Setting aside real life drama and such, could I get an honest opinion on her music?

Setting aside real life drama and such, could I get an honest opinion on her music?

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Get Ray of Light, a compilation, and stop there.

IT SUCKS!

The Immaculate Collection is the greatest singles compilation of all time.

That album you posted is one of the best of the 80s and Ray of Light is stunningly overrated.

She's historically inconsistent when it comes to putting out quality material, but she has a tonne of great singles and at least two good albums (her debut and Ray of Light). I personally think she was too concerned with image, and as a result she put out some very manipulative and hollow shit in the late '80s and early '90s; this has actually damaged her reputation a lot in retrospect. Her dressing up as a cowgirl and donning a British accent after her move to England didn't really help matters, and it's part of why people distrust her on impulse. But she and the producers she worked with were oftentimes innovators when it came to pushing dance music in an interesting way, and there are few songs that can match the playfulness, sonic freshness (at the very least at the time of release), and general songwriting skill that went behind songs like "Into the Groove", "Papa Don't Preach", "Vogue", and "Ray of Light", which are really four of the best pop songs ever made.

I think calling Ray of Light overrated is kind of naïve, and on the same level as calling stuff like Dummy overrated. It had a massive impact on the dance genre and re-tooled it, spawning so many carbon copies that it's hard to keep track of it all. Both albums might sound a bit dated in retrospect, but it's purely because of an entire generation ripping off Madonna and Portishead. That makes it harder to appreciate those albums, but they're still very good in their own right.

Go dig up LimedIBagels' RYM review of RoL. That summarizes my thoughts pretty succinctly.

retard

It's girly pop for girls and gays.

borderline is a 10/10 pop song

She's great as some sort of consensus for how mainstream pop sounded, at every stage of her career, which doesn't mean that she's good, rather that she's the ultimate pop star. All of her albums are great and tremendously consistent UP TO Ray of Light, and from then on her only other remarkable work is Confessions on a Dance Floor. Be sure not to dismiss Erotica and Bedtime Stories at first, they've got some kind of fame as dull only because they didn't really land catchy singles but they're fantastic mood-heavy albums to listen to at night. Very 90s (key tracks: Deeper and Deeper / Rain - Survival / Take a Bow).

The Celebration compilation is insanely essential on anyone's discography, I think, too.

>spawning so many carbon copies that it's hard to keep track of it all
Such as?

love her or hate her she’s the most important artist to come out of the 80s second only to MJ

even if you personally don’t like listening to her music it’s still important that you understand the context it was released in and why it was important at the time, because it had a big influence on the music you listen to today, like it or not

I wanna take acid and listen to ‘skin’. Or should I do it on ecstasy.....hmmm

bump

Her first three albums are pristine time capsules from the Reagan era. Listening to them recreates that world as if your walking into an arcade and playing Vigilante for the first time.

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I'd rather put on Ride The Lightning, it recreates that era just as well and Christgau doesn't like it, which is a plus.

In fact a lot of gay dudes actually detest Madonna for cynically exploiting gay culture for money. She's a bit of a divisive figure in the community.

I listened to the whole first album and found it pretty stiff and monotonous. "Holiday" sounds far stronger on the radio than it does on the album.

>I'd rather put on Ride The Lightning
Yeah you're not gay or a nu male.

Madonna is also an amazingly shrewd businessperson. She realized that the days of having big albums were over so she cynically decided to release shitty albums as an excuse to tour and there's no other 60 year old pop star around who manages to get the concert attendance she pulls.