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

No first-place votes 'til no.37?

There were some outside the top 50, but I don't have the spreadsheet on hand to tell you how many.

Excited! Gorgeous images, JF.

Glad to see "Die Another Day" place (it was the first Madonna single that I remember paying attention to as an event or whatever, probably via FT/ILM). I think one of the reasons it's so sonically uncompromising is that she'd gotten any Bond theme pastiche elements out of her system via doing "Beautiful Stranger" for, well, Bond pastiche Austin Powers a few years earlier.

Love this, because I didn't have a chance to vote but wouldn't have voted for most of these so far. Or maybe I ultimately would have! Regardless, love how I have no idea what's coming next, at least not this far down the list. Reminds me how little I've listened to most of Madonna's albums.

Just catching up. Very distinctive images. My favourite song so far is "Who's That Girl," a bit of a surprise I would think.

although I still maintain that her best 00s single is "What It Feels Like For a Girl"

― "Bellini." (DJP)

agree w/ this with the caveat that the album version is so much better than the video (and i guess single?) mix.

I love both, tbh

There is plenty of room in my life for both pensive guitar elegies and face-stomping monster trance

Yeah, I really don't have a favorite between the two. Remix definitely suits the amazing video better, but the album version is like curling up in a blanket.

i don't really pay attention to the song mix at all when i watch the "what it feels like for a girl" video, i'm too in awe of the visuals

don't get what's any good about the video tbh. vocal is just so much more well matched to the original track. i'm assuming it's still to come, though, we can debate it later i guess.

don't get what's any good about the video tbh.

If you don't by simply watching it, no amount of ILM convincing is going to get you there. But really... o_O

Hey everyone! Just got here. So sad to be missing all the fun. Thread looks great so far. Love the pictures.
Only two from my ballot for now, "Bedtime Story" my #8 and "Get Together" my #5.

i dunno maybe the video has a point or an idea that went over my head? on the surface it just seems like the kind of barely coherent, needlessly 'provocative' thing that i'd expect as the worst case scenario of a Madonna/Guy Ritchie collaboration.

Re. "Bedtime Story":

and after two consecutive top fives, one of which became her longest-running #1 ever, she thought she could release an "experimental" single and get it into the top forty.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), jeudi 7 mars 2013 20:29 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought she could too! If anybody could have it was her. She had done it with "Justify My Love" and "Erotica". I think it would've worked had it been the first single off the album.
But radio play was never a garanty after Erotica and Sex.

i dunno maybe the video has a point or an idea that went over my head? on the surface it just seems like the kind of barely coherent, needlessly 'provocative' thing that i'd expect as the worst case scenario of a Madonna/Guy Ritchie collaboration.

It's really all in the details. She does most of the acting with her face. Plus the plates on the car, the water pistol, the french fries, the motel door, the tazer, the zippo, all that stuff. It was like the first video designed with animated gifs in mind.

did animated gifs even exist yet in 2001?

Not the way we think of them today.

haha. Didn't you have to play them in a media player, iirc?

they played in browsers they were just usually burning flames or a rotating logo or a death knight from warcraft 2 spinning around on his horse

http://www.animatedlighting.com/images/SpinningStar.gif

Animated gifs have been around since the earliest days of the internet. Video capture and compression made them what they are now.

more madonna wink <3

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzre74yeHb1qdpp3so1_250.gif

tho this gets me more

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1hfah9djz1r9rem3o1_500.gif

Yeah, that's my favorite one.

this will probably come up when we do the video results but i really don't get how she could be so brilliant and enigmatic in her videos but then prove so hopeless on the big screen

i guess because in the latter she wasn't controlling her vision or something?

I said it on the True Blue poll thread: how can she project so much avidity in the "Open Your Heart" video yet onscreen look the sort of vamp that Carol Burnett would parody?

I'd like to think she was just not very good at choosing material, movie wise? Like she knows her way around her own music choices but I just think she could have been steered in a better direction

don't ask me what

though I still think Desperately Seeking Susan is great, i wouldn't fuck with that

Madonna films I've seen:

Dick Tracy
Truth or Dare
A League of Their Own
Four Rooms
Girl 6 (though I don't remember her)

Madonna films I've not seen:

All the others

Outside of Dick Tracy, which was cartoonish by design, I think she does okay-to-very well in movies. I guess I haven't seen the bad ones, though.

JF you should watch Desperately Seeking Susan this weekend

oh yeah and League is unfuckwithable

I will.

Also, otfm.

:D

JF you should watch Desperately Seeking Susan this weekend

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, March 7, 2013 7:13 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^

nothing i voted for so far unless i voted for power of goodbye im not sure, it might have been #21. i sortof expect at least 19 of my ballot to place, i was mad obvious. i dont see how you couldnt be. madonna is severely obvious, it is the best and worst thing about her.

"Rain" seems like one of those tracks that was all over when it came out but has since completely disappeared from the radio or Muzak or any of that. It is one of my favorites

― ferreira rocher (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 7 March 2013 20:41 (Yesterday) Bookmark

yeah so true, the other day i was trying to think when i last heard it irl not of my own volition and idk probably like 1998 at the latest and quite possibly earlier

despite that (and never being too much of a madonna lifer beyond radio) i have still unconsciously sung raaaaaiiiinnnn quietly to myself most times it rained in the last 20 years

Radio programmers probably felt a certain...relief when they got this straightforward track.

By the way, the songwriting credits are curious. Shep Pettibone is credited but I don't think him capable of the music. Unless Madonna had a ghostwriter I tend to credit her for its melody and structure.

I think Madonna is absolutely capable of plunking something out on a piano and collaborating with someone else to turn it into what it becomes. If she rode Shep hard to get to what she was hearing in her head, I think it's entirely possible.

PLEASE do not forget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJfPgjR_czA

"League" and "DSS" show that she is best not as an anchor/star but as a supporting player, and maybe even as a character actor.

Yeah, she's fine in both of those. There's still the possibility that she'll turn up doing something good in a moody low-budget thing somewhere down the line. Just don't know what the right role would be. Something like Dietrich in Touch of Evil

i refer you to the movie two posts prior. it didn't work out. she's ridiculously good in desperately seeking susan, which i highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it - great new york in the 80s flick, totally holds it own w/ the similar zeitgeist after hours and something wild. danceteria pops up in it and there's holy shit cameos galore (check it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desperately_Seeking_Susan)(see also: No Wave Cameos in 'Desperately Seeking Susan').

never saw who's that girl, it got horrible reviews and flopped quickly, but coati mundi as apparently the villain is tempting. the wikipedia page for that movie has a possible explanation for why madonna never managed the leap despite clearly being more suited for it than say prince: Madonna was ready to take direction for her part, relying on Foley to give her all the cues.[1] He, on the other hand, felt that in person, Madonna seemed to morph into a whole different body and self. He believed the process to be oddly elusive and commented that her persona morphing seemed to work most dramatically in Madonna's music videos.[1] "You'd think that that would be the perfect attribute to have for screen acting. But although she 'acts' very well sometimes, she doesn't push the right buttons at the right times over the course of the film. The failure of Shanghai Surprise had left its mark", said Foley.[1] Regarding her acting abilities, Foley stressed on the fact that Madonna was very uptight and into every detail, determined to have the correct portrayal. "That's probably why it wasn't so good. In Desperately Seeking Susan, when she didn't know what she was doing, she was being natural and at her best."[13]

glad I helped the Power of Goodbye and Keep It Together place. Physical Attraction is my favorite thing on the list so far, "quintessential early madonna to me, the little shimmery synth noise. could listen to it forever" otm

JF obviously doing a fantastic job with the images, congrats!

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

35. "EROTICA" from Erotica (1992) [12 votes, 263 points]

Happy to see all the Erotica songs placing, but getting worried that, "Deeper and Deeper" aside, it will get locked out of the top 20.

when i did an initial brainstorm this was one of the first names i put down but after listening again it didn't make the cut. feel like 'justify my love' does something similar much better to my ears. love the masters at work remixes tho.

Considering how much I love the album, my years-long indifference to this one surprises me.

looking forward to the rest of this; it's been brilliant so far.

http://i.imgur.com/5eFjd2Q.jpg

34. "DON'T TELL ME" from Music (2000) [15 votes, 284 points]

i love how surprising these results are so far? maybe they were bound to be

"Don't Tell Me" astonished me at the time - the second single was crazier than the first.

Heard the Tracy Young remixes at the gay clubs all the time.

feel like 'justify my love' does something similar much better to my ears

Absolutely. I voted for both, but Justify is so obviously the one with a touch of genius.

I kinda wish they'd kept "Erotica" as the "You Thrill Me" demo.