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

well, genius in the sense that they took an already distilled and perfected formula and made it into some sort of international juggernaut of inescapability. there is a genius to that.

they introduced the masses to house music and belgian new beat anyway. even if people grew weary of the jock jam aspects.

Suffice it to say, I'm on the Shep end of this particular spectrum.

"Just a Touch of Love" is a monster, though.

^^^ best of the singles

oh man: forgot Seduction.

C+C's masterpiece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zxcU4Yxj-w

well them and black box. who were chicago by way of italy via belgium. or something.

let us not forget: Mariah's "Emotions" and "Make It Happen."

Now we're talking!

I know a disco poll is coming up, but I really want Tuomas to sidepoll dance music c. 1986-1994.

And then make that a main poll.

Superb Tom Ewing review of "Frozen."

In this case, what makes “Frozen” such a good record isn’t picking William Orbit to produce it or Craig Armstrong to do the string arrangements, it’s realising how magnificent those elements might sound together. Orbit’s drum and electronic programming on “Frozen” is extraordinarily abstract for a global smash – a kind of cold, bassless dub approach, where the gaps, echoes and drop-outs matter as much as the beats, which spread sharply, like sudden cracks on a frozen surface. They need Armstrong’s strings to hold the song together. And those strings in turn – a dark, Arctic sea of swells and crests – need the beats to sound more perilous than comforting.

The overall effect is stunning, especially when all three parts – the drums, the strings, Madonna’s imploring voice – peak together for the chorus. The sea beats against walls of ice, the song rises to its full, imperious force, and you feel it must be working – the lover must be hearing. But each time it dies away, and by the end of the song she gives the fight up. Some people refuse to change. But Madonna is not among them.

The bugging out at "Deeper and Deeper"s #3 placement still fills me with joy.

you only see what your eyes want to see

after all these years i only just noticed last month that after the kiss-off "the next time you want pussy/just look in the mirror baby" in "waiting", she murmurs "here kitty kitty kitty". amazing <3

The bugging out at "Deeper and Deeper"s #3 placement still fills me with joy.

― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Wednesday, April 30, 2014 8:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

homophobes iirc

confessions works despite madonna in one sense - you can already hear the stiffness in her voice that wrecks all her work since, and lyrically she really doesn't say much of interest - even "hung up" is just a standard scenario lyrically. JLC is the reason it's a monster, and the reason the rest of the album is worth much at all.

on the other hand i can't really imagine anyone else singing those songs, or how i'd have preferred them to be performed.

― r&b morcilla (lex pretend), Monday, March 11, 2013

well see the stiffness started on ROL! I said at the time that Confessions is where she finally learned how to adapt the post-opera chops for pop ends before her vocal imagination and songwriting deteriorated.

No, it's a different kind of stiffness.

The stiffness of the Evita - ROL - Music era is a stiffness born of studied oversinging. My sister - who only ever sang regularly in a school choir - sings pop songs like this at karaoke. It's notable that Madonna typically adopts a higher range during this period.

The nadir of this era (from a vocal perspective) is "Beautiful Stranger", because it's the song to which this style was least suited.

The stiffness which begins to emerge on Confessions is almost the opposite: a deliberate reduction of both effort and range (in both senses of the word), the melodies as straightforward as possible, and nearly everything sung within a very narrow mid-range.

The nadir of this period is "Celebration", which has to have involved the least effort (on the part of anyone involved) of any single Madonna has ever released. Unlike "Beautiful Stranger", it's less that it jars with Madonna's chosen vocal style and more that it suits it too well, making clear what was there but not readily apparent beforehand - namely, that Madonna wasn't so much adapting her vocals to pop ends as relying on pop to excuse her vocal disinterest.

These eras are not cleanly divided, of course: stiffness mark 2 is foreshadowed in the more vocoder-ish tracks on Music and American Life, for example, but in that context can at least nominally be presented as motivated by artistic ends.

yeah tim otm, the main complaint about her evita/ROL period is that she was trying too hard to be a conventionally "good" or "proper" singer as opposed to the scrappy, hungry chancer everyone knew and loved. imo this is true but it was also fully appropriate to the aesthetic of ROL so it didn't matter. from confessions on the problem is simultaneously over-effortful diction, as if that's the one thing she retained from her singing lessons, combined with almost no effort elsewhere.

'Dear Jessie' fucking rules.

yes it fucking does.

It's one of two songs in human history that is actually guaranteed to make me cry (the other being 'This Woman's Work' by Kate Bush). I don't quite know what that says about me!

1989 must have been one tear-jerkin' year for you!

I like to think Patrick Leonard said "OK, we're done" and Madonna saying, "No, wait -- I have an idea. 'If I ran away...'" and Leonard losing his shit.

― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 11, 2013 3:43 PM

^^^^^^^^

If you haven't cued up the Spotify playlist for this and read through the entire thread in a while, do it. It's complete nourishment for your ILM soul.

So otm -- I did exactly that this morning on your suggestion and it gave me LOIFE

in fact I enjoyed myself so much I changed my DN in honor of this magical thread. I love that Madge brought together almost all of my favorite posters together in one thread.

Also sidebar: I'd like to distance myself from my comments about the vagueness of 'Live To Tell' -- it's a brilliant, brilliant song and the bridge makes me well up <3

Glad this thread was revived.

prob my favorite poll

Most of our posts were like peak Leonard-Madonna singles.

The bugging out at "Deeper and Deeper"s #3 placement still fills me with joy.

― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Wednesday, April 30, 2014 8:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

and this is some corny shit but usually if ppl ask me who my favorite band is (somehow the question is always preloaded for rockism w/ 'band') i say roxy music or the rolling stones depending on how i feel (or if i think i'm gonna have to explain who roxy music were) and if you were to total up who i've listened to the most in my life it's probably prince and according to last.fm the acts i've listened to the most over the past whatever years are eno and miles davis but in reality in my heart i know that my fave, the one i'm a biggest fan of, the one whose music has been the best closest friend to me over the years the artist i'd most want to hug if i met them and tell them thank you for being a part of my life is madonna. now and forever girl.

― balls, Monday, March 11, 2013 5:36 PM (2 years ago)

This is exactly how I feel too.

"physical attraction" is still way too low in this poll

johnny fever did u ever watch Desperately Seeking Susan?

lol nooooope

dude

DUDE

>:(

I think it was just a couple weeks ago I saw it in the ondemand menu and thought "gotts do it!" and then didn't. I am a savage.

The movie drags when Rosanna Arquette's on screen.

true. she's kinda sadsack. BUT
madge is all the reason you need

I MEAN LOOK AT HUH

http://media3.giphy.com/media/1BnOWVuEeDYGY/giphy.gif

https://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m57u1kpMbG1qlbmi0o1_400.gif

https://33.media.tumblr.com/d8d27b031d0ac4486a14894a9da4e2ae/tumblr_nbnqweD4l81snmmclo1_400.gif

and Aidan Quinn is <3

Inspired. I'll make it my Monday Night Movie this week.

You're just jealous
CUZ YOU CAN'T BE ME

I remember nothing of DSS, but its probably been close to 30 years. My husband quotes it from time to time, and I have to plead ignorance as to the reference.

Did anyone do a spotify playlist of the results of this poll? I figure it'd be Madonna's best Greatest Hits collection.

http://open.spotify.com/user/mondosalvo/playlist/7eyfImlZJ6LKMzTmDmN6Kr

let all the hurt inside of you die

would love to invite you all to my place for drinks + Madge listening party

*cries into your carpet for the duration of "take a bow"*