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

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.

jesus, dan, the ah-ah-ahs and SHOUT IT AGAIN FROM THE HIGHEST MOUNTAINNNN

"Angel" is in my top five iirc

"jimmy jimmy" is just so in love with itself and with pop and with being alive in nineteen-eighty-whatever that i will happily continue to overlook any flaws in its writing.

for pretty much the same reason, happy to see "who's that girl" on here even though i didn't vote for it.

DJP yr ears are broken imo, 'Over and Over' is fantastic

I was wondering earlier, piscesx, if you saw her at the Haçienda

http://i.imgur.com/A9jBo6d.jpg

40. "CAUSING A COMMOTION" from the motion picture soundtrack Who's That Girl (1987) [11 votes, 201 points]

^^^^ usually what I have in mind when thinking bout "deep singles"

voted for Causing A Commotion, fabulous pop moment

heh no i'm not.. quite that old. she doesn't remember it supposedly.

I'm sure I read once about her sleeping on someone's floor during her stay

the (awesome and gorgeously unified) pictures are making me realize that it may now be unconscious and thus a lot subtler and source-decayed but half the girls i know are still ripping her off, and thank goodness

This is absolutely my favorite of her "deep singles". I was positively livid when it was left off Celebration in favor of shit from Hard Candy and American Life.

otm xp

broke for lunch and missed a buncha stuff, so...

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

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, March 7, 2013 2:00 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No. Make that HELL no.

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

― "Bellini." (DJP), Thursday, March 7, 2013 2:10 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM!!!

"jimmy jimmy" is just so in love with itself and with pop and with being alive in nineteen-eighty-whatever that i will happily continue to overlook any flaws in its writing.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, March 7, 2013 2:41 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It made my ballot for this very reason (though you articulated it much better than I could have)

^^ that's why I love "Open Your Heart."

cept "Open Your Heart" is flawless.

I was like 11 & suddenly girls in my classes were wearing underwear outside their clothes & it was very lacy & oh my & that was basically the best thing ever & still is

I once thought that I could give it a go during karaoke but I realized 40 seconds in that the song was going to defeat me and I still had more than three minutes left. It made me realize what an underrated vocalist she is and how much I suck.

Causing A Commotion is fab, I love it

xpost Yeah that would be hard to karaoke - you forget how much 'oomph' she has in her voice, it's hard enough to GET up there let alone stay up there for the chorus, it's exhausting. I give up just singing it out loud in the car, lol

Oh fuck yes for "Waiting" placing

Proof of how, just, overflowing with hits Madonna was in the 80s: when "Causing a Commotion" hit the charts, the TV version of Casey Kasem's Top 40 that aired on Saturday mornings after cartoons, they didn't even have a video to show, so the clip was just the song playing over a spinning image of the Who's That Girl album cover. Like the song hit so fast its like they didn't even have time to prepare for it.

"Causing a Commotion" was at #2 for three weeks in the U.S. I should poll her #2 hits.

http://i.imgur.com/rMv8Onl.jpg

39. "RAIN" from Erotica (1992) [11 votes, 217 points]

Cut Rain from my ballot in favour of Waiting at the last second. Glad to see it place anyway.

"Rain" and "I'll Remember" were record company exhalations of relief after sexxytime Madonna.

cept "Open Your Heart" is flawless.

i could write a book about "open your heart." and i probably still wouldn't discover any flaws.