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

I'm really happy that I turned people on to Die Another Day!

I loved the Erotica singles but also knew more than ever that Madonna was *bad*, someone who would incur parental disapproval

consciously remember around when ray of light came out me telling my mom, as "frozen" eased out of restaurant speakers while we waited for a table, "oh mom, that's from the new madonna record! she's not gross and sexy anymore! i think you'll like it!"

bahaha

"secret" was an early "this might be my favorite song of all time" for me. i think it was preceded by the gloria estefan version of "turn the beat around"

I think I related some of my intro to Madonna on the voting thread but for posterity:

My first cassette purchased with my own money was a compilation called H'Its Huge 84 - second to last song on Side A. I don't remember if this was where I first heard Madonna or if I'd maybe heard her on the radio before then but 8 year old me LOVED Holiday. It was a fun song to dance to.
So the next year in 1985, at the ripe age of 9 the first single-artist cassette I ever purchased with my own money was Like a Virgin. It was a race between wearing out the cassette and wearing out the carpet in front of my dressing table mirror from dancing to it. I would go over to my friend's house and we would come up with dances to Stay and Pretender and pretend to slow dance to Shoo Be Do...even being so young I don't remember there was a song on that cassette that I didn't love.
I didn't own True Blue but a couple of girls in my class did, and they would bring a portable stereo to school and at lunchtimes and recess they would set it up in the alcove between two classrooms - it was just a like a big concrete dancefloor and we would dance to True Blue and Jimmy Jimmy and Where's The Party and White Heat (as well as the Bangles and Cyndi Lauper). But always, always paying special attention to coming up with 'actions' for all the songs, because we worshipped the dance-sign language Madge used in the True Blue video.

Also seeing my friend's 18 yo cousin dressed up in full Madonna Like a Virgin dancing-on-the-gondola outfit in my tiny small town blew my 10 year old mind. That was as close as I ever come to meeting Madonna, lol

*Holiday was the second to last song on Side A, oops

i don't remember exactly when i first heard madonna but i do have a memory of being...i guess 8?...and 'erotica' was all over the radio and one day i kept singing "erotic, erotic, put your hands all over my body" until my mom begged me to stop

When my son was 4 or 5, his favorite song was "3" by Britney Spears.

wait i just realized i totally do have a pre-soulseek madonna story because when i was nine a friend's parents dragged both of us to evita

idk what the general opinion of evita is amongst the wider population but i bet i can predict it amongst nine-year-old boys

Didn't vote, never even heard a whole Madonna record, but dig all the singles, and love a few of them. Lurking and learning (and listening).

http://i.imgur.com/Xet06M1.jpg

42. "WHO'S THAT GIRL" from the motion picture soundtrack Who's That Girl (1987) [11 votes, 194 points]

consciously remember around when ray of light came out me telling my mom, as "frozen" eased out of restaurant speakers while we waited for a table, "oh mom, that's from the new madonna record! she's not gross and sexy anymore! i think you'll like it!"

she watched her Oprah appearance, no doubt

señorita más fina

Have never seen Who's That Girl. Worth watching?

I can't imagine that it is

I liked it but I watched it a bajillion times as a kid so my nostalgia maybe clouding my judgement :D

WHO'S THAT GIIIIIRL

Who's That Girl dovetails p nicely with La Isla Bonita on a mixtape fyi

man talk about a time-machine

am so glad it placed, I had to kick it off my ballot kicking and screaming

LIGHT UP MY LIIIIIIIIIFE

A few comments on the Freaky Trigger blurb on "Who's That Girl" suggests that it and its album were Madonna's treading-water period between imperial phases. Here's one:

Thinking about it, one of the key reasons I warmed so strongly to 1989-90 Imperial Phase/Critical Consensus Madonna (of which more in due course) is that it felt like such a self-improving step up from 1986-87 Crap/Boring/One-Dimensional Madonna, i.e. it was her determination to transcend her limitations (artistically and technically) which endeared her to me. So in a way, the lameness of “Who’s That Girl” is actually a critical stage in Madonna’s story. Perhaps she couldn’t have got to where she was going without it.

"crap one-dimensional Madonna" to this guy = "True Blue" and "La Isla Bonita," both #1 UK hits.

I still maintain that True Blue is Madonna's best album

absolutely

I don't consider it her best but her songwriting and singing took real leaps. She could have made LAV Part II and didn't.

listening to "Secret Garden" right now, which is striking me as a poppier version of "I Am Stretched On Your Grave"

True Blue album-wise is all killer, no filler for me. I can't remember if I put it #1 but it was high.

I love the deceptive simplicity; all the hooks have a huge punch and her voice is starting to get that HEY YOU power that hints at stuff like Express Yourself that's yet to come

I mean, even on something like Where's The Party, which is kind of a low-level Holiday, she has that surprising raggedness in her voice on the chorus, like GODDAMMIT WHERE'S THE FUCKING PARTY, she's not asking she's demanding

Someday I'll think Jimmy Jimmy isn't gormless.

I think I've heard all of Erotica maybe twice in my life so the sheer number of "mutter the verse, sing the chorus" songs on it is cracking me up

actually when I said no filler, Jimmy Jimmy almost qualifies. The writing on that is kinda terrible - 'maybe because you come from bad *places*?" is just uggggh why

oops, you're just a boy who comes from bad places, sry

http://i.imgur.com/XQq96kX.jpg

41. "PHYSICAL ATTRACTION" from Madonna (1983) [10 votes, 195 points]

YAY

my only qualm is that all of this pre-1987 stuff* should be at the top of the poll but I'm glad it's placing

* except of course for the LAV non-singles, which I've always hated

I love the "bom bom bom bom baa-ahhh" backing vocals so much.

"where's the party" is better on you can dance just like everything else on you can dance but for some reason i feel like this hurts true blue more than it hurts the half-duplicated debut album, maybe cuz without it the only really powerful songs on the album for me are the first two. i like "white heat" and the samples are ultracute but it doesn't feel panprovocative+totally-righteous like "papa don't preach" or overwhelming-cosmic-joy like "open your heart" (and i still didn't vote for "papa don't preach", so). other than that it's goofyfun stuff like "la isla bonita" and some ballads, and the 80s ballads really blur for me until prayer. maybe that's a lack of focus on my part but it's why i love the debut, cuz there basically aren't any on it.

yaaaaaaaaaay

There is exactly one ballad on True Blue, "Live To Tell"

You Can Dance is her best album before Erotica.

ha yr right. i remember the title track as one cuz it fades into the same haze for me. xp

* except of course for the LAV non-singles, which I've always hated

i was gonna be like "pffft 'over and over'" but wow it was a single? christ.

It wasn't a single -- it got airplay thanks to YCD (it's my favorite of the remixes too)

and plus my sister did a ballet routine to "Over and Over" in 1986.

i voted for "over and over" and prob should have specified i meant the YCD mix cuz that's the most thorough unlocking on there but on the other hand whatever

guess i should check out Erotica again. that was my get off the bus moment, didn't really get back on until 'Music'.

I should listen to Like A Virgin again but when I first heard it, it was with the s/t and True Blue as part of a bunch of albums I purchased via Columbia House without parental supervision for a penny and I quickly formed the opinion that the LAV singles were chosen for pretty obvious reasons, ie they weren't terrible

she really needs to do a proper box set like Depeche Mode did; remixes, B sides, all the non-album stuff. although it would be huge.

yeah listening to the LAV version of "Over and Over" and there isn't even a redeeming portion to it like the "why oh why" bit in "Jimmy Jimmy" that makes that song tolerable

otoh "Angel" is severely, severely underrated

best Madonna cover ever; the Drop Nineteens doing Angel.