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

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

Pretender is great. I also really like Stay except it gets a bit dead-sounding after a while.

LAV was the first single-artist album I ever bought with my own money. $13 on cassette. I wore that thing out.

oh wow I totally forgot how great 'Til Death Do Us Part' is. That loop that runs through it reminds me of a sped-up We Belong (ie Pat Benatar)

Ray of Light non-single highlights:

Swim
Sky Fits Heaven
Candy Perfume Girl
Little Star

"Sky Fits Heaven" and "Little Star" are so so great

The piano in the chorus is what makes it.

I love that you think all those things about Madonna, (ico), but I'm with Alfred: she's responsible for the greatest collective body of singles since Martha Wash became president. Plus I don't hear imperialism in "Vogue" so much as endorsement and co-opting, but I'm a straight white male, so what do I know?

Sorry to be a drudge, but I'd estimate 4th, 5th, 6th greatest body of singles. Or thereabouts.

Oh, I guess I'm not a straight white male.

I'm currently trying to get through MDNA. Didn't a couple of people upthread rep for "Gang Bang"? It's more goddamned stupid than I even remembered.

it's also one of the best songs on that album

(it ended up being the first song on a Spotify playlist I created called "I am as shocked that I like this song as you are")

She can't do fun convincingly anymore, so I'll take the inverse.

it's weird that for such a definitive or at least defining singles artist, I have such a hard time considering Madonna a mere singles artist.

the last convincingly fun and clever thing she did was that shirt that said mother on the front and f***** on the back.

oh don't worry: I don't.

a Spotify playlist I created called "I am as shocked that I like this song as you are"

Ha! Is it still active?

Yay!

JF: http://open.spotify.com/user/djperry1973/playlist/4JOk6Ujsdg4fbD6tfe1L5O

I stopped adding things to it shortly after Farrah Abraham melted my brain

Oh, curse you for making me aware this Train cover of "Umbrella" is a thing that exists.

I blame some dude, he introduced me to it

I don't know if this counts as a remix but I love love her version of Erotica on the Confessions Tour, based on Erotica's original demo You Thrill Me (almost wish she'd never changed the lyrics in the final version, they fit the album so well):

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

okay so I went to the used cd store and bought a copy of Confessions (as I lol'd at the sheer number of copies of MDNA in the racks)

this is happening this afternoon

I figured spotify was too 'optional'. i've committed now. i'm all in.

GOOD DAY!

Sometimes, Confessions is my favorite Madonna album (and it's never not in the top 3).

I also snagged a $3 copy of Erotica. such is my level of commitment

(those three, kind of like a carousel of favorites, are True Blue, Ray of Light and Confessions)

she's kindof hardened into a set of signifiers

fantastic post, plax.

it's always seemed to me that she was pretty much born as a set of signifiers. as a celebrity, i can't stand her. every word she's every uttered in public sounds scripted, calculated and pre-cleared. and forced. and almost intentionally irritating. and she's one of my three or four favorite artists of the last 30 years. i fell in love with her the first time i heard her sing "it would be/it would be so nice," which remains one of my favorite moments in all of pop. the melodic lift, the spiritual lift, the physical release and the welcoming arms of those eight syllables is just so impossibly beautiful and heartbreaking and happy. the artist she most reminds me of in her strange balance of charmlessness and musical grace is paul mccartney. and i really really do love her. i'm currently shuffling a spotify playlist of her entire catalog and am newly amazed at both the depth and the breadth of it.

xp Don't worry. I got S/T, I'm Breathless and Erotica covered.