Quote:
Originally posted by Nemo
Oh and this reminds me, I wanted to ask this when I found out new members were accepted, but I was banned. I wanted all of the new M stan members to rank M, ha studio albums, in order from favorite to least favorite so I can get to know y'all's taste a biT more.  (this also applies to anyone else who hasn't already done this before or just wants to or whatever) |
So I don't expect you to read all of this, or for anyone to
But I knew that when I ranked everything I'd have to explain myself, and I knew it'd end up being an essay
I didn't include Rebel Heart because I want to give it a full year before I try to discern where it stands next to the rest of her catalog.
01 | Ray Of Light - the first Madonna album I bought, and one of the first albums I ever bought from anyone, back in 2004. So there's the nostalgia factor for one. But I also consider this to be her most melodically rich album with her best vocal performances. It's a cinematic, widescreen journey whose emotional and musical intensity are matched in my book only by...
01 | Erotica - tied for first. This is actually the first Madonna album I ever heard in full, and I heard it on my headphones in the office at home around 1am; I can't imagine a better introduction to this record. The best part about my relationship with Erotica is that, as time passes, I find new reasons to love the album, new little instrumental flourishes or vocal tics throughout to become obsessed with, etc. I put on the album and have to hear it from start to finish, and it leaves me the best kind of drained by the end.
03 | Confessions On A Dance Floor - the first album she released after I became a stan. The slayage was and IS real
I actually remember being really irritated the day this album leaked because I had to go to a wake that evening and all I wanted to do was get home and listen to it more
This album is her 00s masterpiece, a seamless and dizzying rush of color, sound, and feeling.
04 | Bedtime Stories - this and Music constantly trade off for fourth and fifth, so I'll just tie them for fourth. The 92-00 period is my favorite Madonna period, and Bedtime Stories is kind of the unsung hero of that whole era. It's often regarded as her bid to stay commercially relevant after the Erotica backlash, but that is a simplification that belies its strange hushed tone and otherworldly mood. This, to me, always sounded like R&B/Hip-Hop broadcast from a dark Twilight Zone corner of Top 40 radio; the trappings *seem* familiar enough, but something is off, there's an essential haunting "apartness" to this album I can't put my finger on, and that makes it an enchanting enigma.
04 | Music - Music has a similarly spooky atmosphere, but it's more rootsy and witchy. Again, this is a pop superstar at the height of her powers delivering an album that sounded like nothing else on the radio at the time - as it turned out, it's sounded like nothing since. Because of that we can treasure Music as its own quirky suite of songs, our ears unsullied because no one else ever thought to co-opt its distinct, nervy quality.
06 | Like A Prayer - I KNOW! At least it's still in the top half. I of course regard Like A Prayer as a great album, it's just that I enjoy the above five more. But Like A Prayer does feature three of Madonna's most brilliant singles (yes, I'm including the resplendent Cherish), and several of her most fascinating, adventurous, and eclectic earlier moments. Promise To Try is a criminally ignored highlight in Madonna's catalog, brought to life by Madonna in a vocal performance that proves that hitting all the high notes in the world is never a worthy substitute for actually understanding every word you sing.
07 | American Life - Like Erotica, American Life opens itself more to you the more time you spend with it. A song you may have ignored when you were 15 suddenly becomes magic when you're 25. Here Madonna dances at the absolute limits of commercial pop, if not diving off the cliff altogether. Love Profusion and X-Static Process are two of her loveliest latter-day works, Nobody Knows Me is an almost-scary, claustrophobic assault... there are some tracks I find rather forgettable, and the album does lack that clear transcendent, inspired piece of radio candy, but I respect that she wasn't going for that on this album, and in a few years, those tracks I find forgettable now may be among my favorite works of hers.
08 | True Blue - True Blue has a bunch of hit singles and some pretty regrettable filler as well. Truth be told, I don't like Papa Don't Preach, and I tolerate La Isla Bonita like a father tolerates his daughter's husband who comes over and drinks all the beer without asking. That being said, Live To Tell is obviously brilliant, I've grown very close with the title track this past year, and Open Your Heart stays being my favorite Madonna song of all times.
09 | MDNA - I actually would rank this higher if I were using my own version of the album, but that's against the rules
Lots of good songs here, I'll bop to them on purpose
But I don't like the flow of the album, some of the best songs are relegated to the deluxe while some questionable messes make the standard edition, and again - there's no "Holy **** this song is ICONIC" moment. And it represents an era of Madonna flailing a big creatively as she tries to find her niche in a landscape that doesn't necessarily welcome her with open arms.
10 | Madonna - It bores me. I know that some of her greatest singles are here and I think that's nice, and of those I only like Borderline. The album has Madonna's signature attitude written all over it though, especially on Burning Up and Holiday, so I respect it as a full piece, A Portrait Of The Artist Arriving On The Scene Already Formed.
11 | Like A Virgin - I like the title track (and only in the past year), the end.
No seriously, it's just such a filler-heavy album, I even regard Angel and Dress You Up as hit filler
Her spirit sprinkles itself over the whole affair though, so I can give the album props on that score. But I don't want to listen to it.
12 | Hard Candy - I get that a lot of fans love this album and actually see this as a return to form for her after years in a wilderness of pretension, and that's great. I don't hear it. I hear an ugly, skanky little album that violently and totally broke a near-20 year streak of one great record after the next, each so sure of its own musical and dramatic integrity. I rank it lowest because I feel that it not only lacks good songs, it lacks a soul.
It's one of my faves.