View attachment 1504The feminism jumped out! Seriously though I love how in one fell swoop she basically annihilates ‘Material Girl’ in the opening couplet of ‘Express Yourself’. This is one of the defining Madonna songs in the entire canon, and if anything it should be even more celebrated than it already is. The original LP version is an ode to Sly & The Family Stone but to me it really came alive with the Shep Pettibone remixes (which she clearly also preferred). Overplay has placed it at no. 30 on my 2021 countdown but previous iterations would probably have it in my top 20.
30. Express Yourself (Like A Prayer, 1989; The Immaculate Collection, 1990; Celebration, 2009)
UK Chart Position: 5
Key remix: Shep'Spressin' Himself
Key live performance: Blond Ambition World Tour (1990)
Long stem roses are the way to your heart
But he needs to start with your head
The video is of course iconic and we are all awaiting that inevitable HD upscale because that Metropolis inspired Fincher masterpiece needs to be reassessed properly. It has been performed on numerous occasions live, taking on different incarnations from disco (Girlie Show) to military (Re-Invention) to majorette (MDNA) but the definitive remains the opening performance of the Blond Ambition Tour and, my personal favourite, the MTV VMAs 1989 performance featuring embryonic Vogueing. As for the whole Gaga drama back in 2011, I shall leave it there back in 2011 where it belongs. Of course it gave the gays delicious diva-feuding fodder but let’s face it, we all know ‘Born This Way’ borrowed heavily from ‘Express Yourself’ but it’s a great song in its own right as well. I just wish Gaga’s ego hadn’t gotten in the way at the time – a bit of grace on her part would have really helped but then again we wouldn’t have had all the drama which we lived for. So there you have it.
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27. This Used To Be My Playground (Barcelona Gold, 1992; Something To Remember, 1995)
UK chart position: 3
More ‘90s Madonna gloop and I am not ashamed. “This Used To Be My Playground” is absolutely lusciously gorgeous and the longing in her voice is just heartbreaking. Fact fans: it was the first Madonna single I bought. I’d been buying her albums since True Blue but it was around this period that I became a collector as well, at the age of 12. ‘…Playground’ was released at another interesting time in her career – literally round the corner from the biggest backlash a pop star has arguably ever experienced. Recorded for the League Of Their Own soundtrack, this was a US No. 1 single (easily forgotten fact!). It is a nostalgic, orchestral ballad and the video served up a demure looking Madonna in her best ‘50s dresses which 'borrowed' generously from Boy George’s ‘To Be Born’ photo album video concept. Little did anyone know that she’d be hitch-hiking naked a mere few months later.
I always find it interesting that this is a sole Madonna and Shep Pettibone composition. It is just so different from everything they did together before or since. Apparently the recording session was a bit fraught due to the live strings section but I love the finished product and the crack at the voice in her end when she sings ‘Wishing you were here with me’ is the very reason why I adore her voice so much. It may not be technically perfect but the pure emotion always gets to me.
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27. This Used To Be My Playground (Barcelona Gold, 1992; Something To Remember, 1995)
UK chart position: 3
More ‘90s Madonna gloop and I am not ashamed. “This Used To Be My Playground” is absolutely lusciously gorgeous and the longing in her voice is just heartbreaking. Fact fans: it was the first Madonna single I bought. I’d been buying her albums since True Blue but it was around this period that I became a collector as well, at the age of 12. ‘…Playground’ was released at another interesting time in her career – literally round the corner from the biggest backlash a pop star has arguably ever experienced. Recorded for the League Of Their Own soundtrack, this was a US No. 1 single (easily forgotten fact!). It is a nostalgic, orchestral ballad and the video served up a demure looking Madonna in her best ‘50s dresses which 'borrowed' generously from Boy George’s ‘To Be Born’ photo album video concept. Little did anyone know that she’d be hitch-hiking naked a mere few months later.
I always find it interesting that this is a sole Madonna and Shep Pettibone composition. It is just so different from everything they did together before or since. Apparently the recording session was a bit fraught due to the live strings section but I love the finished product and the crack at the voice in her end when she sings ‘Wishing you were here with me’ is the very reason why I adore her voice so much. It may not be technically perfect but the pure emotion always gets to me.
Do you reckon it's boring cos it's a ballad that isn't OVERSUNG?Boring! The fact that this came between Rescue Me and Erotica, and was a bigger hit than both tells you everything you need to know about straight people.
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26. Bad Girl (Erotica, 1992)
UK chart position: 10
Key remix: extended version or Boy George's unofficial mix
Key live performance: Saturday Night Live (1993)
Let’s face it, ladies – ‘Bad Girl’ is module 37 in Madonna gay history 101. Whether we have lived vicariously through the lascivious-but-guilty lyrics or we actually are @RaspberrySwirl, the song speaks to all of us. [Eva Peron]All of us![/Eva Peron]. In all seriousness though, ‘Bad Girl’ is of course wonderful and perfectly encapsules the dichotomous nature of its parent album Erotica. I just love its jazzy, soulful feel together with her strained vocal. I really don’t think a ‘better’ vocal would have actually suited this song. And we still have those luscious layered vocal harmonies in the chorus which I would love to hear in isolated form one day. Released at the height of the SEX backlash, it only just made the top 10 here and was a pretty big flop (by her then-standards) in the USA, just scraping into the top 40.
The was another instalment in the Madonna/David Fincher saga and remains a masterpiece of course. And yes we’ve all been in Louise Oriole’s shoes at some point or the other – ‘Thank you whoever you are’. The song has only ever been performed once, on Saturday Night Live, and it is a tour de force of a performance with a killer live band. Hopefully it will get an upscaled treatment soon (‘Fever’, from the same show, was recently upscaled so we can live in hope). Oh, and it's her best single sleeve ever - fact.
There is only one studio album which has been snubbed from the top 50.Isn’t it worrying that we’ve reached top 25 and still no songs have appeared from certain albums?
I personally wouldn't have excluded Hard Candy from the countdown. 4 Minutes still slaps, whatever you think about it. Devil Wouldn't is the best ballad Justin Timberlake wrote post Cry Me A River. And Candy Shop makes you want to work out your buss on a frozen curly-wurly.
4 Minutes is great but it's Timbaland/Timberlake feat. Madonna. It could have been Nelly Furtado or anyone else.Agree about Devil, but 4 Minutes I never was a fan of. It sounds nothing like a Madonna song, and for a Justin/Timbaland song it was their weakest up to that date.
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24. Till Death Do Us Part (Like A Prayer, 1989)
The bruises they will fade away
You hit so hard with the things you say
I will not stay to watch your hate
As it grows
Time now for a deep cut – this may or may not be the highest ranked album track (non-single) in the countdown. You’ll have to stay tuned to find out. Another autobiographical Leonard/Ciccone composition, this addresses specifically and pointedly her turbulent marriage to Sean Penn. The lyrics are in sharp contrast to the jaunty, driving and upbeat nature of the musical accompaniment. But it works really well. The high drama is supplemented with breaking glass sound effects and haunting spoken word passages as well. There is not really much more to say about this because the song itself is self explanatory really - except to say that if you are a new fan and are reading this thread as part of your journey of Madonna discovery then I do beseech you to seek this out on Spotify. It really is a colossus of a song. Never performed live, of course, and was never touted to be a single (it appeared as the B-side to ‘Dear Jessie’) and I doubt she’ll ever sing it. Of course in an alternate universe we would have had the demo version in the 30th anniversary reissue but instead we got a truncated Spotify playlist that actually had fewer songs on the album than the original release. Sigh.
We need an acoustic rendition (preferably by another vocalist).'Devil' in its original Madonna incarnation would have been quite a beautiful torch ballad (as she described it herself in 2005) but the way it became bloody Cry me a What Goes Around Part 3 ruins it.