MADGE!

Tom, Madonna did release a ballad compilation a couple of years ago, which is probably why "Rain" and a number of other ballads have been omitted, though "Bad Girl" missed the cut there and "Take A Bow" features on both... "Bad Girl" should be on there, but "Erotica" and "Deeper & Deeper" clearly have to stay as well (of course I'm overly partial to Erotica the album, so I'd include half the album tracks if I could)... the revisionism may have more to do with the fact that it was her worst-selling album if I remember correctly?

Hmmm - not enough songs from movies. Why no Dick Tracy stuff? 'Beautiful Stranger' makes it, thankfully, but not 'American Pie' (er...thankfully, but it was a UK number one, no?)

I recall there was a Russian bootleg CD a few years back called "Immaculate Collection Part 2" that allegedly contained the following tracks, several in extended versions: "Secret" - "Causing A Commotion" - "Rain" - "Keep It Together" - "Fever" - "Deeper And Deeper" - "Erotica" - "Bye Bye Baby" - "Who's That Girl" - "Don't Stop" - "Bad Girl" - "Dear Jessie" - "This Used To Be My Playground". Now that I'd like to have.

I haven't seen the tracklisting, but it's sounding like a disappointment! And I was planning on getting this one too, feh.

This may have something to do with the fact that Ray of Shite is probably the worst Madonna album ever (which is why all the critics praised it to the skies).

I guess I could burn a compo of my favorites since the Immaculate Collection, but who has the time?

No no no no no. Please do not buy this album. It's not Immaculate Collection Part Deux...

I read that it was NOT Madonna's intention to do this now anyway, and positive proof is that it has a cover shot (a very ugly cover shot) from the 2000 Music album's photoshoot (a reject, I might add)...WHEN was the last time Madonna has refused to do new pictures for a project? That's all some people thinks she does best! I read that she wanted to put this album out in spring 2002, and do a few new songs/pictures for it.

But evil Warner Bros...aaarrrrrrrrowwwwr.... EVIL Warner Bros. is making her fulfill a contractual obligation. She owes them two more albums in a few years, I think. So, she agreed to do this now but it was NOT her idea. However, as she is still Madonna, she of course had the final say on the songs selected and the goddamn EDITS used, and what terrible choices she made.

- Yes it's an atrocity that Bad Girl is excluded, for the second time now (It should have been on STR!). But here, see, since Madonna is so proud of her "universally acclaimed" newer material, did you notice how she tended to favor material from Ray of Light and Music? I'm sorry but I thought all of Music was shit, worse than, um, a new Veruca Salt album or somehing (I really had to think, "good" analogies not my thing).

- She presents ALL the Music songs and I think most or at least Drowned World from Ray of Light UNEDITED, which screams"look! here! this is the great new superb-songwriting material, all of it, that will finally prove to you that I'm a gifted talent!!" while editing out all the better, older songs that are presented.

Now I haven't heard this yet, of course, (you think I'm going to waste money on Warner Bros.? ) but from reading about the formats online: 1)she edits Deeper & Deeper, which is a crime since I hope it doesn't scratch out the self-referentiality of that Vogue line in there; 2) she presents Take a Bow in full length, the only Bedtime Story song, I believe, to get that treatment - even though it was already presented in full length on STR, so clearly, that fits her little agenda "hear this charming ballad!"), 3)Don't Cry For Me Argentina which even if it was in its hit-form as a dancey-song would still break any "flow" this album might have had since its a goddamn showtune - is on there as the soggy, slow version and 4) I have read on Slant, even though I find this hard to believe, that she has edited (?!) the line in Human Nature where she says "I'm not your bitch don't hang your shit on me," thereby negating the entire point of the song. Good going Madonna, you're really sly, I hope that works to keep those soccer moms and eight year old pig-tailed androgyne yoga-class-doodling kids who bought your last two albums, in the fucking dark. "express yourself, don't repress yourself" she still whispers in the chorus, sheesh, alright, after we stop worshipping your golden thighs, hypocritical hag.

If you're going to go the hits route, release all the hits; if you wanted a best-of, do a best of. But why give in to Warner Bros. if you had enough power to strong-arm a Sex book out of them at one point (not that that was the best idea ever) ? If you're catering to the people who responded favorably to your last two dull albums by buying them, why put the songs that they already have on here and exclude the older material that appeals to fans? If you're catering to fans, why no new material?

There is nothing immaculate here: no new songs, no Justify, no remixes- just incomprehensible edits, no intelligent essay inside (just some fan's story of how she met Madonna, obviously written by a Warner secretary) and just some pictures inside that everyone has probably seen before. Buy this if you want the hideous cover (a REJECT photo that Warners slapped on, I might again add). It should have been called The Second Coming - a Catholic title with all the implied double-entendres - but I read on Amazon that it does (?) say that in the booklet inside somewhere. So someone in the publicity dep't. must have come to alt.fan.madonna newsgroup long ago and co-opted it, of course...

What gets me is that she put things on there like Drowned World. Madonna, how is this a "greatest hit" ? I know you named your sappy intro to ROL album and your tour after a J G Ballard novel, but the song itself was never even a single here in the US and its video was never shown. Never even a single - and I'm not talking about, like Lithuania - so how is this a hit ?! Not to mention how Deeper and Deeper and Erotica are added here, but Bad Girl is left off....

...but Bad Girl was put on the second video collection, where those two were put on, again to show her in the most acceptable, respectable light, since those vids were somewhat "racy" (if you're from utah or something) and Bad Girl was an artistic, David Fincher helmed melodrama (it's actually her best video).

warner bros. didn't even need to do this with harry potter!

(ray of light and music are better than her earlier material)

sorry for how overwhelming that was. that burst out in the middle of writing a 24 page paper i've been working on for the past 15 hours in the uni library; writing that was my "break"

(mark s you are thinking of sting or someone)

They should've cut "Erotica" and/or "Bedtime Story" in favor of "Bad Girl."

I really enjoyed Music, i thought it was one of the best albums of her career and ray of light had Candy Perfume girl which is a overlooked peice of genuis .

Oh le sigh. I have this, I bought it to listen to at work, it's perfectly good and all but good grief it's poorly chosen and done. Yes, the picture is scary as fuck - I mean, I'm sure there were rejects that looked better than that. And I'm looking it up on Amazon right now to get the correct tracklisting and it's oddly paired on one of those 2-4-1 specials with Britney, another one with a hideous cover - wtf? Anyhow...yeah, these tracks could've been chosen a lot better.

Tom, Maddy did do a ballads album a few years ago, which Rain is on, so I assume Rain was left off because of that - HOWEVER, Take a Bow was on the ballads comp and Bad Girl wasn't, so I think this is just laziness and revisionism, yes.

As for Vic's concerns about the edits: yes, Human Nature is edited to be a "clean" version - they completely removed the key line of the chorus. It's absolutely awful; I mean the song still sounds good but to take out the most important line in the song is a little off. Deeper and Deeper, on the other hand, is not edited much that I could tell, and the self-referential bit is left in, so breathe happy tonight.

If she was going to include Don't Cry For Me ARgentina, she should've included the dance mix, not the slow film version.

The key point to the whole thing, though, is that there are way too many songs from her last two albums. I am saying nowt about the quality of Music or Ray of Light, but rather the marketing behind it: who the fuck is this being marketed to? I only purchased it to A) have a new work album B) get Beautiful Stranger, which I didn't have. There are no new songs on this, so unless the die-hard fans didn't find the import of Beautiful Stranger, like me, there's no reason for them to buy it other than completism, which can be done at any time, not immediately. But it can't be marketed to "new fans", ie all those crits and people convinced by the crits that Madonna has gone "respectable" - these are all the songs they'd already have! It's a pointless excursion into money making.

Sorry this is incoherent, I'm actually planning on writing an essay on this for my blog once I get a chance to breathe.

Now Ally, you know damn well that no excursion into money-making is pointless.

Stop flirting with me, I'm taken.

If you consider that flirting, then now I understand why you think everyone flirts with you.

There you go again, you sassy thing.