Say which flavour you like and I'll have it for you: Suedey's Madonna top 50

You always know a dark room queen. Unless it’s 679bpm, they fall asleep.
 
We might be into chem sex and Skin, but we’re also into proper ballads with climaxes and drama (such as I Want You and You’ll See). I’ll Remember has no peaks, just a flat line.
 
"I'll Remember" is so... bland to me and has no depth. I get the broad appeal and why it charted forever in the US, but she's had dozens of better ballads where she gives a lot more.

LOVE everything else - especially "Dress You Up" and "Take a Bow" (now THAT's how you do a gloopy ballad) - carry on.
 
RS summed up I’ll Remember pretty much perfectly. Sounds gorgeous for a while then bores pretty quickly, it’s rather strange.
 
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Fairweather opinion: I'll Remember is lovely, but it plays second fiddle to her bigger 90s ballads. It was the first Madonna single I bought!
 
RaspberrySwirl said:
So imagine the civil war you will cause when Candy Shop will appear in your top 10.
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In true TROLLDONNA fashion I decided to interpolate the song lyric in the thread title but I can confirm that Candy Shop does not make an appearance in the top 50. Spoiler alert I know but thought I'd calm some nerves here after "I'll Remember"-gate.
 
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31. Nothing Really Matters (Ray Of Light, 1998)
UK Chart Position: 7
Key remix: Club 69 Radio Mix (1999)

Nothing takes the past away like the future
Nothing makes the darkness go like the light ​

It’s a shame how utterly forgotten ‘Nothing Really Matters’ has become. It’s a bombastic banger of a song with introspective lyrics and a quality vocal emblematic of the Ray Of Light era. I don’t think it’s helped matters that she only performed the one time in full kimono garb at what was meant to be a triumphant night for her at the 1999 Grammys. And whilst she walked off with a few gongs, the performance itself was a vocal car crash and one of my least favourites Madonna live performances of all time. It was rumoured to have been rehearsed for the Re-Invention Tour in 2004 (in the opening segment) but was replaced with ‘Nobody Knows Me’ apparently. One lives in hope she’ll remember it one day. It came with a pretty good remix package – notably the Kruder & Dorfmeister and Club 69 mixes. But back to the album version: that thunderous outro with 'Nothing really matters NOTHING REALLY MATTERS!!!' Nikki Harris' echoing vocal is one of my favourite Madonna outros evah.

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As for the video: Come through cultural appropriation – except not really. Well, maybe a little bit. She was really into Arther Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha at the time and in particular the character of Hatsumomo. So I am not surprised she incorporated that look for the video. It has recently been upscaled and it looks rather splendid. I would like to think of myself as ‘woke’ and I’d say I have zero issues with that video but I can see how some less enlightened folk who are easily triggered would be offended. The level of attention to detail to Japanese culture in the video is second to none. This is not Katy Perry playing fucking dress-up, okay? Rant over.
 
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Ag said:
Nothing Really Matters would probably THREATEN my Madonna top 10.
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You know - a few years ago it wouldn't have even been in my top 50.

I wouldn't be surprised if it continues to CREEP UP the top 30 in years to come..
 
What a song and what a video (fuck culture appropiation!)! :disco:

I must admit I have ”forgotten” it a bit, mostly because it’s from that album where it’s slightly outshined by at least 3-4 ever better songs, but still what a sublime piece of ART!
 
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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
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The 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.

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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.
 
Gaga stans are so bad at hiding their hate for Express Yourself. It's iconic from start to finish.
 
Not a favourite of mine either (but it’s about a thousand times better than Born This Way).
 
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29. You'll See (Something To Remember, 1995)
UK chart position: 5
Key live performance: Drowned World Tour 2001​

We go back to high drama for no. 29 with ‘You’ll See’ – a deliciously seething vocal this time which hopefully will satisfy those that want vocals dahling. Essentially this was step 2 in her transformation into Eva Peron. ‘Take a Bow’ was step one (and yes she sent the video to Alan Parker to convince him, along with the oft-quoted 4-page handwritten letter which is now the stuff of legend.) I remember when this entered the charts at no. 11 and I was so nervous for it but it kept climbing and climbing. It's been covered by Dame Shirley Bassey and, er, Susan Boyle but let's not go there. Incidentally she also recorded a lovely Spanish version of this and there's a clip of her laying down the vocal in the studio and you can tell she's getting a buzz out of it.

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I have always had a slight problem with the production on the album version of this which is why it's not higher in the countdown. I just don’t care for David Foster. The Drowned World Tour version with haunting Stuart Price synths is more up my street but the low quality mp3 can only do so much. The video is basically 'Take a Bow' part 2 but she does look lovely in it. She really needs to revisit this.

 
LOVE the last 3. I would have expected them all to be higher, but then you think what's left to come...

*Spanish Lesson number 4*
 
You’ll See is phenomenal and gets better by time. (Mostly because I listen to it about once a decade and gets reminded of how good it is)
 
Quick funky update:

Take A Bow - 20
Dress You Up - not in there :o surely an oversight
I'll Remember - 19
Nothing Really Matters - 13
Express Yourself - 26
You'll See - 36


Hardly any of my Top 20 has appeared yet. Either our top end is very similar or very different!
 
I don't think I've ever heard Rescue Me somehow :o But I am loving it.

Skin is my favorite album track on Ray of Light

Take A Bow is beautiful, its use in Friends kind of makes me emotional, and it was number one in America when I was born
 
I forgot how good Sanctuary is! Nothing Really Matters is amazing of course. You'll See is great, but not my favorite of her 90s ballads (Take a Bow and This Used To Be My Playground)
 
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28. Burning Up (Madonna/The First Album, 1983; Celebration, 2009)
Key remix: 7" version

Do you want to see my down on my knees?
Or bending over backwards now, would you be pleased?
Unlike the others I’ll do anything
I’m not the same I have no shame
I’m on fire​

Well. If there ever was a ‘statement of intent’ of a Madonna single then “Burning Up” would surely fit the bill. Of course, ‘Everybody’ was her first single and that in itself is another defining Madonna track: an inclusive call to the dance floor. But ‘Burning Up’, her second single, introduced the fiery, fiercely independent and ferociously sexual creature that was Madonna. And nearly forty years (!) later, it still sounds just as urgent and incessant as it did way back then (reader, I must confess here that I wasn’t around for ‘Burning Up’. I was too young).

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It was also her first proper music video and, again, in spite of the low budget, that very essence of Madonna is very much in there. The hunger. The longing. And the emphasis that she is very much in charge. The wanting. It was all there, right from the start. Hindsight is of course 20/20 but to think there were people that doubted she’d go the distance is just laughable. After years of her ignoring it, it made a comeback on the Re-Invention Tour in 2004, and was a definite highlight of the 2015-2016 Rebel Heart Tour. The collective eyeroll in the arena when she straps on a guitar is often palpable but in the case of ‘Burning Up’ it actually works very well.
 
I mean, You'll See served us vocals, dahling. I find it a bit overblown these days (I prefer a smooth bop à la Take A Bow) but it was a stellar moment, at the time.
 
I’ve never been into Burning Up. I mean even after all these years of rediscovering her non-tentpoles, this never ‘emerged’ for me. I don’t know why. It just doesn’t seem to fit into her 80s canon. Everybody is the same way.
 
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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.

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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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