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

There were 57 ballots cast, but a mere 106 tracks voted for. Indicative of just how good her good tracks are? Follow along and see which made the top 50. I'll be counting down 50-36 today, 35-21 tomorrow, and I'll return Monday with the top 20.

Instead of revealing the subpoll results before the countdown, they're coming after. Unorthodox? Yes. Have I simply just not tabulated those results yet? Absolutely.

For audio ecstasy, follow along with this Spotify playlist.

And now, let's get things underway...

http://i.imgur.com/KXWRspO.jpg

50. "WORDS" from Erotica (1992) [7 votes, 136 points]

Here we go!

good start! one of my favorites from Erotica, although i ended up only voting for one song from the album and it wasn't that one.

Marvelous start.

lol I was just about to post my own collaborative results playlist when I went back and reread the opening post more closely

maybe you should do some of the subpolls over the weekend during the break from the main results?

Might be a better idea, yes.

This song never stood out for me in the past, but I never really found myself listening to Erotica a whole lot, either. Now I'm pretty sure it's my favorite on the album.

voted for this: the propulsion + the typewriter clacking at the end (and the way when the typewriter comes in it retroactively makes portions of the beat sound like abstract digitized typewriters clacking)

http://i.imgur.com/n75d0Ii.jpg

49. "I'LL REMEMBER" from the motion picture soundtrack With Honors (1994) [6 votes, 142 points]

didn't expect "words" to place! i love it, but there's eight or so erotica tracks i'd think of voting for before that

i'm just as excited for the images used as the results right now, they look awesome!

WHOA GREAT IMAGES

omg booming start. I love Words! and yeah AWESOME work with the images JF, rollout does not disappoint.

I've done my stretches, got my legwarmers and my leotard on, let's DO this

psyched for this. we not having links tho? i suppose it's just as easy to search regardless.

this is an all-Spotify list, see the opening post of the thread

Doesn't mean people can't link to youtube. I'm not doing it, but feel free to take it upon yourselves.

i can only apologise. xp.

Totally, ironically, forgot "I'll Remember." Nice. I'm guessing this will be the poll with the most movie soundtrack cuts.

I almost voted for "I'll Remember" but only bcz the Orbit remix is the best thing he's ever done and I realized I don't like the album cut of the song all that much.

http://i.imgur.com/3OaF7C3.jpg

48. "THE POWER OF GOOD-BYE" from Ray of Light (1998) [8 votes, 144 points]

One thing you may end up noticing is that Madonna is photographed a shit ton with her arms raised.

oof yes, booming images, keep it up

she has really great eyes

the image for 'words' will be hard to top already.

I don't remember anyone citing "The Power of Goodbye" in the other thread. Prototypical "deep single." The sonics are a warm bath.

really like how aqueous and majestic "the power of goodbye" sounds

I also forgot "I'll Remember" from my ballot, but it would have been near the bottom. I was only reminded a couple days ago by my roommate mentioning it as one of his favorite M songs. Then I had to frantically double-check that I hadn't forgotten all of her soundtrack songs for my ballot (I hadn't).

JF, great work w/ the stills - love the typeface arrangement, colors & subtle halftone pattern!

wow I forgot all about I'll Remember.

http://i.imgur.com/WMyto5q.jpg

47. "KEEP IT TOGETHER" from Like a Prayer (1989) [9 votes, 148 points]

YES

^^^

can't decide whether I prefer the single mix

Madonna sez Prince played on the album version.

I absolutely prefer the single mix but the album version is also good

I think KiT was like #21 for me :-( it really is a great song

loving these images sfm

I deliberated over KiT, I so wanted it on my ballot. Glad it made it into the 50. So good!

she made it into an amazing closing number for blond ambition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhndzqzmstc

"I'll Remember" image should've been bearded Joe Pesci, is my only complaint

better:

http://images.larryelder.com/images/blog/TomVitale_080612.jpg

I forgot "I'll Remember" too--a convince-store staple for a few years back there. Good song.

i never paid attention to "the power of good-bye" till I heard the mashup of it and "bittersweet symphony," which remains one of my favorite examples of the form. the sonics are indeed a warm bath; that's a great description. the vocal is another matter. she sounds like she's trembling all the way through, as if the breakup she's singing about happened the morning she recorded it. she's sure of herself, absolutely sure, and yet she's not at all over it.

http://i.imgur.com/GdnmJDd.jpg

46. "DIE ANOTHER DAY" from the motion picture soundtrack Die Another Day (2002) [7 votes, 149 points]

Didn't see that one coming.

"Power of Good-bye" on my ballot (only thing to place so far).

"Keep It Together" one of very few LAP tracks to *not* make my ballot (though I really like it).

And yes! Great images!!

1) stoked 4 this
2) not stoked that it's started just as i have to leave the house and be offline til tomorrow morning
3) fantastic images
4) DIE ANOTHER DAY!!!! - happy it placed obv but SO SO SO TOO LOW

lol so happy "Die Another Day" placed

Perhaps so. I'm unlikely ever to delve far enough into it to find out.

Everybody has styles of music they dislike no matter what. One of my own is early 90s pop-house, and I'm even softening my stance on some of that in my advanced age. I still can't get with much of anything on Erotica, though. *shrug*

Everybody has styles of music they dislike no matter what. One of my own is early 90s pop-house

I wanna offer sympathies, but I know there are people who no doubt feel misguidedly sorry for those who will never ever get into Neutral Milk Hotel.

I know several of those people. Lost souls, one and all.

the name puts me off

LOL, have you had that screenname for the last 2.5 years?

she sounds terrific, and the repetition of the twirl so awkward in an endearing way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffjlH4xHfWw

boy do I miss her lower range drag queen voice

I think she took it out for a spin during "Like a Virgin" on the MDNA tour.

xxpost I changed it a few weeks back when Johnny Fever revived the thread :)

It looks like she kicked ass at Madison Square Garden:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bitch-shes-madonna-nyc-stop-showcases-genius-of-rebel-heart-tour-20150917?page=2

!!

"I'm feeling very nostalgic tonight," she told the crowd. "Do you people understand I played Madison Square Garden 30 years ago?" She kissed a fan in a 1985 Virgin Tour shirt who claimed he was there — for all we know, he might have been the goth club kid doing the cobweb dance in the "Into The Groove" video. It led to the emotional highlight of the night, when she picked up her acoustic guitar for one of her saltiest and best Number One hits, a song she hasn't performed since the Eighties: "Who's that Girl," leading the audience in the question "¿Quien es esa niña?" The question hung in the air. "I still don't know," Madonna said after the song. "I still don't know. I think I'm not supposed to know — maybe that's what life's about, figuring out who the fuck you are."

:D

omg

http://fasterlouder.junkee.com/inside-madonnas-intimate-tears-of-a-clown-show-in-melbourne/858982

this sounds like a fascinating show, i hope someone filmed it

My favorite album tracks.

Vogue her greatest or close - greatest video, certainly - with Open Your Heart its closest/only rival. So great it subsumed the album that even if (or because) not entirely hers rivals its successor as her second-best after the not-quite-immaculate one that has so many hits on it who cares. So great it spun off a sequel in the very good but at least a little overrated Deeper and Deeper, which is probably not the best on that deep-benched album, which should have stolen Justify My Love from the collection as its capstone, and well behind Lucky Star and Express Yourself, to name some of the better ones that in turn probably place behind Holiday and Material Girl highest among the runner-ups that I insist also include Mandy's More, Sooner or Later, and Where's the Party, all of which I'll take most days over the well-named Borderline (Bipolar might be more like it), too-faux Like a Virgin (which shares a very particular room with other pre-adolescent sonic annoyances like Beat It), or even the somewhat-rut-bound Into the Groove, to say nothing of the Christian (Catholic, whatever) one I have no use for (not the anti-abortion one; I kinda like that one) or nearly all of the power "ballad" dreck early and late. I like a lot of the second-career EDM stuff well enough or better, but, except for the more interpretive and therefore auteurist stuff like Don't Tell Me, much of it doesn't register in the same fashion (maybe because less New York?). I'm fairly immune, for instance, to the purported glories of Beautiful Stranger, which feels a lot more disposable than, say, Independent Women, Pt. 2.

Many if not most of the above preferences vary at least marginally by mixing I couldn't identify offhand.

oh wow "Jimmy Jimmy" is actually p great? and so is "True Blue"??

fuck "La Isla Bonita" and "Live to Tell" forever tho

[oh wow "Jimmy Jimmy" is actually p great? and so is "True Blue"??

um, yes. and yes.

I TOLD U

fuck..."Live to Tell" forever tho

you mad

Get the fuck out, Stevie.

I'm ecstatic enough about Stevie (or anyone) acknowledging the greatness of "Jimmy Jimmy" to overlook the "Live To Tell" diss.

yeah stevie u still need srs help tho

"Live To Tell" is the greatest

My favorite ILM poll: the level of commitment, the writing.

it was the best of times

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 (three years ago

can we do this again

YES

Fuck me, my favorite thing she's ever done, her cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" (off the Something to Remember comp) wasn't even nominated?!?!?!

There are no nominations in artist polls.

Oh.

Flamenco drop.

The best kind of drop

My least favorite major single.

It sucks, but "American Life" still exists.

Oh yeah, Madonna put out music after 2001... I keep forgetting! Now I shall forget again.

Found the second greatest-hits CD at a garage sale last week, been playing it in the car. A kind of sameness creeps into the first few tracks because of the remixing. "Ray of Light" and "Beautiful Stranger" (which took some abuse in this poll) sound as amazing as ever; I think her career peaks were very early ("Holiday," "Borderline," "Into the Groove") and then later with those two songs--lot of greatness between, with some silliness, but they're the best. The one song that jumped out at me that I didn't vote for above was "Drowned World"/"Substitute for Love." I should have.

If she ever writes her memoirs--particularly of the early '80s--I'd read them.

"Beautiful Stranger" (which took some abuse in this poll)

Not enough, iirc.

At least six terrific albums, many good songs. American Life deserves reappraisal.

Ranking with CCR, Marvin Gaye, the Beatles for number of awesome singles in such a concentrated period.

CCR?

For sure.

And here's the last twenty-nine years.. Whoa.

About time!

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/madonna-physical-deluxe-reissues-confirmed-for-2022-and-beyond/

Happy birthday, girl.

What ever happened to those deluxe editions promised?

Happy birthday, girl.

It's amazing how by toughening a few of the lyrics Madonna transformed this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbpqItgBGdo