Madonna Actually Had Some Good Songs

I'd prefer not to think about Madonna's bathwater, OP.

Madonna has a lot of good songs, OP.

If only she'd get someone to tell her to stop with the attention whore thing, she could reinvent herself again. Her legacy is solid, but the train wreck lately isn't flattering.

Drowned World / Substitute For Love

She actually has an amazing back catalogue. Her early music sounds dated, but Like a Prayer still holds up as an exceptional pop album, as does Ray of Light and Confessions on a Dancefloor is great. I’ve always liked her ballads best.

Secret

Great song and video.

If she had only released this after COVID hit...

One of her best.

[quote]If only she'd get someone to tell her to stop with the attention whore thing, she could reinvent herself again. Her legacy is solid, but the train wreck lately isn't flattering.

Lately? Lol

And how is she going to reinvent herself again at this point? Her face is a mess, and she can't perform like she used to.

Madonna's albums have always been extremely uneven, but she used to offer lots of variety and very carefully crafted singles that set the tone for pop music at any given time. Also, whenever her career slowed down, she took some time to recoup and came back stronger than before with an image and sound that no one would have expected, and everyone wanted to imitate. Just look at Bedtime Stories, Something To Remember and Ray Of Light after Erotica, or Confessions after American Life - she knew how to take her time to dazzle and shock people by generating expectation and delivering things that no one would have imagined that she could, or would do.

Sadly, after her incarnation as a hip hop-infused lightweight pop tart with Hard Candy, she seems to be completely lost. There are some great moments (Love Spent, Ghosttown, Addicted), most most other songs sound like things she's already done better, rehashed in a desperate attempt to appeal to those who are already her fans and convince young people that she is in with the kids. She should understand that there is a point when it's not possible to compete with teenagers, and you have to grow up. Sadly, that seems to be beyond what she is capable of even contemplating.

Oh well, at least she was the biggest name in the music industry for 20 years. Nobody else can say that.

[quote]Oh well, at least she was the biggest name in the music industry for 20 years. Nobody else can say that.

True, I've been the biggest name in the music industry for 60 years.

My darling Barbra @R11, you got it all wrong. You have been the biggest name in music for the 50-to-90-year-old crowd for most of your career. The truth is that no one younger than 50 has rushed to buy one your albums since 1980, and you wouldn't be anywhere if musical theatre queens and dullard churchgoers who are overwhelmed by the idea of eating brown bread, didn't love your sedative records (after all, your albums will always be cheaper than barbiturates).

No matter what you say, you haven't had the cultural impact that Madonna has had, even if Madonna doesn't have 1 millionth of the exceptional talent that you've wasted out of sheer arrogance, laziness and self-indulgence.

Madonna has the best catalogue in pop music. Way better than Michael Jackson.

Yes she had very good albums and singles. While I don't think she's talented as a musician, she was always very smart to work with the right people for her sound.

Madonna is obviously cliche-prone but she has written some great lyrics--Into the Groove, Live to Tell, Like a Prayer, Express Yourself, Deeper and Deeper, Take a Bow, etc. I think her songwriting gets dismissed way too easily.

She should do a farewell album with the Pet Shop Boys and Stuart Price.

This was a great song, OP. Madonna was the best of the best, which is why I refuse to join in the pile on.

Janbot is triggered

Her most popular song on youtube

She should have just retired, stayed off social media, and done a few red carpet and awards show appearances now and then. Maybe do a few collaborations with the flavor of the moment like Ariana Grande. And she should have just stuck to performing only her hits… not reinventing the wheel with new shit like Madame X that nobody was asking for.

[quote] Her early music sounds dated

Minus the song Like a Virgin (which is the least classic of her classic songs) and her album filler, I don't think this is true. She produced more classic singles in the 80s than anyone else.

Vadgebot at R12 is pressed!

Barbra is a legend.

Good songs ruined by her terrible voice.

She was always better at marketing and promoting herself than she was at actually being a performer. That’s why her current iteration is so embarrassing. She seems clueless and doesn’t understand the current market AT ALL.

Barbra was never one of the two or three biggest names in music, wtf? She was most popular in the 60s and 70s when far more popular groups/artists like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, Elton John, etc. were around.

I like some of Madonna’s songs but Michael Jackson was and is a bigger star than Madonna.

Well, Live to Tell, everyone’s favorite Madonna song. A man can tell a thousand lies, I’ve learned my lesson well..

I’m not a huge Madonna fan. But Borderline is probably one of my favorite songs of all time. Magnificent bass line.

Madonna has become such a mess lately that it's becoming more difficult to remember when she led pop culture and music trends.

Her first album is very strong and has aged well. I don't think Like a Virgin aged well though the singles are still fun. True Blue is a great pop record that showed growth, though it has its share of filler (Jimmy Jimmy, Love Makes the World Go Round). I think the run from Like a Prayer through Confessions is a very strong run. I've always liked I'm Breathless and it showed Madonna's creative side and her versatility as a singer and songwriter.

Since 2008, it seems like she's been a different person.

[quote]when she led pop culture and music trends.

She never did either.

R29, I still think I'm Breathless is actually her greatest non-compilation album. I get people find parts of it campy but those parts are supposed to be.

Oh shut up Jabba r30. So pressed.

This was her best song ever! It mixed awesome music with excellent lyrics.

37 top 10 hits (and on the real billboard pop chart). And I could suggest an entire greatest hits album or double album based on awesome songs that were never released as singles. (She named her Greatest Hits album of ballads SOMETHING TO REMEMBER, another great song that wasnt a single and wouldn't have gotten much radio play.)

Sometimes I wonder why some of her collaborators who are amazing (and who i would assign the majority of credit to for her hits) havent had more pop hits outside of Madonna.

Madonna did the impossible on this track...

she made Sleaze sound classy.

(And I've always enjoyed her spoken word moments.)

[quote] Sometimes I wonder why some of her collaborators who are amazing (and who i would assign the majority of credit to for her hits) havent had more pop hits outside of Madonna.

That's just proof that without Madonna, those songs wouldn't have been hits. Madonna is more instrumental to her songs than her detractors claim. Otherwise, most of those producers she worked with would have had way more (and bigger hits) than they had with her.

Both David Foster and Nile Rodgers have said that Madonna is very hands-on in the studio and complimented her musical skills despite her lack of training. Even Reggie Lucas said the same though he remained bitter that Madonna didn't give him more credit for the success of her first album.

She’s a terrible human being but she does have some classic songs.

74 year old Elton John has a current top 10 hit, created by taking two of his popular old songs and collaborating with Dua Lipa. No reason Madonna couldn't have done something similar. Instead, she has chosen to do this:

I am not really a Madonna fan (give me Courtney Love any day, please), but I do recognize that she had some brilliant pop songs, both ones that she wrote and ones she simply performed. "Like a Prayer" is a masterpiece. I've also always loved "Crazy for You". Some of her later early-2000s stuff from the "Ray of Light" era is really good too.

R39, as a fan, I really, really despise what she has become. The reason her hits have mediocre streaming performance is purely because of her. She went from faux English woman to pissed off American divorcee to Jocelyn Wildenstein all in less than 20 years. The public is just embarassed by her now. The same thing happened to Whitney when she was outed as being a drug addict.

The problem with her now is she’s too old to know what’s cool anymore.

She makes songs that sound like Miley Cyrus rejects.

She doesn’t know where to go anymore.

Madonna's voice was at its peak in 1998.

R43, yup. Her voice was really strong from Evita through MDNA or so (even if you can argue that her voice lost some it's character versus her earlier days).

I think she actually took voice lessons prior to filming Evita, which would explain why she sounded better during that era.

I don’t think she ever sounded better than this. Fantastic, underrated song, too. I’m so sad to see the embarrassment she has become.

Ray of Light sounds so dated and terrible now and was so phony.

I think the Ray of Light demos can sound way better than some of the songs on the actual album. Nothing Really Matters is disposable on the album but the demo is so soulful.

r42 That is incorrect. Miley has had pop hits and some misses that were super desperate, ear worm catchy pop tracks. Madonna gave up on pop/dance 2 albums ago

Vadge stans are irritating and often delusional. But she really did have good music from her debut in 1983 up to Ray of Light. Confessions and Hard Candy had some good songs too. But after that she's been a walking joke and released shitty music. If she promoted her old music and embraced being an 80s artist again, she could gain a younger fanbase on TikTok maybe and get her streaming numbers up. I don't feel bad for her though as she's an asshole and filthy rich. She ruined her own legacy.

R49 “MDNA” and “Rebel Heart” were pop / dance. She worked with all the pop tart producers and writers. Martin Solveig and Benny Benassi on “MDNA”, Avicii and Diplo on “Rebel Heart” on top of all the pop producers and writers who work with all the Miley pop tarts.

Her albums since “MDNA” have been nothing but factory pop. Her label holds writing camps and she picks demos and then works with some pop producer. She’s for like 40 people credited to one song now.

That was never her style. She always worked with one or two producers an album.

Producers like Shep Pettibone, William Orbit, Mirwais, Stuart Price were under the radar for their dance remixes.

Her last great album was “Confessions on a Dance Floor”.

Pre-2008 Madonna would have done an album today with someone like Tame Impala, Rostam, Caribou, Kaytranada, Flight Facilities, there’s tons of talent out there that would work well with Madonna.

And that’s why I know she’s gotten too old. She probably doesn’t know any of those artists because she doesn’t have access to what’s cool anymore.

R50 She is. This is being used for TikToks and IG.

But what killed her was the gap between “Hard Candy” and “MDNA”. She took a 4 year break between albums while Gaga, Rihanna, Katy, Kesha, Britney, and Nicki were huge. That was such a mistake on her behalf.

And then she took another 4 year break between “MDNA” and “Rebel Heart”.

Ray of Light in 1998 was the last album which had any decent songs on it.

The six albums she did before that had many great songs.

What? I love Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Hung Up, Future Lovers, Get Together, Sorry, Forbidden Love, etc. And the remixes that were done for the Confessions Tour. Love love love.

Hard Candy was her first piece of shit. All of her albums after that have been crap and I love Madonna.

I will say “Crave” from her last album should have been a hit. It would have been a hit if it had been sung by someone else.

Same for “Ghosttown” on “Rebel Heart”.

I've always preferred her cover of "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" to Rose Royce's original.

Love the song Deeper and Deeper, and I'm obsessed with her Girlie Show tour performance; one of the most fabulous things ever!

r49 I'd suggest Rebel Heart doesn't really qualify as dance/pop and Aviici's dance stuff was booted off album. i dont know how to even describe that trainwreck other than I preferred every original version over the Diplo whitewash shit.

Madame X is something else. Its not dance music. I love Madonna hits and Crave and Ghosttown did nothing for me.

Someome upthread mentioned You'll See. It's Babyface sung by Madonna. Doesn't have a lot in common with her music before or after.

You'll See is a David Foster production, Babyface had nothing to do with it.

I don’t doubt the strength of her catalog, just the state of her current sanity.

You'll See was her audition piece for Evita.

Bedtime Stories has always been a standout album to me, with the title song being particularly catchy. It sounds so good when you play it loud.

Erotica is a really fun album. It's not fair to be selfish or stingy....every girl should experience....eating out...

[quote]You'll See was her audition piece for Evita.

She already had the role by then. In fact, the recording sessions for Evita began not long after she recorded You'll See, which was released while she was recording Evita.

I think that's my favorite song of hers, OP. That was my favorite singles run from her, too. Rain-I'll Remember-Secret-Take A Bow. At least that's what it was in the US. It's funny that she was still churning out major hits even while she was "flopping." The axe fell hard for her with Erotica/Sex book/Body Of Evidence, yet on the charts she had Erotica (3)-Deeper And Deeper (7)-Rain (14)-I'll Remember (2)-Secret (3)-Take A Bow (1). Bad Girl was a bit of a flop in the US (36), but at least she made a cool video for it. Not bad for someone whose career was in turmoil.

Of course she did, but like that formerly fabulous queen on the floor who doesn't get that he needs to go sit at the end of the bar, she has damaged her rep rather severely.

Madonna knows how to craft a dance groove.

R6 I love that video, too. I love the look on her face while she's prowling the streets of Harlem like an aging hooker in the remix video.

I love Madonna and always will. She’s been crazy for a while so I dunno why some people want to act like this is brand new.

I will say MDNA is a great album and one of my favorites to just vibe to. It’s in the same wheelhouse as Ray of Light and Confessions to me.

I think Masterpiece is one of her best ballads.

Wow eldergay moment above. Here’s the link.

R67 - Great remix.

In the same vein, but I think I prefer this to Vogue now.

Love the spoken word alternating with the gutsy vocals.

R71, Rescue Me is underrated. It's actually the perfect followup to both Vogue and Justify My Love (it's like a combo of both) and it's placement on The Immaculate Collection is perfect.

I love “Erotica” and that era as well.

I love all the B-sides and “The Rain Tapes” with all the album demos.

I agree she had some really good songs. But she doesn’t know when to stop. These Instagram pictures keep getting creepier and pathetic. She looks like a alien with those filters. Never thought she would end up such a joke.

R73, the demo of Words here is a fucking jam (@ 27:05).

Spanish Eyes is probably my favourite. I have many, but she just nails it with the arrangement and her beautiful vocal. Plus the man speaking what I presume to be Spanish adds a gothic atmoss that would make Jane Austen sit up and take notice.

IMO, she had a lot of great songs. Good, infectious, solid pop songs and maybe a few that were something more.

My ambivalence towards her current self doesn't affect my opinion of her music. Here catalog isn't uniformly great and there's some crap, but there's enough there.

80s and 90s Madonna was the best of American pop. She had her final bow with Confessions on a Dance Floor and now is a zombie stuck in the early 2000s. I find her annoying, disgusting, hypocritical, marginally talented and fake but she was very good at what she did. Really good.

I think her debut album was one of the best debut albums for a pop artist. Usually pop stars take a few albums to find their sound.

Some of Madonna's music dates, some does not. I'm an old clubber a few years younger than Madonna. Saw her around. Watched her become a star. Her 1st disc sounds perfectly valid to me today.

Some good songs? OP, she would not be the most successful female singer/entertainer in the world for having only a few good songs. Does this logic make sense to you?

Her music is really dated but a lot of it is still fun to listen to. Madonna was just the first female modern pop star, that’s why is considered so influential. If Paula Abdul has released her album 5 years earlier she could have been Madonna.

R81 NO, that’s a really stupid thing to say. Madonna has lasted this long because she’s intelligent. She does have a nice voice, she writes her own music, she collaborated with the right people, and MOST importantly, she EVOLVES and REINVENTS herself with time. She is ALWAYS willing to take risks from pop, R&B to pop rock, etc. she’s talented, very intelligent, street smart and beautiful and is a supreme cunt.

I love Paula but no way in Hell she would have had the career of Madonna.

Whether you like her or not, Madonna had a vision, a game plan. She had (blond) ambition. Paula didn't think the same way.

The difference between Madonna and Paula is that Madonna would have had goals and a complete vision after Forever Your Girl. Paula didn't.

Paula seems like a nicer person. Madonna is a Machiavellian bitch with ambitions, can locate who is talented and use them to her advantage. Vadge changes her sound with each album. Paula was just a choreographer and dancer who was chosen to be part of the many freestyle/hip-hop pop stars at the time. Paula just had the right sound and look to stick out more.

I love Keep it Together too

OP, people on DL make fun of Madonna because we love her, not because we hate her. Many of us madly respect her and find it a shame that she can’t respect herself enough to not make a fool of herself.

R61 The video for "Take a Bow" was her unofficial audition for Evita. She sent it to Alan Parker while she was lobbying for the role. Back then she was savvy as hell.

Count me as one who did not what the Evita training did to her voice. She was never a great singer in terms of the quality of her voice, but she knew how to use it effectively and it felt effortless. After Evita, she sounded like she was super controlled with every note, and over-E-NUN-CI-A-TING. She also stuck mostly to mid-range, when she was so good at using her lower register.

One of my favorite vocals of her is "Angel"--they way she mostly stays in lower register, drops further when she sings "You must be an angel" and then runs it back up again for the second chorus made the song stand out among "simple" pop songs at the time.

Eldergay thread.

I loved Madonna's voice from 1982-1994. The fact that it was untrained is what made it special. The yearning and passion in her voice on the first record sounds perfect on those records.

[quote]Madonna has lasted this long because she’s intelligent.

She might have street smarts, but she is not very intelligent. She seems barely literate in most of her social media posts. She had the right people advising her during most of her career, but no longer.

I do wonder about her "songwriting" and intelligence when I see her media posts.

Cher can explain her non-sensical tweets because she has dyslexia but Madonna's grammar and spelling are atrocious. She has no excuse.

I take it Madonna is a heavy drug user and that ruined her intellect. As for songwriting, she always had help. Her stans are delusional. She may have came up with ideas and concepts but she had people advise her and tweak things. It's a common practice and it does not take away from contributions. Many artists have helpers even Da Vinci did.

[quote]Cher can explain her non-sensical tweets because she has dyslexia but Madonna's grammar and spelling are atrocious. She has no excuse.

Also Cher knows that she comes across as a caricature, and doesn’t mind making fun of herself. Whereas Madonna takes herself completely seriously and has zero sense of humor.

I think Madonna's first (1983) or second album (1984), along with ABCs Lexicon of Love (1982), were the first albums I bought on CD. I couldn't afford a CD player but a friend had one. I had bought the albums first, of course.

I mean, I didn't buy them as CDs the date they were released by maybe around 1985?

R81, songwriting and writing prose are two different things. With songwriting you don't need complete grammatically correct and cogent sentences. Since you're conveying your thoughts in quick 3 minute stanzas, you can take liberties with the language.

It's entirely believable that Madge wrote the words to her songs. Especially the ones where she rhymes bad with sad and glad.

Those starting their posts by "I'm not really a Madonna fan but ... " are just giving themselves away as the biggest stans ever. Typical fanclub behavior. You're fooling no one.

She does, OP. Just not the one you picked.

Oh, look. Dick Tracy popped in at R97.

Love this one.

Its kind of adorable that some posters here think she actually wrote and was the creative force behind this music. Oh my sides....

Why have so many producers and composers given her music cred, then? Don't bite the hand that feeds? I don't buy it. Madonna was a great general producer of her music and image for a long time. Sure she was served by experts in every way but I believe she collaborates. Then the brain rot and narcissism set in. I think super wealth also played a role.

[quote]Madonna was a great general producer of her music and image for a long time. Sure she was served by experts in every way but I believe she collaborates. Then the brain rot and narcissism set in. I think super wealth also played a role.

She made the fatal mistake of buying into her own PR bullshit after the massive worldwide success of COADF. I also think the divorce from Guy was a double whammy both in that it was a massive blow to her self esteem and she lost probably the only person in her inner orbit who wasn’t afraid to challenge her.

Her behavior now is so out of character from the extreme discipline and media savvy she’s exercised for most of her career that I don’t doubt she’s suffering from some type of serious mental decline and/or a raging addiction to alcohol, pain killers, or both.

R103 true words. To see the state she’s in now is extremely sad. A lot of posters on DL truly relish crucifying her, but I just find it sad and depressing. Her determination, grit and take-no-shit attitude really helped me get through my teen years, and I sort of looked up to her, even though I always knew she was a flawed person. She’s a shadow of who she was now and she is pissing all over her legacy. I think it did all start after her COADF album, maybe around the time she had that horse riding accident and realised that her husband didn’t give much of a shit about her. She’s just been a lost soul since the divorce, devolving and desperately trying to recapture the spark of her youth rather than healing, growing and moving forward.

I remember when this song came out, I kept singing I'll Remember over the chorus. I know there's only so many chord progressions in popular music, but it just seems a little too close to not be a re-write.

r35 The Erotica album was a masterpiece. I have fuzzy nostalgic memories of listening to it on my discman in high school.

My fave...

Should have been a single.

Madame X with the pirate costumes was a huge miss for her. She’s too old for the personas. Now that she’s back with Warner, it sounds as if we’re going to get some re-releases. I would love to hear her dust off some unreleased stuff, or re-arrange some bigger hits. And ditch the hip hop and rap. And grills.

[quote]And ditch the hip hop and rap. And grills.

And the fake ass. And the bloated face. And the fishnets. And the rambling instagram videos. And the affected accent.

Those of us in Hell’s Kitchen revere “Confessions” even more than we revere vodka sodas, beards, or side-parted undercuts.

I still say keep it together was her best song

My favorite Madonna songs are plain ballads with good classic structure and straight-forward production, and propulsive CLUB sounds. Not even disco - has to be harder and fringier - CLUB. How hard is that to do, Madge? Get the right composers and producers and push it push it to perfection. Sheesh.

She posted yesterday that she’s been working on 50 remixes, so guessing that’s going to be what Warner releases with the re-issues over the next while.

I think maybe she realized nobody wants to her new music and that she needs to promote her older stuff because that's what made her famous. Not this Madame X shit.

Yes that's what she realized. And the she realized that her Bois de Boulogne hooker looks need to retire. And then she realized....

I agree with one of the posters above who said that the beginning of the end was the gap between Hard Candy and MDNA from 2008-2012. In that space of time we saw the rise of Katy, Rihanna, Taylor, Gaga et al and Madonna needed to come back with a really strong record to show who was really “the queen” and MDNA just wasn’t it. It has some good songs and I saw the tour three times and at the time I kind of enjoyed her bitchy jabs at Gaga and the overall darkness and theatricality of that tour, but it didn’t have the impact it should have had at all. Once the MDNA era was over she discovered Instagram and it’s been downhill ever since.

Her debut aged so well. It's very minimalistic compared to her subsequent overproduced 80s albums like True Blue and Like A Prayer. She works the best with minimal and unpretentious sounds like with Erotica and Bedroom Stories. Ray of Light was overproduced to me and dated.

I liked this one too from Like A Virgin. Niles Rodger was a genius to collaborate with.

She was the queen of fun girly dance-pop. Songs like Causing a Commotion sounded so effortless. We all wanted to join her party.

R19 thats exactly right. Fun, pop dance tunes. Thats why its especially grating when she starts this "artists are here to disturb the peace" shit as if she's fucking Isadora Duncan.

I love Angel underrated song

Her first tour looked so fun. She really worked it with her dance movies. And she actually came across as somewhat sweet and sincere.

*And she seemed appreciative of her audience.*

What a difference a few decades makes.

She's effective in Lucky Star there. Despite the cruddy control of her voice. She was so adorably DUMPY. But she has good moves - for instance her high kick. And we forgave the meager voice - there was some moxy and charm.

Also those two boys dancing with her are simple and cute!

I've always wished she would just put out a straightforward, chronological singles compilation, with all the songs in their original mixes. Even with the inevitable ups and downs it would be quite a body of work. The only problem is that for maximum effectiveness it would have to end after Confessions, and she probably doesn't want to admit the last 15 years have been a wash.

Why didn't she just come up with a Christmas song she could re-release every year like that fat lazy pig Mooriah??

Madonna tried and they didn't hit.

I love her performance of "Everybody"

R49 Thank you for the correction. I was certain YOU'LL SEE was Babyface but it was indeed David Foster. The video for YOU'LL SEE was a sequel to TAKE A BOW and I'd suggest super producer Foster borrowed a lot of elements and inspiration from Take A Bow. Take a Bow was one of her biggest hits ever but it's far more like Babyface's Toni Braxton stuff than Madonnna's. And You'll See fits into that category as well.

I love and respect David Foster's work but I think You'll See is a good example of a producer manufacturing a hit. Whether or not Take a Bow had already done its several months at the top of the charts, Babyface was on fire and Foster is definitely the type to be like "what is it the radio stations are playing, let me give them more of that".

I still think Madonna could have had a hit with Beautiful Killer. She didn't even do a video for it. Mid tempo dance song about Alain Delon. Love the way they introduce strings in 2nd half of second chorus and then have a (probably electronic) string section for final chorus.

I think Nothing Fails is quite underrated.

R130 that was a great tune on that album and I liked the production sound of much of the album though many songs were neither here nor there.

She was not dumpy on the Virgin tour

She is utterly embarrassing. I saw that video of her hanging with Kanye and and Mayweather. Couldn’t be more awkward. Hugging up on Kanye’s new girlfriend Julia Fox 🤮 granny needs to hang it up.

David Cross savaged - I mean, SAVAGED - that photo LOL