wrote it.

I mean, it has a little bit of an easy listening vibe now like a lot of '80s Madonna straight-up pop. But it's cute.

i always mentally linked 'borderline' and 'lucky star' and loved them both as much. but i now know 'lucky star' is better

"love tried to welcome me, but my soul drew back" is a far more affecting sentiment than anything in "live to tell"

well, George Herbert is a better wordsmith than Madonna so I'm not particularly surprised you would think that

lol xp with Alfred

Madonna should put those voice lessons to work and record the solo sections of "Five Mystical Songs"

I mean, it has a little bit of an easy listening vibe now like a lot of '80s Madonna straight-up pop. But it's cute.

i love that vibe! it sounds so alien from everything else when i put it on a jukebox!

I didn't vote for this... worse than Lucky Star, Burning Up, Holiday, Physical Attraction, and maybe even Everybody. I hate the way she doesn't quite get to the note in "Best of me" and the backing vocals in "keep on pushing my love over the Borderline". Top 30 track but not top 5.

i think i singlehandedly kept like a prayer out of the top 5. i only voted to vote live to tell #1. if my math is correct.

if I hadn't been a fuckin idiot I would have knocked "Like A Prayer" off my ballot & put "Into The Groove" somewhere in the top 5. I demand a re-poll.

xp Was the rest of your ballot American Life and Hard Candy?

I think the little bloop-bloop-bleep-bleep riff on "Borderline" is one of the most evocative bits of sound in '80s pop. You can play just that bit anytime, anywhere and conjure a whole era.

^^^^^ otm otm otm

Poor Hard Candy and MDNA, wonder what the highest ranked tracks from those albums was.

I would assume "4 Minutes" and "Gang Bang"

i love how madonna quotes literature all over bedtime stories, the whole album is like an extended discourse on the power of words (whether secrets or lines or sentences or taboo etc.)

it's like she took the spoken word bit on "words" and ran with a whole album on it

You'll be eating crow when 4 Minutes wins this.

I only 'Borderline' had a better beat. Love everything else about it though.

If

okay what the FUCK is going on here

:)

you're late.

Borderline more like Boredomline

*hi five*

I am so late I'm not even gonna lay out all my ~thoughts~ about the results so far because what's the use *cries*

where the hell is Bad Girl

#22

oh right

I voted for "Gang Bang." Nothing from Hard Candy tho.

"borderline" is fantastic fuiud

as I said on the voting thread, the only negative thing I have to say about "Borderline" is that it is a fantastic song surrounded by even more fantastic songs

http://i.imgur.com/fp9Gmbl.jpg

03. "DEEPER AND DEEPER" from Erotica (1992) [42 votes, 1,110 points, 8 first place votes]

eight

I mean

Borderline is one of my all-time fav songs. Everything about it - not just the riff, but the cuteness of the singing, the beat, the video - conjures up that era for me and hits my nostalgia factors hard. I dunno why I have it for that song and not several other songs of the era, but I have always had a thing for bittersweet songs. Those descending notes at the end of the verse are amazing.

at last.

I don't understand what's happening

man I am really regretting not putting "Borderline" on my ballot right about now

TOO LOW

Deeper and Deeper is a nice song. Borderline is a nice song. But I would never have thought they were top 10. Clearly I am not as heavily medicated as some of you.

the thing with "deeper and deeper" is that it's "like a prayer" and "vogue" at the same damn time with EXTRA FLAMENCO DROP

lol

the flamenco drop is p sweet

like a vogue

vogue a prayer

Live to Tell was my #1. I can't imagine listening to it and being let down that the lyrics aren't specific enough. Love the little chatty guitar line in the intro and the "If I ran away" bit is my favourite moment in her whole catalogue.

lex otfm

And Deeper & Deeper makes Vogue redundant - a natural embrace of house music rather than a gimmicky one.

I like her performance of Live To Tell, but the vagueness of the whole thing irrationally bothers me *ducks*

if the synth horns in "Deeper and Deeper" didn't sound so terrible I would have fonder thoughts of it

in fact, if any of the synth sounds sounded like they belonged together or complimented each other, I would have fonder thoughts of the song, but as it stands it basically sounds like Shep Pettibone stuck a microphone up his ass and then Madonna sang some lyrics into it