{"id":41765,"date":"2009-11-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/celebration\/"},"modified":"2009-11-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T00:00:00","slug":"celebration","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/celebration\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

I would never count myself as one of Madge\u2019s fans. I sometimes wonder what it is about her that so many people find completely intoxicating. She gives terrible interviews; she always seems so guarded and rarely makes eye contact with either the interviewer or her audience. She makes terrible movies, except for a fluke here and there, and in my opinion, her best days were some time ago. There is, however, one thing she does really well: pop music. In the world of pop, she is The Queen and always will be. Her sheer determination and uncompromising ambition allowed her to claw her way to the pinnacle of the fickle pop market and stay there for quite some time.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

As far as I\u2019m concerned, though, she hasn\u2019t made a great album since 1992\u2019s Erotica<\/i>, and if her last four misguided efforts are anything to go by (Music<\/i>, American Life<\/i>, Confessions On A Dance Floor<\/i> <\/i>and Hard Candy<\/i>), then her glory days could well and truly be over. This set highlights all of her hits and misses from those endeavors, but they are overwhelmingly eclipsed by her stunning pop gems of the ’80s. It\u2019s a good thing she chose to label this Celebration<\/i> instead of a \u201cGreatest Hits\u201d package, because most of her recent material doesn\u2019t hold a candle to her earlier work.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This deluxe edition spans two discs and no less than thirty-six tracks, including two new songs.\u00a0 Of those new ones, \u201cRevolver\u201d is just a generic dance track of the sort that has littered her work of late, but \u201cCelebration\u201d is more in-line with the Madonna of old, save for some sonic wizardry. Neither is particularly memorable, though, and they only add to the mediocrity of her recent work. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Of that recent work, \u201cSorry\u201d is the clear standout, although it doesn\u2019t have much in the way of competition. \u201cMiles Away,\u201d \u201c4 Minutes,\u201d \u201cDon\u2019t Tell Me\u201d and \u201cDie Another Day\u201d are all lame attempts at trying to remain relevant. The trashy \u201cMusic\u201d and cunning \u201cHung Up\u201d also lack any of the real inspiring qualities that Madonna is so famous for. If you took away Abba\u2019s \u201cGimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight) from \u201cHung Up,\u201d you wouldn\u2019t even have a song left. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So that leaves me with twenty-seven true pop gems that help to make up for the nonsense of all the previously mentioned tracks in one explosion of absolute pop mania. Although there is a healthy mix of remixed and edited versions of these songs, they have lost none of their original luster.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Thankfully, that criminally insipid remix of Madonna\u2019s greatest moment \u201cLike A Prayer\u201d from Immaculate Collection <\/i>has been traded for the original version here. It remains one of the greatest pop songs of all time and I never get tired of hearing it. \u201cVogue\u201d is cooler than cool and can still fill any dance floor in any land. \u201cHoliday,\u201d \u201cEverybody\u201d and \u201cBurning Up\u201d represent Madge\u2019s early days spent in NYC, hell-bent on a life of fame and fortune. She has never been a great singer, but her youthful voice is quite charming and these cuts stand up amazingly well today.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

More prime hits flow from her mega-selling 1986 release, True Blue<\/i>. The poignant \u201cPapa Don\u2019t Preach\u201d and the infectious \u201cOpen Your Heart\u201d are killer songs that never age, while \u201cLive To Tell\u201d remains Madonna\u2019s best ballad to date. \u201cLa Isla Bonita\u201d is genius \u2013 no more needs to be said. \u201cInto The Groove\u201d sounds great, too, and I\u2019m even beginning to enjoy a couple of songs I\u2019ve always hated. \u201cMaterial Girl\u201d was so tacky, but along with \u201cLike A Virgin,\u201d I can see that they were clearly two very important songs for her, and they have stood the test of time rather well.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Madonna\u2019s sex-crazed-nympho phase is given face time with the brilliant \u201cErotica\u201d and \u201cJustify My Love,\u201d two songs that were far removed from her usual sound at the time. It is a shame that there are no more tracks lifted from the Erotica<\/i> release, because along with Like A Prayer<\/i>, <\/i>it represents Madonna\u2018s best moments. \u00a0Further cuts from Like A Prayer, <\/i>\u201cCherish\u201d and \u201cExpress Yourself,\u201d are here and keep the momentum flowing nicely. And though I\u2019ve always felt that Ray Of Light <\/i>was overrated, the title track and \u201cFrozen\u201d are truly inspired moments that, along with \u201cSecret\u201d and \u201cTake A Bow\u201d (from Bedtime Stories<\/i>), showcase the almost-best of her ’90s output. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So whether it\u2019s the vintage Madonna of \u201cLucky Star\u201d and \u201cBorderline\u201d or the hipster middle-age Madge of \u201cBeautiful Stranger\u201d that most impresses you, there are plenty of reasons to enjoy this collection. Even the most casual (and cynical) observers like myself can\u2019t deny that this set contains some of the best pop music of the last three decades.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5663],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41765","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-madonna","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41765"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41765"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}