I'm burning up, burning up for your VOTES! — ILM Artist Poll #31 is Madonna

I'm adding another sub-poll for Top 5 Videos. This one wins IT ALL for me (also love the Above & Beyond remix used in the video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYwgG2oyUbA

yes, I love that video to death

I'm strictly a non-voting Immaculate Collection guy, but my #1 would be the time I had to step around her and Sean Penn making out in the aisle of the Metropolitan Opera after Robin Williams' 1986 stand-up show there.

Also love (and will vote for) "This Used to Be My Playground."

yes, I love that video to death

It's the only video I ever bought on a dvd single.

I was listening to Immaculate Collection on my way in to work bcz it's the only Madge I had on my ipod -- they cut off all the songs at least 10-15 seconds early!! All my favorite hummy parts off the early singles are gooooooooone. Jerks.

Yes, the Immaculate Collection mixes are garbage.

Plus the remixes of the LAP songs = ehhh

I was already voting for at least 2 tracks off Erotica but Tim F and Eric otm --- relistening to it this morning goddamn it's a gorgeous album

love the lyrics of "Bad Girl" and she straining at the limits of her pre-opera-snob voice.

"Bad Girl" = her greatest video and ballad

Yeah Bad Girl is awesome.

oh man if we're gonna talk about best videos maybe there should have been a video sub-poll

I'm adding another sub-poll for Top 5 Videos.

Already did.

ahhh you should get that added to the top of the thread, i missed it

Who here is a mod? Can I get a mod to add that to the op, plz?

try asking on MRF, you will probably get a faster answer

signed, an ex-mod who would have been all over that request back in the day

done.

i only got into madonna about three years ago. i think its because of how much i hate contemporary madonna. not just the music although the last time she released a single i could stand was maybe don't tell me. a big thing that stopped me hearing the back catalogue properly was my projections of her current gay icon golden statue media presence, that is there is something beyond iconic about her, she's kindof hardened into a set of signifiers. its really boring to me. this is her curse and her blessing i think, the thing that makes her textually convoluted and judith butler and paris is burning and all that but on the other hand makes her kindof static and monolithic and so overcoded. its the very earliest stuff i like most, Borderline, the shiny scruffiness of it. arriving in new york with $35 in her pocket. something so sly and canny about it. a whiff of the street, the warm air out of subway stations. i think of her first album as being such a great new york album in tradition of like vu&nico or parallel lines. i just love this ballsy girl in these songs. and its a shame that her media persona has congealed around her. ray of light is her only good album after the first three i think, though obviously there's highlights out of most things along the way. remembering that thing she used to do, a hint of the underground. the blissed out bubbling of a rave on another beach down the coast, parts of it almost wild but so soft and distant and so clear and liquid. i also like her singing on that album, how she was suddenly a grown up. Also don't vote for vogue because of cultural imperialism guys.

i have to vote for "Vogue." it's an amazing song. kind of feel like ~principles~ have no place in a Madonna poll. my top video picks are going to be largely dictated by male gaze.

must resist terrible pun

Don't like "Vogue," never have, for some reason.

great post, plax

yeah vogue also kindof sucks and the video is gross

VG OTM, that was a great plax post

Oh man, just cued up "Oh Father" for the first time in far too long. Those strings still give me the goosebumps.

it has been far too long since I've listened to the singles from her first album

my best friend met her in the Danceteria days when she was dating Basquiat.

also I want to make sure no one forgets about "White Heat" from True Blue

http://youtu.be/w-MtJ9Pgslk

lovely post, plax

For me her boringness now isn't how she's a set of hardened signifiers so much as an artist who's lost considerable songwriting talent AND, to be expected, isn't as interested in keeping her ear on the ground listening for distant rumblings.

Still, I don't have a problem admitting that she's responsible for the greatest collective body of singles since Washington became president.

White Heat is fantastic. Last night, I developed a new affection for Where's The Party? as well.

Here's another forgotten one: "Keep It Together." I love both the singles remix and the guitar-bass-drums album version.

the shimmering glissando that opens "Lucky Star" is one of the most important moments in pop music in my lifetime

^^^

so so so so so stoked for this!

(that's actually not quite true, but Lucky Star is a shoe in for top 3, this whole thread is OTM X 10000)

oooh I almost forgot to rep for my favorite Like a Virgin album track

it's a great combo of slow-dreamy but groovy enough to dance do, it's just so hooky and dreamy and lovely
her voice sounds so young and BIG here. it makes me v nostalgic and happy

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

I'm pretty unschooled in Madonna, but I'm tempted to vote just because "Borderline" deserves all the #1 votes it can get.

xpost **dance to

from what I remember of Like A Virgin the album, I loved all of the singles and detested all of the non-singles

"White Heat" is great, was probably the next deep cut i was gonna post. instead, the only Madonna song from the Who's That Girl soundtrack that wasn't a single, "Can't Stop," which is awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXb4aQnnG-c

True story: I've never seen any of the Madonna movies from the 80s.

I really, really dig Ray of Light album tracks as well, particularly "Skin":

http://youtu.be/mtOCIHLLqz4

also I've always liked "Angel" and "Dress You Up" more than "Material Girl" and "Like A Virgin"

has there ever been another artist who parcelled out so many of their biggest hits to album soundtracks? xp

Johnny Fever!!!

you gotta see Desperately Seeking Susan at LEAST.

If you've never seen her monologue from SNL in 1985, you aren't alone. It's especially hard to find now. Just tracked it down on a sub-youtube video site: http://facedl.com/fvideo.php?f=aowokxoikwnnoqw&madonna-snl-monologue-1985

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdoeM1DMdy4

do you remember her promo commercials from then when she was standing next to a scared-looking Anthony Michael Hall and introduced herself with "Hi. I'm Madonna and this is a virgin"

Yeah, don't like "Material Girl" or "Like a Virgin," really, though I'm OK with the latter. Highlight of the Nile Rodgers book, though, was the debate over which of those two songs should be the lead single. Also, getting "Material Girl" to work despite it being the absolute wrong key for Madonna.

Actually, all the Madonna stuff is great. When he meets her, after the first album, she's sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a shit apartment. Also, "Like a Virgin" (the album) was in the can forever, since the first album started blowing up after they had already written it off. Also, Madonna had some incredible pop instincts, knowing exactly which songs and why, which clubs and why, and so on.

It took years to warm to Like a Virgin. "Pretender" is my jam now.

Dress You Up is likely my favorite of the Like a Virgin singles but Crazy For You is likely my favorite song ever written