THE 2013 MADONNANATION TOP 40

[acko]

I actually forgot stuff like Oh Father, which I love

Drowned World/Substitute For Love
Secret
Secret Garden
Paradise (Not For Me)
Easy ride
Nobody Knows Me
Hollywood
Nothing Fails
Till Death Do Us Part
Live To Tell
La Isla Bonita
Physical attraction
Lucky Star
Angel
Into The Goove
Erotica
Waiting
Bedtime Story
Human Nature
Jump
Future Lovers
Beautifull Killer
Burning Up
Everybody
Bad Girl
This Used To Be My Playground
Give it To me
Cherish
Falling Free
Voices
I’ll Remember
Candy Shop
Mer Girl
Skin
Sky Fits Heaven
Deeper & Deeper
Vogue
Justify My Love
Dear Jessie
I Want You

17/40

[Mat.Guy]

Is it just me or is there anyone else who's disappointed that You'll See didn't make the list?

I think it's one of her most beautiful ballads, both vocal-wise and musically.

Me me!

[Dannylex]

Here's a top 50 from Atrl:

1 Like a Prayer

2 Vogue

3 Ray of Light

4 Frozen

5 Get Together

6 Hung Up

7 Into the Groove

8 Human Nature

9 Borderline

10 The Power of Good-Bye

11 Justify My Love

12 Papa Don't Preach

13 Rain

14 Live to Tell

15 Drowned World/Substitute For Love

16 Secret

17 Open Your Heart

18 Bedtime Story

19 La Isla Bonita

20 Impressive Instant

21 Hollywood

22 Erotica

23 Don't Tell Me

24 Paradise (Not For Me)

25 Skin

26 Forbidden Love (COADF)

27 Nothing Fails

28 Deeper and Deeper

29 Express Yourself

30 Like a Virgin

31 I'll Remember

32 Oh Father

33 Where Life Begins

34 Till Death Do Us Part

35 Nothing Really Matters

36 Die Another Day

37 Sorry

38 Lucky Star

39 Waiting

40 Holiday

41 True Blue

42 Dress You Up

43 I Deserve It

44 Physical Attraction

45 American Life

46 Music

47 Love Spent

48 White Heat

49 I love New York

50 DWRY

As you know that place is full of kids and some casual Madonna fans. How different is it?

[Guest]

white heat???

[Skin]

white heat???

White Heat iS GREAT!

[Guest]

uhmmm.....all madonna's songs are great...but top 50......

[jonski43]

Me me!

Yes, me too. You'll See is a great song and one of her best slow songs ever. Better than TUTBMP and IR in my opinion with a beautiful video.

[Guest bluejean]

I love them but the BAT version of LAP is the only one that hits me emotionally. It was a long time before I actually grew to love PDP but I think I enjoy it sonically rather than lyrically. LAV is a classic and I love every live version. Material girl is definitely a monument. I agree with you totally on that.

Impressive instant. Drowned world. Nobody knows me. Easy ride. She has SO many huge songs (I'm not talking sales but content) so I think you could go on and on with the possibilities. I think when people vote on these things anyway they vote for the experience, the video, the imagery and not solely the song. That's why singles with strong videos/images are the most successful...

I don't think that's really true, Live To Tell is not strong visually. Material Girl, Like a Virgin and Take a Bow have great videos and they didn't make the cut. And plenty of the songs in the top 40 don't even have videos. I just think the biggest hit singles are popular because they're great. Maybe you don't think so but then you didn't even vote.

[Guest bluejean]

Yes, me too. You'll See is a great song and one of her best slow songs ever. Better than TUTBMP and IR in my opinion with a beautiful video.

I love You'll See. It's an anthem and was in my top 40

[Dannylex]

white heat???

I Love New York???

[Guest]

[Guest]

I don't think that's really true, Live To Tell is not strong visually. Material Girl, Like a Virgin and Take a Bow have great videos and they didn't make the cut. And plenty of the songs in the top 40 don't even have videos. I just think the biggest hit singles are popular because they're great. Maybe you don't think so but then you didn't even vote.

Live to tell not visually strong. For the older fans it was a HUGE turning point in her career. It was her here to stay moment. She was critically acclaimed and it launched a very new image for her. For the younger fans they saw her on the disco cross singing one of her most famous ballads and then assuredly heard a lot about the original video and must have seen it. Yes, it has a strong image. So my point still stands that the top five were probably chosen more based on hype and image than the songs themselves. Not that I'm saying they aren't great songs.

[ryan]

Nah. People chose their favorite songs of Madonna. If we were to pick songs not from a personal level, but based on hype and image alone, Material Girl and Like a Virgin would have made the list, and songs like Hung Up and Borderline would have scored higher. But they didn't.

[Guest]

Borderline is more a fan favourite than a heavy hitter in the public domain. Material girl and virgin can most likely be explained by the fact that most people are jaded to it. Hung up was a very popular song but the vibe around Madonna wasn't as huge as during ROL or EVEN Music and certainly wasn't a patch on the hype of the late 80's. If it was purely about songs I'm surprised that frozen is so high. Can somebody please explain to me why Frozen is so superior to say, Nothing really matters?

[Guest]

Sham.

[Shine]

Did the people who participated come from several countries ?

[ryan]

They just like it better. Based on some the songs you keep mentioning and questioning, if you had voted, you most likely would have altered they way how the list appeared. It's a bit of a ::gulp::, shame that you didn't.

[Guest]

All I'm saying is that this is not based on personal reception to the music on a sonic level. These lists never are.

[Mat.Guy]

All I'm saying is that this is not based on personal reception to the music on a sonic level. These lists never are.

Mine was. Dont judge what you dont know.

[ryan]

It was based on personal reasons. People picked 40 songs. 81% of the people who voted had the same 5 songs appear in their list. Have you not looked at some of the songs people chose in their lists? Shanti, ILNY, Push, Liquid Love, Spanish Eyes, Sky Fits Heaven, Spotlight, Think of Me...., all picked because someone had a personal connection to the song and enjoyed listening to it. Had nothing to do with success or hype or anything like that.

[XXL]

All I'm saying is that this is not based on personal reception to the music on a sonic level. These lists never are.

Why don't you have a try at drawing your own top 40

Start with a top 10 and then expand from that

Just out of curiosity and share it here post unveiling (as a missed vote)

Purely for fun

[Kim]

OMG GU there's such a thing as people having favourites and preferences believe it or not. There's nothing shambolic about it.

[jonski43]

It was based on personal reasons. People picked 40 songs. 81% of the people who voted had the same 5 songs appear in their list. Have you not looked at some of the songs people chose in their lists? Shanti, ILNY, Push, Liquid Love, Spanish Eyes, Sky Fits Heaven, Spotlight, Think of Me...., all picked because someone had a personal connection to the song and enjoyed listening to it. Had nothing to do with success or hype or anything like that.

Exactly. I treated it like Desert Island Discs. What 40 songs would I want to listen to in their original form. Had there been remixes, it would have radically changed my list. I chose some very random songs from Ring My Bell to Stay because I liked them and many 'classics' didn't make my list.

[ryan]

The proof is in the pudding.

[IslandBreeze]

02) VOGUE
peter: One of Madonna’s most iconic artistic achievements, the 1990 mega-hit “Vogue” stands out as stellar even amongst the dizzying array of successful singles in the starry constellation that is her oeuvre. Its importance, impact, and impressive performance is intimidating to capture in words, so this verbal exploration will no doubt fall miserably short of the grandeur of “Vogue.”
Madonna and Shep Pettibone set the mood with a daring and dramatic synth-string intro which patiently adds finger snaps, bass, and horn stabs, along with Madonna’s eventual invitations to “strike a pose” and whispered “vogue”s. In addition to an infectious, uplifting melody, catchy pop hooks, and ebullient dance/house sounds, Madonna delivers one of the most memorable and successful spoken sequences (which we might be so bold as to deem a rap) in recorded music history. Even in an age where hip-hop dominates popular music, the “Greta Garbo and Monroe…” passage persists as a powerful piece of pop perfection.
Madonna’s glorious ode to glamour and the transformative power of dance is – to use one of her favorite words – a paradox: a song that simultaneously commands you to stay still (“strike a pose”) and yet defies your body not to move (“you’ve got to let your body move to the music”).
What might seem on the surface to be about little more than “posing” and “faces” – and thus might be deemed superficial – is actually more profound. The song is not exactly as elitist as it seems, either – while namedropping the luminaries of Hollywood’s Golden Era (and, we hasten to add, placing herself seamlessly in their pantheon), she celebrates the celebrity, but she also lifts up the humble and average (“you’re a superstar / yes, that’s what you are”), democratizing the gilded class through dance, music, imagination, and inspiration. Madonna dares to imagine the dancefloor as a limitless space where there are no differences to divide people (“it makes no difference if you’re black or white / if you’re a boy or a girl”) – for, verily, music does make the people come together, and renews their spirits (“if the music’s pumping, it will bring you new life”). As with the best of Madonna, “Vogue” doesn’t sugarcoat the unavoidable sadness of human existence even when celebrating something joyous. While she acknowledges the darker aspects of daily life (“everywhere you turn is heartache,” and “the pain of life that you know”), she also offers a means for transcendence (“long to be something better than you are today”) and escape (“I know a place where you can get away”).
For me personally, ”Vogue” was the first Madonna song I can recall hearing on the radio and falling in love with. If I think hard, I can perhaps recall hearing “Material Girl” at the roller-skating rink as a five-year-old, but I somehow lived in a distinctly Madonna-less bubble until I was ten years old, when “Vogue” was released. I begged my mother to take me to the record store to buy the song, and my older sister even helped to plead my case to our reluctant mother. Eventually she was persuaded, and when the choice came down to the I’m Breathless album or the cassingle (cassette+single for all you young folks out there who have never heard of such a thing), she selected the album for me, I’m sure (at least partially) because Madonna was less scantily clad on the cover. It’s funny in retrospect – because my mother could now probably see her tactical error in that seemingly minor, but ultimately fateful decision. In so doing, she created an insatiable appetite for Madonna and her music, as I listened to I’m Breathless ad infinitum that summer. I still have a fondness for it, though my tastes also have matured in some ways, and my appreciation for her has deepened to embrace her full catalogue, not merely her representation of a cartoon character. Of all the tracks on that album, “Vogue” is clearly the timeless standout and the most superior (with no disrespect to Mr. Stephen Sondheim, intended, even with his Academy Award-winning “Sooner or Later”). Its massive success is made all the more legendary by the anecdote that it could have been relegated to B-side status on the final single from the Like a Prayer album. No offense to “Keep It Together” (which is a fine song and sadly oft-forgotten single due to the chart success of “Vogue”), but “Vogue” was clearly destined to be a single in its own right.
In my latter years, “Vogue” has become the song many of my female friends will play at their wedding receptions for a very performative turn with me on the dancefloor. While I indulge them, it is slightly embarrassing for me. On the other hand, how wonderful to be connected forever in their memories to such an enduring and perfect song about the joys and powers of dance and music!

Peter, this was my favorite write up. Kudos!!

Loves it!

[ryan]

Yes, Peter wrote some wonderful stuff! I did have to edit a few things down as I was afraid with it being combined with everyone elses write ups it might reach the posts maximum length.

He also did write for Paradise and Rain, but I used someone elses because they submitted theirs first.

[ryan]

Here's what he wrote for the two:

PARADISE (NOT FOR ME)

“I was so blind, I could not see / Your paradise is not for me.”

Madonna has called herself the Queen of Despair, and she certainly knows what she’s talking about. One of the most convincing pieces of evidence that Madonna is, indeed, the Mistress of Melancholy is the multi-lingual, Mirwais-co-produced “Paradise (Not for Me)” from 2000’s Music album.

A squelchy techno-ballad, drenched in mournful strings, “Paradise (Not for Me)” employs a spare, minimal aesthetic, as well as a variety of vocal styles, from gently vocoded sung vocals, to roboticized rhythmic phrases, and even rasps and whispers, sometimes delivered in a halting, faltering manner. This delicate song – deceptively simple, but deep – possesses a haiku-like quality and leads the listener to the edge of darkness – gazing directly into the depths of despair – yet turns around to look upon the journey and leaves just enough room for the possibility that there may yet be a way back.

There are several plausible interpretations of the lyrics. In a general way, the song seems to deal with depression: “I’ve been so high, I’ve been so down / Up to the skies, down to the ground.” A voice of age and experience has difficulty with memory and expresses an inability to remember a time of innocence and youth: “I can’t remember when I was young.” One’s youth is the time of life when faith and belief come so easily, because children are naturally trusting and optimistic. The perspective of “Paradise (Not for Me)” in contrast sees all too plainly the highs and lows of a life that has watched as positivity and pleasure have been slowly drained from it while the years have dimmed the bright lights of youth.

In a broad sense, “Paradise (Not for Me)” is about loss; more specifically, it could be about the loss of love, or the loss of faith, or perhaps a combination of both.

Madonna has used the song twice on tour: once in an abridged version of the album track as an interlude to introduce the geisha segment of the Drowned World Tour, and then re-invented as an acoustic duet for the Confessions Tour, with the French verses transliterated into Hebrew. Hearing a male voice enter the soundscape lends credibility to the relationship reading of the song; the use of Hebrew lends an almost liturgical quality to the song, lending credibility to the religious level of interpretation.

In a romantic interpretation, the singer recalls a relationship in which she felt at home, but which has now failed. The “paradise” in this sense could be a perfect “happily ever after” love story. In a religious sense, the singer could be contemplating the isolating thought that, perhaps, the heaven promised or imagined in childhood either does not exist, or is not intended for the singer.

It’s a rather bleak outlook, but all is not completely lost. The dramatic hinge of the song is the phrase: “There is a light above my head.” If all else seems dark and hopeless, this one line would seem to counter the despair and combat the forces which have plagued the singer: she still believes in God – a Light which offers hope – and she turns her face towards the eyes of God (“into your eyes, my face remains”), as if to infer that she may yet expect the restoration of her faith (as opposed to turning her face away from God, turning her back on her faith).

The verse in French speaks of being surrounded by angels, yet not being able to identify them. The voice of the poem also declares in French, “Je suis cassée,” which carries multiple meanings: “I am broken,” and “I am out of it,” describing both the condition of her heart and her mental state. The French verse concludes with, “I do not believe it,” which could indicate a refusal to accept the latest episode of sadness (“encore une fois” insinuating a cyclical, repeated experience of brokenness), or perhaps, too, a descent into disbelief – a crisis of faith.

Given Madonna’s mother’s strong Catholic faith, and the deep influence of a Catholic upbringing, it is possible the “eyes” present in the lyrical imagery are those of Madonna’s mother, and the disillusionment expressed in the poem may be Madonna’s breaking with the traditional beliefs held by her mother which she can no longer share in her own heart and mind. She imagines her mother to be in heaven, looking down upon her, and yet she struggles with the strictures of her mother’s belief system and doubts whether her mother’s paradise will be able to admit her entry.

To pause and ponder that possibility is profoundly sad. If hell is the opposite of heaven , and thus the absence of God, then “Paradise (Not for Me)” is perhaps the sonic landscape to hell on earth – or perhaps purgatory, at the very least.

Due to its subtleties, it might be overlooked as belonging to Madonna’s canon of works with religious themes alongside more obvious tracks such as “Like a Prayer,” “Oh Father,” “Like a Virgin,” and “Papa Don’t Preach.” But “Paradise (Not for Me)” alludes both to the idyllic Garden of Eden and the eternal paradise of heaven, and heartbreakingly imagines the gates to both being closed, leaving the voice of the poem outcast and exiled – though perhaps not for eternity. Paradise has been lost, but there may yet be a chance that paradise might be regained. There is, after all, a Light.

RAIN

"Your love's comin' down like rain."

"Rain" is a lush, romantic track on an album that many sometimes dismiss as cool and detached – indeed, even the heat of the album version of “Fever” seems to be reduced to a simmer to cohere with the rest of the album. Yet “Rain” brings a refreshing warmth and intimacy to the proceedings, and strikes a hopeful tone that feels absent from many other tracks on the album. After the wry bite and incisive wit of a deliciously dry track like “Waiting,” it is heartwarming to “hear [her] heart sing” again, declaring that she will “wait for the light,” and “wait for the sun” “on the mountaintop.” It appears all hope for love and romance is not gone, which is reassuring. Though we may drown our sorrows with “Bad Girl,” we “don’t wanna feel blue,” and, at the end of the day, we “can’t help falling in love, [we] fall deeper and deeper” the further we go.

Madonna’s vocals are a significant highlight and a central focus on the uptempo ballad, which features full, sweet harmonies that are accented by sprightly synth licks and strong percussive beats. The interpolation of “Here Comes the Sun” arrives almost as if it were a lovely rainbow in the midst of the downpour. This is followed by an equally lovely passage of spoken stanzas which are interwoven antiphonally (“Waiting is the hardest thing…” in the left audio channel vs. “It’s strange, I feel like I’ve known you before…” in the right audio channel). Both allow her sense of rhythm and poetry to shine in a different light – as if appearing between rainclouds. The key changes toward the song's conclusion are masterstrokes and help build the intensity of the impending cloudburst, which arrives audibly at the very end.

The video companion for “Rain” was her first artistic collaboration with director Mark Romanek – a relationship which would later give birth to the surrealistic “Bedtime Story,” considered one of her greatest artistic triumphs in music video and one of the finest examples of the medium. But “Rain” is no less beautiful in its own right, a visual departure from the natural imagery of the lyrics – a meta-film with a soundstage setting that is sleekly modern, if not futuristic, in feel. We watch the production of a video. But even a towering scaffold of blinding stage lights (which represent the arriving sunshine of which she sings) cannot outshine Madonna’s luminous face, sparkling clear blue eyes, and brilliant beauty. Romanek points out that Madonna is the only occidental presence in the video – the supporting cast is predominantly Japanese, right down to the cameo appearance by a prominent Japanese filmmaker as the director of the video-within-the-video. Similarly, Madonna is the singular force of nature in an almost sterile and controlled environment – a flower blooming in the midst of a sea of man-made machines (computers, microphones, umbrellas, artificial waterfalls, et al.), and a voice echoing from the mountaintops with a clarion call for love amidst a multitude of manufactured, artificial, and lifeless items. The choice not to recreate Wuthering Heights (as Madonna originally explained the track to Romanek) makes the video less “on the nose” but still metaphorically translates the essence of the song’s message as it nods to the close-to-crass commercial process, yet manages to rise above it in its artistic execution.

The classic image from the video for me is that of the pixie-like Madonna floating above a sea of open umbrellas with her face upturned to the falling rain. It is enduring and endearing: at once a genius still photograph that magically moves with the modern, reserved elegance of Martha Graham-inspired choreography, and an almost post-modern homage to the moment of complete abandon when Gene Kelly swoons and swings soaking wet around a lamppost in Singin’ in the Rain, his heart swollen with love. That’s the image I see when I hear “Rain,” and it’s the feeling that I can almost allow to fill my own broken heart when Madonna invites me, too, to “surrender to [her], to love” in “Rain.” Yes, love can indeed be “raised from the ground” with the heaven-sent rains, summoned by the voice of an angel.

Erotica overall is dark – sometimes sad (“In This Life” “Bad Girl”), angry (“Thief of Hearts” “Bye, Bye, Baby”), and frustrated (“Why’s It So Hard?” “Words”). Only “Deeper and Deeper” and “Rain” shine like beacons in the nighttime of this album – though it’s telling that even these are attended by shadows: The sensation of “Deeper and Deeper” is that of falling, descending ever deeper (and the video that accompanies it descends into a dark, occult world, culminating with a vision of innocence forever lost); the hope figured in “Rain” is not the light of pure sunshine, but dark clouds, thunder, and raindrops. Both fit well on this overcast album (which is not bad – please don’t misunderstand). But the luster of these dark gems glitters and glows with a warmth where the rest of the album seems to sparkle from a frosty veneer of icy crystals. I always enjoy wallowing with Madonna in sorrow, but the presence of these two fertile tracks (along with the mysterious “Secret Garden”) in an otherwise barren landscape of pain and lovelessness provides a reassurance that there is hope even in the darkest of life’s chapters.

[Guest]

Why don't you have a try at drawing your own top 40

Start with a top 10 and then expand from that

Just out of curiosity and share it here post unveiling (as a missed vote)

Purely for fun

I tried and it was a disaster. It was like asking somebody with multiple personalities the meaning of life.

I don't want to sound like a snob but it's much too simpleton to me to rate songs in this kind of way. That sounds ascerbic but I honestly don't really understand that way of thinking at all. I don't care about record sales, charts, critical reception or any of that shit. What I love about music is the connection between me and the artist and what evolves from that. Obviously Madonna is hugely important in my life. I truly adore her work and what she stands for. If her music didn't touch me I wouldn't bother at all. I'm not her fan because she's intoxicatingly gorgeous, beautiful and funny. Those are all just wonderful bonuses to the work she's made which has in many cases moved me deeply and makes me THINK. With that in mind how can I make a list which compares gambler to nothing really matters?

[ryan]

I tried to help you out! You don't really need to compare songs, nor do you have to rate anything. It was clearly stated that rating wasn't required btw. If you still need help I'm here for ya!

You can always do a 70 day challenge where you can post the song that your really liking that day. Once you've reached 40 different songs you can stop and share your list

[Skin]

Still shocked Papa Don't Preach and especially Open Your Heart weren't higher.

I am just being biased though since Open Your Heart is one of my top 5 favorite Madonna songs ever.

Hope one day she performs it on tour proper again.