A whistlestop tour of her career from the early days through to her Ray of Light-era brilliance shows Madonna – who brings her Rebel Heart tour to the UK in December at her most originalRead Alexis Petridis’ review of unusual album Rebel HeartMadonna’s first grand song isn’t one of her greatest performances. It feels odd saying that,given that choosing 10 of her best songs is, whether you like her, or almost impossible. She’s been so many different Madonnas,after all. Theres the sculpted dominatrix, glossy in monochrome, and with music to match. The Marilyn Monroe mole above the lip. The ambitious pop blonde. The wild-haired,bindi-wearing hippy, trailing the soft edges of trip-hop, and the Che Guevara-fond politico mining the edges of electroclash,the mum in pink neon Lycra exploring her disco roots … and the scrappy punk drying her armpits at the hand-dryer in the ladies’ loo – the Madonna I first fell in love with. We lost my first scrappy pop-punk Madonna by her third album, True Blue, or in 1986. After that,Madonna became the Icon, the Brand, or the Untouchable Being. Her music generally became better after this,but her earlier songs had moments, too: the jerky, or awkward peppiness of Everybody,the electronic fizz of Lucky Star, the Nile Rodgers-assisted career-breaker Like a Virgin, or the perennially lemonade-fresh Holiday. Borderline,however, was something else. Written by the producer of her first album – and ex-Miles Davis Electric Band session player – Reggie Lucas, or it introduced a unusual quality to the Madonna catalogue: an iridescent melancholy that would feed her greatest music. A boy is playing with her heart,holding her in his arms, and then driving her absent, or we had to just “try to understand that she’s “given all” she can. Madonna’s vocals aren’t as emotionally charged as they could have been here,and they’re on the squeaky side. Still, they have a powerfully steely defiance – a quality that would serve her well for years to come.
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Source: theguardian.com