In celebration of Madonna’s fiftieth birthday on the 16 August, I set down a challenge to fellow Madonna fans to rank your top five albums, top ten singles, and top ten videos by her Madgesty. Rules are simple; pick your top 5 favourite ‘studio’ albums, your top 10 singles (whether released internationally or not, so Dear Jessie or Spotlight would be included), and your top 10 videos (released singles or promotional); rank them in reverse order; and be as controversial as you want. Leave your rankings in the comments section. Next are the singles. Have fun, and let me know what you think of my ranking!
Madonna | Top Ten Singles
10) Bad Girl (1993) Madonna’s ballads are often overlooked in retrospectives of her work. It is usually the more dance-oriented tracks that take centre stage, but I think that is something of a disservice. Bad Girl had it doubly bad because it was unfairly swamped in the Body Of Evidence controversy, which had been released about a month before, exacerbated by the fact that the accompanying video to the song featured a character who looked not unlike the film’s protagonist. Bad Girl is a quintessential ‘lady’s got the blues’ moment – she loves her man, but knows they cannot be together. Instead, she gets drunk, sleeps with strangers, and lives an empty life that brings her no solace. What kind of reflection this is on her private life I could not say for sure, but I think Madonna has intimated that during that era, during the backlash and the intensifying pressures of her fame, she was deeply unhappy. Featuring an excellent and heartfelt vocal performance (who said she couldn’t sing pre-Evita?), crisp production from Shep Pettibone (a bluesy-jazz feel that would mark most of the Erotica album) and a memorable melody, this marks a well-crafted moment in Madonna’s song writing canon. Bad Girl | Edit| 4:39
9) Get Together (2006) Of the four singles I could have picked from Confessions on a Dance Floor, Get Together may seem like an odd choice considering the huge success of Hung Up and Sorry. But to me, the whole point of that album was the marriage of pop and European dance music, and it is in Get Together that I believe that marriage to be most successful. Perhaps the least melodically memorable than the two aforementioned songs, Get Together relies on its repetitive hooks and employs Madonna’s trademark; a strong musical bridge leading into the chorus. The poppy vocal and song structure is married to a shimmering, pulsating euro-dance treatment from Stuart Price (Les Rythmes Digitales), who slowly builds the song up with layers of synths and throbbing bass/beats until the song’s breakdown, when it suddenly explodes to a climax that leads into the last chorus. Referencing the French House explosion of the late nineties (Daft Punk, Cassius, Bob Sinclair, Modjo) the success of this song is in the pop-dance hybrid that has been a formula Madonna has adopted again and again. Get Together | Radio Edit | 3:56
8) Angel (1985) Some singles get forgotten because of the company they keep. Let’s face it, being released amongst Like A Virgin, Material Girl, Crazy For You, Into the Groove and Dress You Up, it is not surprising that Angel was almost forgotten, but I definitely think this single deserves a second look. Coming from the album Like A Virgin and one of many Madonna-Steve Bray song writing collaborations, Angel is the perfect pop song. It features one of Madonna/Bray’s simplest but well crafted melody-chord structures, with an almost mournful vocal performance from a young Madonna, with spiky and sparse production from Nile Rogers, full of arpeggio guitars, spectral synths, and bubbling bass-line. Lyrically, the song is just a simple paean to perfect love, but closes with the almost poetic appeal ‘clouds just disappear’. This song perhaps ranks as one of my favourite early Madonna songs. Angel | 7" Version | 3:45
7) Nothing Really Matters (1999) On first hearing this song when I got my copy of Ray Of Light, I was mesmerised. The most immediate song on what was a subtle, complex (in terms of production) album, Nothing Really Matters stuck out. From the ghostly beeps and echoes of the intro, to the sudden kick-in of the clunky house beat, William Orbit’s sonic palette gave Madonna a post-modern working-over that she never really recovered from. The production is so complex that - like most songs on the album - repeated listens give you a completely new experience. A quintessential Madonna melody (slightly nursery rhyme-ish with a hypnotic and anthemic chorus), one of her best vocal performances, lyrical content about the trappings of fame and the realisation that love is important above all else, make this one of Madonna’s most well-crafted songs. Highlights also include the instrumental break with a xylophone going crazy and then an atonal piano riff, with an outro that turns the chorus melody on its head. Nothing Really Matters | Album Version | 4:26
6) Give It 2 Me (2008) Sadly the second and last song in this top ten from the ‘new millennium’ stage of her career, and by far the most recent (her latest single), Give It 2 Me will prove to be one of her most-loved hits alongside Music, Vogue, Ray Of Light, and Hung Up. Without doubt the best cut from Hard Candy, what is striking about this Pharrell Williams’ produced track is how raw and energetic it is. I described Give It 2 Me in a review of the album back in April, which I stand by; “I love the drum rolls, the jam jar high-hats, the trance strobe-like squelches of the chorus, the old school Madonna vocals/melody lines, the slightly Casio keyboard/clavichord samples and orchestra hits, the relentless stuttering rhythmic pull, the Music--like vocoders… This is Madonna at her glorious best”. An modern anthem to rival Music, this is Madonna in defiant mode doing what she does best; creating contemporary dance music that is unlike anything anyone else is doing. Give It 2 Me | Radio Edit | 4:02