So, I'm looking at a double disc collection of Madonna songs and I have three different thoughts running through my head as I prepare for this review. The first is that I really don't mind Madonna, except for the fact I can't stand "Dance" music. Oh sure, some songs I'm really going to rip into, but there are other tracks on here I really do like.The next thought to go through my mind is if I have to listen to another gay guy tell me what a genius madonna is I'm going to punch him in the face for being a biggotted, fascist, yuppie bitch. Madonna is no better than Gene Simmons of Kiss, which I constantly hear the gay community bash. She's whoring herself for the money, and trying to justify it by saying that it's self exploitation. Whoring is whoring and at least Gene is honest about his. Other than that they pretty much are the same. Well, if you don't include the part about the different styles of music.
The last thought is that most of these songs are so much cooler to listen to on the album I'm currently going to refer to as The Discoball Tour, but that's a different review for another time. That was a very shocking revelation of enjoyment.
The album opens with Hung Up, which isn't a bad song.
After that it's on to Music, which I like when it's the cover by Canadian group Out Of Your Mouth. The original, which is on here, is okay, but I'm not into that music, so it doesn't do much for me.
I will give Vogue the props it deserves because it's a good song, but it was so over played that I have so little use for it now. Although there is something about watching a bunch of drunk women do the Vogue 20 years or so later.
Okay, so Madonna decided to record a song with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland called 4 Minutes. It is a giant piece of shit. I mean it's a steaming pile that Madonna should be ashamed of herself for releasing. It's almost as bad as if Madonna had tried rapping. Oh, wait. that diatribe is still coming.
Holiday is cute, classic Madonna. This is the type of stuff I can understand girls cranking in their cars while driving along the with the top down, or dancing around the house singing and dancing with a broom. This is good fun Pop music.
Everybody is Madonna's very first single. By today's standards it sounds like a bank of little Casio keyboards used to make the music, while Madonna overdubs lyrics. If you watch How I Met Your Mother, you'll understand my reference of, Robin Sparkles was born in this song.
Do I really need to talk about Like A Virgin? Go rent Resevoir Dogs, or listen to the soundtrack, to get the best review of this song ever. Better yet, you can read it here.
MR. BROWN - What the fuck was I talking about ?
MR. ORANGE - You said "True Blue" was about a guy, you said it's a girl who meets a nice guy, But "Like a Virgin" was a metaphor for big dicks.
MR. BROWN - Ok, let me tell ya what "Like a Virgin"'s about. It's all about this cooze who's a regular fuck machine. I'm talking, morning, day,night, afternoon, Dick, dick,dick, dick, dick,dick, dick, dick, dick.
MR. BLUE - How many dicks is that?
MR. WHITE - A lot.
MR. BROWN - Then one day she meets a John Holmes motherfucker, and it's like, whoa baby. I mean, this cat is like Charles Bronson in "The Great Escape." He's diggin tunnels. Now she's gettin this serious dick action, She's feelin something she ain't felt since forever. Pain. Pain
JOE - Chew? Toby Chew? No.
MR. BROWN - It hurts. It hurts her. It shouldn't hurt. You know, her pussy should be Bubble-Yum by now. But when this cat fucks her, it hurts. It hurts like it did the first time. You see the pain is reminding a fuck machine what is once like to be a virgin. Hence, "Like a Virgin."
After that it's on to Into The Groove. Once again this is a bit of a dance basic, but I totally get it. "Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free / At night I lock the doors, where no one else can see / I'm tired of dancing here all by myself / Tonight I wanna dance with someone else". I mean I personally always used the excuse, "I'm a drummer, I don't dance." But, this song does bring about that inner feeling that makes you wanna get up and move.
Track nine on this collection was my dirty little secret right up until this get's published. Like A Prayer has been my favourite Madonna song since is first came out. I loved the video with all the burning crosses, and black Voodoo lords and everything else about it that was totally Metal. Sure, musically there's nothing Metal about it, but I don't give a shit. Musically it's very rich and diverse in it's very limited capacity. Synthisizers are only so good, by themselves. But this song ends up on my Mp3 player pretty regularly.
Now if you can't tell, this collection has been mixed up, which I like. Sometimes I don't mind when a best of package follows years of release, but having it mixed up though out 2 CDS is much better in this case. If it had been done in order like Elton John's Greatest Hits 1970-2002, I would never listen to the second disc. There's only a hand full of songs after 1990 I'll even admit to tolerating.
Ray Of Light is one of those songs. It's not that I like it. I don't. It's gay club trash, as far as I'm concerned. Also that's meant as being very literal, not as a negative cheap shot. This isn't like that Moby techno crap. It's more like that Madonna crap you always hear in gay clubs, that you can at least nod your head to.
Sorry (the song) pretty much follows what I just said, and is the next track. I'm sure that somewhere along the way I'm going to catch shit for the gay club remarks, so let me be very clear to anyone that's going to start attacking me. I support equality, which means I don't care who the fuck you are or what you do, as long as I don't have to go into your club and listen to your shitty music. You throw on some Judas Priest then we'll start talking.
I love Express Yourself. "Long stem roses are the way to your heart / But he needs to start with your head / Satin sheets are very romantic / What happens when you're not in bed / You deserve the best in life / So if the time isn't right then move on / Second best is never enough / You'll do much better baby on your own", has a great message. This was a song that would have empowered more women if it hadn't been for the fact that this was right before Madonna went completely Blonde Ambition Tour and started performing sex acts on stage.
It get's pretty typically girly on Open Your Heart, but this is cute Pop Madonna, so it's forgiveable. At least that's what I'll keep telling myself, while listening to drum machines and K-Mart Blue Light special keyboards. I swear I had a kid's starter Casio that sounded just like the ones in these early songs.
Borderline is yet another one of those songs that just makes you want to bounce around the house with a broom in one hand while singing your littel heart out. Well, it would if you were a girl, or gay, or me acting like an ass in front of my kids. I'll be honest I don't really remember Secret from the 90's. If it was not for this collection I don't know if I would know this song at all. I will say that I like the little bit of Wah enhanced guitar that's quietly playing in the background, and it helps me enjoy the song on the whole. This might be one of the few songs from this time period I don't mind.
Erotica is a piece of shit. I don't care who the fuck you are, or how you try to justify this song, you can't. Let me start with the fact that Madonna can not talk dirty in anyway that's a turn on. She doesn't have the voice for it, and it comes out sounding like nothing more than cheap slut trying to be sexy. Musically this song is so boring. Way to just let the sample play on and on and on.
Justify My love falls in the exact same catagory. I'm not sure how the hell Madonna got the idea that she was a sex symbol, and I don't know why anyone let her think that she was, but they really shouldn't have. At least Gene Simmons has that huge tongue. The only thing huge on Madonna is an out of control ego, especially at the time this song was released. In fact we get to thank this song for the reason that Britney Spears, Christina Aguelera and all the other girl Pop-tarts feel that they have to be complete whores, even if they have good music. This song doesn't have that either, and that's the part that bugs me the most.
The first disc ends with Revolver, featuring Lil Wayne. The song is okay, and after repeat listenings I could see a band covering this, and making it sound a lot cooler. However, this song does give me a great joke. "My love's a revolver / My sex is a killer / Do you wanna die happy? / Do you wanna die happy?" These word are not a warning about how good she is in bed, with Madonna's experience I would expect her to be an expert, but instead the female Pop Queen is letting you know that her vagina is toxic and will kill you.
As I start the second disc, part of me really wants to just skip to another disc for a break. Two full CDs of Madonna back to back are too much for any straight man to endure. That is unless you have nerves of steel, an extreme threshhold for psychological abuse, or have really crappy taste in music. I admit to the first two, but the second doesn't apply.
The second disc opens with Dress You Up, which is followed by Material Girl. These are so 80's girly Pop that the bubble gum powder, sugar sweetness, with make you ill. We can also blame the second song with the reason why every female born after 1970 is a completely materialistic yuppie monster. Seriously, I tell you that Madonna and Gene Simmons have equally destroyed women for the next few generations to come still.
La Isla Bonita is beautiful song, and is one of the few times I appluad Madonna. It's great that a white Itallian girl from Detroit, was able to run away to New York and still release a song that sounds authentically Spanish. At least with a little help from Patrick Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch.
Is there a need to discuss Papa Don't Preach? It's a song about a teenage girl that didn't understand how to use birth control, and wants daddy to just help out while keeping his mouth shut, eventhough she's a complete fuck up and deserves to be yelled at. As much as this is a great song from one point of view, it's a horrible message to put in girl's heads. There are too many teenage mom's that have had this attitude and totally screwed up their kids lives because of it.
I should be fair and mention that Papa Don't Preach was barely written by Madonna. She actually only adjusted and changed some of the lyrics.
I really like Lucky Star. This is such a fun song, and the type of music I don't mind my teenage daughter listening to. It's sweet and simple. Sadly Madonna had to grow up and become the exact opposite of a roll model.
Burning Up is another one of those really old Madonna tracks, that contains real instruments, on top of all the synthisezer crap. This is actually a really good song, and if the Dance element was removed it could have been a decent rock song. I don't care for Crazy For You. I feel that musically this song is beyond lazy. Lyrically it's pretty typical for a song called Crazy For You. I personally have no use for this run of the mill 80's slow song.
I've more or less liked the song Who's That Girl since I saw the movie of the same name on cable. I don't remember the movie much, only that it was boring and that this song was one of the better parts about it. I like the latin elements to the song, but on the whole I find the music very stock.
I'm not sure where I stand on Frozen. From a totally unbiased point of view it's a relatively decent song. Well put together and arranged, but it's not a hard thing to do with computer programming, and sampling. I personally don't really care for the song, but I can accept and understand it as a piece of art that just isn't for me.
I don't know Miles Away. Research indicates that it's from the album Hard Candy, which I only made fun of, never actually listened to. A 50 year old Madonna in a dancer's spandex outfit was just more than I could handle. It's not like she's Tina Turner, and she needs to stop pretending that she is. The song itself is actually okay, especially for older (in age) Madonna, which generally sucks.
Take A Bow is better than most of the songs I've heard from the Bedtime Stories album, but still not my cup of tea. I actually like this song when I'm suffering from insomnia. It's better than sleeping pills.
Live To Tell is a skipper. It's an 80's filler and I don't understand how it made this album, or why it ever became popular.
Beautiful Stranger is one of the best songs I think Madonna has ever released. It's not stupidly whorish, but instead coyishly tantalizing. I love the fact that musically it reflects the 60's feel of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, without it being a 60's Pop song.
The song Hollywood comes from an album featuring a rapping Madonna. While this song has no rapping is does have an oddly out of place accoustic guitar that drives most of the song. Madonna should be shot and in both knee caps and have her larynx ripped out. Then left in a locked padded room and forced to listen to this song for the rest of her life.
When I heard Madonna was going to be doing a song for a James Bond movie I must say I wasn't happy, but when I thought about it, it made sense. Die Another Day is a modern Bond song, but it is very much a bond Song. It belongs up there with all the other Bond songs over all the years. I'll listen to this one as much as I'd listen to Live And Let Die. Although I personally don't put either on.
Don't Tell Me is a pretty typical song. It has your basic static vinyl drumbeat, and a bunch of computer generated instruments over top of it. I don't think she was really even trying here.
How does one not like Cherish. This is such a cute song. Once again, if I had been a teenage girl this would have been one of my jams. I also feel a lot dirtier and ashamed of myself for that entire last sentence.
The album finishes with the title track, a brand new song recorded just for this collection. So, basically this is a two disc maxi single for the 2009 song Celebration. Which wasn't even that good. It's okay, but after 27 years (1982-2009) you would think she would have expanded the sound of her music. Instead we get treated to just an update of what the 1982 gay clubs are playing now.
If you are a Madonna fan, but don't own anything, this double disc collection is for you. If you own only one or two albums, I would still suggest picking up this one. That way you can get the best of the crap, without having to listen to the filler crap.
I personally find that two CDs are too much, but then again I find one full CD of Madonna too much as well.
9/10 - content
9/10 - production
6/10 - personal bias
No comments:
Post a Comment