Celebration (album) reviews

[Guest Danny86]

http://slantmagazine.com/music/music_review.asp?ID=1858

4 stars (out of 5)

Madonna

Celebration

by Eric Henderson

Posted: September 23, 2009

Not bad but Sal Cinquemani should have reviewed it, like all the other Madonna releases.

The stab at TIC, "Hollywood", "Miles Away", Lil Wayne and the whining about the ignored ballads is cliche and sounds like he was reading too much Madonna forums. And way too much attention for "Vogue", we get it, he became a fan with it and is his gay anthem but the GH has a lot more great songs.

[funkydita]

Oh, they're all cunts over there. Even worse than Digital Spy.

Digital Spy is fucking awful. AWFUL. They put their local transmitter and Freeview box model information in their signatures. Do I really need to know that you've got a Humanax digibox, receive your signal from Crystal Palace and are on o2 pay as you go? They're so horribly middle England and provincial and undeniably wield a certain power when they mobilise themselves. They make me want to scrape my eyes out. Rant over.

[acko]

EW did not just give the album a B, did they? a B??? A FUCKING B????

Sorry but I stopped reading the Slant review after his little Vogue rant.. .

Hung Up - Music - Vogue - 4 Minutes - Holiday..it's just the greatest sequence ever..so fuck right off.

& As as some can't b bothered 2 buy records in a store anymore I can't b bothered reading these online reviews.

I mean seriously :

'Madonna certainly hasn't been at her creative peak lately. Hard Candy wasn't a bad album, but it just didn't have that "Madonna quality" to it.'

Is this person still in grade school?..content aside..dude ur not a writer, r u..

[funkydita]

Hung Up - Music - Vogue - 4 Minutes - Holiday..it's just the greatest sequence ever..so fuck right off.

It IS the most amazing sequence. Those are monster international hits, arguably of equal stature, and encompass the 80s, 90s and 00s, something very few acts could achieve (and somewhat negates the argument that her best work was decades ago).

[howie]

another worldwide conspiracy!

Obama administration against Celebration

[infiniblue]

another worldwide conspiracy!

Obama administration against Celebration

yeah, it's cause she was a hillary supporter... lol

[howie]

yeah, it's cause she was a hillary supporter... lol

Celebration - another political anthem

[HolidayGuy]

EW's review was too brief. Shame David Browne isn't around anymore- his IC review was excellent. TIC's EW rating was A-.

The Slant review has its good points.

[agclef]

http://slantmagazine.com/music/music_review.asp?ID=1858

4 stars (out of 5)

Madonna

Celebration

by Eric Henderson

Posted: September 23, 2009

but "Lucky Star" (which, best I can tell, seems to be a smartly remastered hybrid of the original track and the Pettibone remix) emerges as an absolute monster, a Larry Levan-worthy concoction of clanging rhythm guitars, synth atmospherics, and chugging bass.

THIS is my favorite part and I CAN'T wait to hear it!!!

[Shane]

I can't believe anyone would bitch about the "Slant" review. It's an actual review, and takes time to talk about the music: imagine that!

I totally agree that "I'll Remember" should have been included, and it's definitely worth pointing out that the ballads were short-changed. This is supposed to be a greatest hits comp, after all.

But, overall, it's a GLOWING review, and it makes me more excited abut this album than I have been since the track list was announced.

[nevermind]

Although I don't agree with Slant only giving her 4 stars, the fact they've been the first webzine to actually back up their view and give a detailed explanation of why the album isn't of 5 Star Quality, makes me respect it considerably.

[Drowned World]

Yes, I'll Remember - The one song I was expecting to be included on this collection.

[HolidayGuy]

I don't think IR is as necessary as that Slant writer makes it out to be. "Secret" and TAB fit that transition fine enough (though IR is a nice track).

Maybe "Vogue" was sequenced next to 4M because of the mash-up on the tour. 4M doesn't stack up to most of the hits on disc 1, though, so no winning on wherever they put it on that disc.

Least it's on the DVD, though (even if it isn't the highest of quality possible).

[Guest dicktracy]

THIS is my favorite part and I CAN'T wait to hear it!!!

Lucky Star is definitely the BEST surprise in this collection. It makes it sound so fresh. I feel in love with it again.

[lori]

From the New York Post. More of a review of the DVD but also mentions the album release.

Prime Madonna

Her Madgesty offers a ‘Celebration’ of hit singles and videos

By TYLER GRAY

Last Updated: 12:45 AM, September 27, 2009

Posted: 12:45 AM, September 27, 2009

IN the 26 years’ worth of videos on “Madonna Celebration: The Video Collection,” the global pop icon inhabits more memorable personalities than Sybil. The two-disc set of 47 videos (the companion to her newly remastered hits on CD), out Tuesday from Warner Bros., is a must-have for anyone who ever wore fingerless gloves, a fake lip mole, or a wedding dress to a nightclub.

“Thinking about them brings home the huge range of her work,” says William Orbit, her longtime collaborator and the three-time Grammy-winning producer behind “Ray of Light,” the seminal single in Madonna’s electronic trip. The one she’s still on. Her new single, “Celebration” is her 40th No. 1 hit, this time topping Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play Chart. Orbit is most fond of her more recent videos for “Frozen” and “Bedside Story,” though he concedes that the bubble-gum clips from the ’80s “certainly get better with time.” It’s the old vs. young Elvis debate for a new generation, minus the obesity and addictions.

Whether she was wearing a simple hipster skirt in “Burning Up” or flashing more mesh and fishnet than all of Hong Kong Harbor in “Lucky Star,” the fashion she defined in the early ’80s is today’s American apparel. Her gender-bending, crotch-grabbing, cross-burning, rule-breaking raunchiness were the source materials for the pop star playbook studied today by Katy Perry, Lady GaGa and the like. And at the height of MTV’s golden age, she embraced music videos like no one else.

She mimicked Marilyn (“Material Girl”) and flippantly defiled the pristine white paint job on a Datsun 280z (“Borderline”). She starred in her own mini-dramas (“Papa Don’t Preach,” “La Isla Bonita”), and has been a power blonde, a sultry brunette and virtually every tint and temperament in between.

This $30 collection includes every phase — even her duds. The “Live To Tell” video, for example, features interstitial scenes from Sean Penn’s snoozer “At Close Range” proving she must have truly loved him once. “Get Into the Groove,” from her own vehicle “Desperately Seeking Susan,” on the other hand, has some classic images: Madge cooling her sweaty pits in a bathroom hand dryer? Check. Her dancing with that poet-shirted, Flock of Seagulls devotee? Check.

Then there’s Madonna the blasphemous in “Like a Prayer.” “Pet Cemetery” director Mary Lambert provides the blood-weeping false idol and Madonna provides a sinfully titillating cleavage dance in front of a milieu of burning crosses. It’s as offensive today as it was in ’89.

Disc 1 deftly recaps Madonna’s button-pushing era. She dons a suit and grabs her junk for director David Fincher in “Express Yourself,” then straps on bondage gear (or goes au natural) in “Justify My Love” and “Erotica."

Disc 2 is a portrait of the artist as a grown-up disco diva. The fast-forward “Ray of Light” video is like legal Ecstasy. But awkward moments in her pop-culture history are strangely repeated. The video for the Grammy-winning tune “Beautiful Stranger,” written with Orbit, features Madonna making out with Austin Powers in his Union Jack-themed Jag, for example.

There’s plenty of genre-hopping, too. The country-ish “Don’t Tell Me” segues awkwardly into “What It Feels Like for a Girl,” a slice of ultra-violence directed by Madonna’s then-husband Guy Ritchie and banned by MTV in the US. One of the last high points is the leotard-and-parkour fest that is “Hung Up.” Time, indeed, has gone by so slowly for the impeccably toned Madonna.

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/music/prime_madonna_WAz0g35ks3E8jJKe3GnMJM

[HolidayGuy]

Bedside Story? Nice post, otherwise.

[kingvirtue]

is that suppposed to be Santa Claus?

[Queen Bitch]

Madonna: 'Celebration'

Released on Monday, September 21 2009

By Nick Levine, Music Editor

Sigmund Freud, analyse this: "Unlike the others I'll do anything / I'm not the same, I've got no shame." It's a couplet from Madonna's 1982 single 'Burning Up', probably the most obscure selection on her new Greatest Hits compilation. At the time La Ciccone was singing about her desperate plight to win over an impassive male, but 27 years later it sounds like a snappy summary of her entire career.

She hasn't quite been prepared to do anything - though she did kiss a black Jesus, Britney and Guy Ritchie - but Celebration portrays Madonna as anything but chicken. The music here is pop at its most varied and adventurous, cherry-picking elements of house, disco, electronica, R&B, soul and 60s psychedelia while rarely forgetting the importance of a big fat hook. She may have a fondness for rhyming "wait" with "hesitate", but Madonna also scored massive hits singing about child abuse ('Live To Tell'), teen pregnancy ('Papa Don't Preach') and S&M ('Erotica').

What isn't here, of course, could fill another disc and then some. It's easy to quibble with Celebration's tracklisting - where are 'Deeper And Deeper' and 'True Blue'? What happened to the ballads? How the hell did 'Miles Away' make the grade? - but everything truly vital is included. Fans will sneer at some of the edits, and the sequencing isn't always spot on, but it's hard to feel short-changed by a 36-track compilation on which half the songs could legitimately be called iconic. How's this for an opening quintet: 'Hung Up', 'Music', 'Vogue', '4 Minutes', 'Holiday'?

It almost goes without saying that most of the tunes are brilliant. Pop doesn't get more thrilling than the choir breakdown in 'Like A Prayer', more provocative than the moment you think she's going to drop the F-bomb in 'Erotica', or more moving than the first minute of 'Frozen'. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in such exalted company the two new tracks don't exactly sparkle. The title track and single is a perfectly serviceable slab of dancefloor candy, but 'Revolver' is the creative nadir of this entire collection. Suffices to say that it features the line "I'm a sex pistol, my love should be illegal" and sounds like Madonna channelling recent Britney. Shouldn't it be the other way round?

Still, the odd slip-up aside, Celebration paints Madonna as one hell of a popstar - a singer who transcended her lack of technical ability to impose herself on virtually any song, a songwriter with a knack for an ear-snagging lyric ("Romeo and Juliet / They never felt this way I bet") and a pop brain with, until recently at least, a seemingly bottomless well of ideas. Sampling Abba, for example, may seem obvious, but who else thought to do it? As Celebration proves, Madonna has always been unlike the others - though it's much more than a lack of shame that sets her apart.

5/5 stars

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/a179300/madonna-celebration.html

Sounds like he's been reading this forum

[SkyHigh76]

Excelllent review!

[Queen Bitch]

@ the comments left by the Kylie fan about that DigitalSpy review.

[Queen Bitch]

The NME review is in

Why Madonna's new Greatest Hits is no cause for 'Celebration'

So Madonna has a new greatest hits out, 'Celebration'. Fine, you’d think – she’s had a lot of them. Sadly, listening to the 36-track compilation, it's depressingly apparent that there have been two distinct phases of her career – the pop nirvana of her 80’s output, and the joyless bandwagon- hopping of her later years. Unfortunately, she thinks both have equal merit.

It would be unfair to say Madge hasn’t touched magic since 1990 – 'Hung Up', for example, is a fine dancefloor-filler. And ‘Ray Of Light’ isn’t bad, even if she was going through her horrifically unappealing "earth mother" phase.

But apart from that, it’s slim pickings. Despite commissioning the most hip collaborators around at the time, (Mirwais, William Orbit, Stuart Price), Madonna's latter records sound strangely cold and joyless, devoid of the warmth that infuses the likes of ‘Like A Virgin’, ‘Dress You Up’, ‘Cherish’ and the immortal ’Like A Prayer’. Hell, even her overwrought ballads from that purple patch (‘Live To Tell’, ‘Crazy for You’) have a certain charm.

One of my colleagues summed up the conundrum recently – if you're at a party and one of Madonna’s early classics comes on, everyone goes nuts. Play anything from "phase two" and the result is completely the opposite: the dancefloor empties, the buzz dissipates.

So while Madonna clearly thinks this collection represents a celebration of her longevity – hence the title - in reality all it does it expose her more recent failings. True, she still sells out enormodomes, but a lot of that can be attributed to an extension of goodwill from people whose formative years were soundtracked by her. There is a lot of loyalty there. Fair enough. But for the rest of us, her career may as well have ended in 1990.

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=10&...p;tb=1&pb=1

[howie]

The NME review is in

the loons will have a heart attack

and accuse NME of being snobs .... when in fact they've given most of M's albums great reviews , up until Hard Candy

[Guest Pud Whacker]

The NME review is in

Why Madonna's new Greatest Hits is no cause for 'Celebration'

So Madonna has a new greatest hits out, 'Celebration'. Fine, you'd think – she's had a lot of them. Sadly, listening to the 36-track compilation, it's depressingly apparent that there have been two distinct phases of her career – the pop nirvana of her 80's output, and the joyless bandwagon- hopping of her later years. Unfortunately, she thinks both have equal merit.

It would be unfair to say Madge hasn't touched magic since 1990 – 'Hung Up', for example, is a fine dancefloor-filler. And 'Ray Of Light' isn't bad, even if she was going through her horrifically unappealing "earth mother" phase.

But apart from that, it's slim pickings. Despite commissioning the most hip collaborators around at the time, (Mirwais, William Orbit, Stuart Price), Madonna's latter records sound strangely cold and joyless, devoid of the warmth that infuses the likes of 'Like A Virgin', 'Dress You Up', 'Cherish' and the immortal 'Like A Prayer'. Hell, even her overwrought ballads from that purple patch ('Live To Tell', 'Crazy for You') have a certain charm.

One of my colleagues summed up the conundrum recently – if you're at a party and one of Madonna's early classics comes on, everyone goes nuts. Play anything from "phase two" and the result is completely the opposite: the dancefloor empties, the buzz dissipates.

So while Madonna clearly thinks this collection represents a celebration of her longevity – hence the title - in reality all it does it expose her more recent failings. True, she still sells out enormodomes, but a lot of that can be attributed to an extension of goodwill from people whose formative years were soundtracked by her. There is a lot of loyalty there. Fair enough. But for the rest of us, her career may as well have ended in 1990.

http://www.nme.com/b...&...p;tb=1&pb=1

its interesting because this sentiment is obviously not alone, especially with the 80's having its FULL ON renaissance.

but, when we get to the reviews of the last couple of albums, they beg and plead for the avant garde madonna. where has she gone? the woman who pulls in the new producers?

and isnt ray of light her opus among those nothing music snobs> its certainly not mine.

its what its always been. whatever shes not at the moment, they wish for the other.

as far as im concerned, theyre right. its always been about the 80's but she still maintained influence, success and great songs during the 90's unlike five year old finger fucker jackson whos probably on their pedestal right now. but from music on, she was fantastic. that, my friends is a fact.

sorry ray of lighters.

[elijah]

for me, Madonna has managed to stay on top and make brilliant records from 1982 till 2009 with some let downs which are:

1994 Bedtime Stories

2004 American Life.

Both albums have been very unmadonna, but everything else have been totally great. She has been totally mindblowing (Madonna, True Blue, half of Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light, Confessions On A Dancefloor), just amazing (LAV, the other half of LAP,I m Breathless, Evita, Hard Candy)or just very good (WTG, Erotica, Music) thoughout her career. I deffinately do not hear any regress, on the contrary, COADF, a recent record, is probably her best work ever.

[HolidayGuy]

ROL is one of her best-received albums, so that NME writer is smokin' something. Then agian, something could be among her best and not contain music that's gonna have everybody at a party on their feet- obviously.

[Queen Bitch]

I predicted reviews like the NME one weeks ago. Fact is, her sales are equally spread throughout her career with Ray Of Light and Music selling more than Like A Prayer in the UK and COADF equalling it. It's the same with the singles, if you look at her top 10 biggest sellers, they're spread evenly across the decades. However, she could have made the album more representative of her hits by not including the dross such as Hollywood and Miles Away - regardless of what anyone thinks of those songs, they weren't notable hits and things such as True Blue, Deeper And Deeper and You'll See were.

I love one of the comments on the NME site that says perhaps her career should have ended in 1990 for those whose youth ended then

[Gutten]

The NME one isn't the real one, it's on their blog section. It doesn't have a rate.

[Guest groovyguy]

Madonna – Celebration, Album Review (Part One)

(4.5) Celebration, released this week, marks Madonna’s fourth ‘greatest hits’ package. Her first released in 1990, The Immaculate Collection, sold twenty-two million units and is the best selling greatest hits compilation ever by a female, sales her latest CD is unlikely to match. Coming early on in her career it very much encapsulated what many think to be her creative peak, featuring her biggest hits from the eighties. It also started the trend for rather cheekily putting on new, unknown songs which are not hits at the time but are released as singles to promote the album and, luckily for the artist, becoming ‘hits’ in their own right. Justify My Love and Rescue Me were from the outset two solid Madonna tracks, Justify My Love signalling the R’N’B sound Madonna would later adopt for Erotica (1992) and Bedtime Story (1994), and Rescue Me looking back to the anthemic dance pop of her early career. Celebration also features two new songs, but we’ll get to those later.

The Immaculate Collection showcased Madonna’s platinum-plated pop period, and although her ballads compilation Something to Remember sold a fraction of its predecessor, it still marked a pivotal need for reflection when it was released just five years later. Madonna had been critically mauled in the early nineties after the Sex/Erotica/Body of Evidence debacle, a backlash that harmed sales of her Bedtime Stories (1994) album. In attempt to restore the gentler, more romantic side of her music, Madonna released STR, which also coincided with her last album for Sire (a subsidiary of Warner Bros.). The charts in 1995 were dominated by singers like Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey, women with huge vocals and power ballads aplenty. STR, a compilation of past and present love ballads made an attempt to emulate their success, but suddenly it seemed like Madonna had nowhere to go creatively. However, after the critical triumph of Evita in 1996, it gave her the breathing space to create what many regard as her greatest achievement, the Ray of Light album (1998). Something to Remember sealed off the difficult period of the early nineties and Madonna never looked back.

Madonna’s third Greatest Hits album came in the clumsily titled GHV2 (2001) - yes, you guessed it, that’s an acronym for Greatest Hits Volume 2, a rather disappointing title after the genius of ‘The Immaculate Collection’. This pointless album was issued simply to bring new fans up to speed, covering the years 1992 – 2000, who had only recently discovered her music through the Music album out the year before. However, with a stupid title, shabby art direction, puerile and not very funny liner notes written by Dan Cadan, and shocking omissions, it meant that for a long time there has been no definitive greatest hits package. Fast-forward to 2009, and Celebration finally delivers the greatest hits album fans have always wanted, but there is a caveat attached; this is by no means a definitive retrospective. The track list was a result of both Madonna’s input and fans who suggested various songs via Guy Oseary’s Twitter account, but there are gaping omissions (which I will discuss in depth in part two of this review).

Celebration also comes at a pivotal time in Madonna’s career. It marks, for instance, the end of her career-spanning contract with Warner Bros. As many will know, she has since landed herself with a new deal over at Live Nation that acknowledges the ‘live show’ as the new currency in the music industry in light of declining album sales. Whether Celebration would have come to light had it not been a contractual obligation is anyone’s guess (Madonna is notoriously against retrospection and dwelling on her past career), but it seems like the right time to reflect on the music Madonna has made in the last three decades. This is for multiple reasons – her last effort for Warner Bros., her ‘R’N’B album Hard Candy released in 2008, was something of a critical impasse for Madonna. It seemed that, whilst being a fairly solid pop-album, it was something of a back-step musically for her, and to many ears sounded like an artist chasing trends where once she created them. Employing the likes of Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams and Danja reeked of desperation – here was an artist past their prime and attempting to restore past glory by recruiting the new aristocracy of pop. In truth, it has left her little room for manoeuvre artistically.

Also, and this is a huge coincidence (especially as this last album has been planned for a long time), it comes just over two months after Michael Jackson’s death. This seems important – the radio waves and album charts have been saturated with Jackson’s music, and many have begun to rediscover and re-appreciate the back catalogue that had been left to dust during the ‘wilderness years’. It is rather interesting that, as one of the very few contemporaries who experienced the same level of fame and success as Jackson, Madonna would release a musical reminder of her achievements to counter his. The timeliness of this album reflects Madonna’s own assertion that she is the female pop equivalent of Jackson, one that I think does stand up. During her, I felt genuine and heartfelt, speech in honour of Jackson at the MTV VMAs, Madonna listed the parallels of their upbringings and gave some insight into what it is like to experience the levels of fame they have spent their lives in. Madonna however is still alive and still sane, and so celebrating her musical achievement alongside his seems apposite.

So what of the album? All the big hits are on there, though I certainly think the first CD is the better of the two as it really carries the weight of her most magnificent musical achievements – Like A Prayer, Vogue, Hung Up, Music, Holiday, Into the Groove, Justify My Love. Unlike GHV2, there seems to be some creative nous put into the packaging and look of the album, employing street artist Mr Brainwash to create a wonderful irreverent and modern decoupage style for the cover and inlay, copy and pasting images of different eras (the front cover photo is a composite of two Madonna images – portraits by Jean Baptiste Mondino from 1990 and Alberto Tolot from 1987), obviously influenced by Andy Warhol and Pop Art which, considering Madonna’s history in early eighties New York (she knew Warhol) seems perfect. Although the tracks are claimed to be remastered, it seems very likely that they have been taken from the various Greatest Hits packages and the re-issued and remastered CDs of her first four albums.

Part Two of this review will look a little more closely at the track listing, but of the two new tracks, Celebration is by far the superior. Like Rescue Me on The Immaculate Collection, this song is very much homage to Madonna’s past glories. Many have stated that Celebration is the sound of an artist clear out of new ideas, but I think that is missing the point. Celebration sounds like a deliberate and calculated lyrical and melodic paean to the likes of Holiday, Into the Groove, Everybody, Vogue, Hung Up, and Express Yourself. In many instances Madonna pilfers lyrics from those earlier songs and delivers an effervescent dance track, given a somewhat modern dance edge by Paul Oakenfold. For a retrospective, this song works brilliantly. Revolver on the other hand is possibly an all time musical low point for Madonna and in my opinion has no place on this album (taking up precious time that one of the many, superior past singles could have had). Produced by Frank E and featuring L’il Wayne (puuuurlease) it is the sound of Madonna trying to be Britney Spears, and as a result is almost too painful to listen to, apart from the fact that Madonna’s voice is auto-tuned to within an inch of its life, to the point where her entire vocal personality has been sucked out.

Where Justify My Love signalled Madonna’s later direction, I HOPE TO GOD that Revolver doesn’t do likewise. I hope that it is, as it sounds, a contractual obligation to Warner Bros. to produce new material for her last album with them, and, probably having spent all her energy on the project recording the song Celebration, gave them something lazy and totally un-Madonna. Let’s hope the rumours of its future single release are not true and that WB lose heart when the album sales slow down. It is for the inclusion of Revolver and the omission of some essential songs that I cannot give a five out of five star rating for this album, but I think it is an album long overdue, and certain to act as a reminder to many fans why they fell in love with her in the first place. Where Madonna goes after this is anyone’s guess. To be honest, she could happily not record another album (it seems like her heart has gone out of it these days) on the strength of Celebration, having pretty much achieved musical immortality.

[Guest groovyguy]

Madonna – Celebration, Album Review (Part Two)

(4.5) Greatest Hits compilations are as interesting for what they leave off as they are for what they include in the final track-listing. For months there have been fake track-listings and wish lists posted all over the blogosphere, with just about every Madonna fan wanting to get their two-penny’s worth in on the matter. The final track listing when it came was certainly not going to please everyone, but in all honesty it does a fairly decent job at attempting to cover the best bits of nearly three decades of music making. The fact is, with almost seventy-five internationally released singles under her belt, there were always going to be songs that would not make the final cut (to the heart ache of many) but at thirty-six tracks Celebration is the most comprehensive retrospective yet of the woman that once sang ‘Don't think of yesterday and I don't look at the clock’. Madonna doesn’t like looking back, and because Celebration probably only came into existence as a contractual obligation, we should be grateful for what we are given.

On examining the track-listing of Celebration, one of the first things I thought was interesting was how it is front-loaded with songs from the first decade of Madonna’s career. For instance, all five of the singles taken from her debut album, Madonna (1983) are included, all but one of the singles from Like A Virgin (1984) and True Blue (1986) make the final cut, as do the big three from Like A Prayer (1989). Clearly someone at Warner Bros. thought no greatest hits package would be commercially viable without these songs. True, the four albums released in the eighties probably constitute Madonna’s creative and commercial peak, but it is interesting that, for someone who doesn’t like to look too far into her own past, almost half the album is made up of her earliest songs. Madonna’s attitude has certainly changed to many of these early singles, perhaps by their inclusion on recent tours, as the likes of Everybody, Burning Up, and Dress You Up were spurned by The Immaculate Collection (1990). By including such a large proportion of Madonna’s eighties output, WB can guarantee that the songs most people will know Madonna by are on Celebration and therefore people are more likely to purchase it.

It is interesting what did not make the grade. True Blue, the song, once again gets short shrift. It was ignored on both the Immaculate Collection and the love ballad compilation Something to Remember (1995) (surprising considering it is one of the best and most unabashed love songs Madonna has ever written). Its omission is mystifying considering it was a number one single in the UK and number three in the US. Angel, the third single to be taken from Like A Virgin, is often overlooked in favour of the heavyweights Like A Virgin and Material Girl, yet it is one of her best and simplest pop songs of that era and also a top five hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Just as Causing A Commotion has been neglected, taken from the Who’s That Girl Soundtrack (1987), which got to number two and four in the US and UK charts and is a firm fan-favourite. Interestingly, Causing A Commotion, True Blue, and Who’s that Girl, all of which were left off the Immaculate Collection, appeared on an EP during the re-release of Holiday in 1991 called The Holiday Collection. Only Who’s That Girl has made it onto Celebration.

One of the first of many controversial omissions on Celebration is the ballad Oh Father, taken from Like A Prayer. Generally considered to be one of Madonna’s best and most autobiographical ballads, Oh Father’s lack of chart success (the first single to land outside the top ten in the US since Holiday when it peaked at 20, and only number 16 when released in 1995 in the UK to promote the Something to Remember album) probably hindered its chances along with lesser known Like A Prayer singles Dear Jessie (a big hit in Europe) and Keep It Together (released in the US-only). Those fans of Madonna’s music in the nineties would be better off buying the much-maligned GHV2 (2001) than buy Celebration (though again, there are glaring omissions on this compilation). Of the twenty-nine singles Madonna released in this decade, only a shocking eight are included. For obvious reasons the likes of Hanky Panky, Bye Bye Baby, You Must Love Me, and American Pie are left off, but the omissions really do say a lot about how Madonna feels about her music in what was probably the most difficult decade of her career.

For the past ten years Madonna’s references to Erotica the album, Sex the book, and Body of Evidence the film, released between 1992-3, are extremely rare. The ill-advised close timing of these sexually-explicit works almost engulfed her entire career, having to varying degrees the same ill-effects as the allegations of child abuse Michael Jackson sustained in the same period. It took her Emmy-award winning performance in Evita in (1996) and the career-defining moment of Ray of Light (1998) to get her back on track. It is no surprise then that of the six singles released from her 1992 album Erotica, only the lead single, Erotica, made it to the final cut (rehabilitated in part by Stuart Price’s makeover of the song for her 2006 Confessions Tour). That is rather sad, as gems like Deeper and Deeper, Bad Girl and Rain are passed over. Also suffering the chop from the early nineties is dance anthem Rescue Me, notably the only song on the Immaculate Collection that hasn’t been included on Celebration, This Used to be My Playground, a superior, self-reflexive Madonna ballad that was also a US number one, and the lovely I’ll Remember from the With Honours soundtrack (1993) which would sonically mark out territory she would later explore during the Ray of Light sessions.

Although Secret and Take A Bow (a huge US number one single) are intact from Bedtime Stories, the Björk written Bedtime Story and hip hop Human Nature are dropped, though big European hits. All three singles from the Something to Remember compilation are ignored – the international hit single You’ll See, the European-only One More Chance, and the US-only remixed version of Love Don’t Live Here Anymore (a cut from the Like A Virgin album). All three singles from Evita are ignored too, quite a surprise considering it was the film that rehabilitated Madonna’s career after Sex/Erotica. Even Ray of Light (1998) is underrepresented, criminally ignoring Drowned World, The Power of Goodbye, and Nothing Really Matters – some of her most critically acclaimed singles. Despite releasing three of her best-received albums since the millennium – Music (2000), American Life (2003), and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), there are some glaring omissions from this period. One of the most upsetting is What it Feels Like For A Girl, generally considered to be one of Madonna’s best moments from the last ten years.

American Life, much like Erotica, is one of those albums Madonna doesn’t like to dwell on. Both of them received something of a critical mauling at the time, but both have been re-examined and are considered two of Madonna’s most sophisticated pop albums. American Life, the song, is the only lead single from a Madonna album not to be included on Celebration (though some might disagree claiming Madonna’s Bond theme, the inferior Die Another Day, was in fact the lead single though released far in advance of AL). For completions sake it would have been nice to include it, even though fans have mixed feelings about the song (most cannot get past the awful rap, which is a shame because it is otherwise a fine pop song). The stately ballad Nothing Fails also gets overlooked, but again was a minor hit (probably due to a lack of accompanying video and marketing by the label). Get Together is perhaps my favourite of the Confessions singles, but again doesn’t quite make the grade, making way for big hits Hung Up and Sorry.

The most surprising omission comes towards the end of Madonna’s career. Give It To Me, possibly the best cut from Hard Candy (2008) – my least favourite Madonna album – is nowhere to be seen. This is strange, considering its prominence on recent promotional tours and being the closing song for the Sticky and Sweet Tour. Despite being a huge success in Europe, the song charted low in the US, though the inclusion of Miles Away is even more puzzling, considering that it is the first single since the beginning of Madonna’s career not to enter the Billboard Hot 100, and only managed a paltry thirty nine in the UK, her lowest chart placing of her career. Whatever the selection process involved, the omission of this song, encapsulating some of her most effervescent pop since her first album, seems like a gross error that can only be rectified in the future with a more comprehensive greatest hits albums that WB will no doubt push when they want to start making more money from their old cash cow who flew the nest.

Celebration might not be that comprehensive retrospective that fans are aching for, but it does indicate how Madonna feels about her past career and the music that she feels she connects to most. Fortunately, the songs aren’t butchered the way they were on The Immaculate Collection, when many songs had been remixed in Q-Sound and horribly re-edited. Thankfully, the god-awful house remix of Like A Prayer from that album has been usurped by the far more soulful original (even though Shep Pettibone’s remix of Express Yourself remains, despite the superiority of the album mix). Most versions of the songs are album versions or radio edits, though curiously some songs remain in their long forms – i.e. the six-minute versions of Holiday, Like A Prayer, Frozen and Live To tell, songs that might be better included in edited form so that other songs might be included. But despite what is missing and what was and wasn’t included, Celebration is exactly that – a celebratory reminder of Madonna’s music, the one thing we sometimes forget in all the hoopla that surrounds her career.

[loomer]

allmusic.com

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jzfpxzyaldje

Single Disc

Celebration, Madonna's fourth major hits collection, has the herculean task of summing up 30 years of chart-topping pop music by one of the true visionary artists of the era. The 18 songs are tilted toward her good-time dancefloor classics, both from her early days ("Holiday," "Into the Groove") and her later techno-influenced songs ("Hung Up," "Ray of Light"). It also adds a newly recorded track, "Celebration," produced with Paul Oakenfold. The only track that comes close to balladry is the midtempo Latin groove "La Isla Bonita." The collection does a fine job of living up to the title -- it's certainly a celebration of Madonna's career and includes some of the most celebratory and thrilling pop music ever created.

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jzfpxz8ald0e

Deluxe Edition

Celebration is Madonna's fourth major hits collection and has the herculean task of summing up 30 years of chart-topping pop music by one of the true visionary artists of the era. The 34-track double-disc Deluxe Edition has an easier time of it than the single-disc 18-track release does. While the single disc focuses mainly on the dancefloor-friendly classics, this edition is freed up to add more ballads and midtempo songs. So along with the songs like "Holiday" and "Ray of Light" that make you want to dance, there are also tracks like "Erotica" for more intimate moments and sweet pop songs like "Cherish" that show off Madonna's more romantic side. It also adds another newly recorded song, "Revolver," to the title track collaboration with Paul Oakenfold that appears both here and on the single-disc version. Both versions of Celebration do a fine job of living up to the title; it is indeed a celebration of Madonna's career and some of the most celebratory and thrilling pop music ever created.

What a shit review. Stephen Thomas Erlewine should have done it, I was looking forward to what he had to say and whether he thought it was definitive.