12th. Bedtime Story = 6 votes



Welcome to Round 5 of Madonna's GHV2 survivor poll and the 4th song to bow out is the wonderful 'Bedtime Stories', which after coming close in previous rounds, it finally loses its place in this competition and I'm quite sad to see it go. Released in February 1995 as the 3rd single from her 6th album of the same name and was written by Björk, Nellee Hooper and Marius De Vries; it was the only time Björk wrote a song for a Madonna album. She re-wrote a demo of the song to the current version, which was then produced by Madonna and Hooper. A mid-tempo electronic and house song with acid, ambient and techno influences, "Bedtime Story" has an underlying skeletal synth melody influenced by minimal trance music. The track was a departure from Madonna's pop-R&B-based outputs in favor of unconventional and electronic music. Lyrically it talks about the joys of the unconscious world.

"Bedtime Story" received favorable reviews from music critics, who praised the song's hypnotic and electronic style, and deemed it an underrated song which could have had great potential. The song was a moderate success, reaching the top ten in the record charts of United Kingdom, Italy and Australia, but missed the top 40 in United States, while peaking at number one on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart. The music video for "Bedtime Story" was directed by Mark Romanek and is listed as one of the most expensive music videos of all time with a cost of $5 million ($8.22 million in 2018 dollars[1]). It features surrealistic and new age imagery, with influences from artists such as Remedios Varo, Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington. The video received acclaim from critics and is permanently displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

This has to be one of Madonna's single with the most unfulfilled hit potential in her long career, while it did okay in the UK with a top 5 peak (thanks to that amazing BRIT awards performance) it did plummet down rather quickly and didn't even sell a 100k, But the U.S. was a different story with just a mere #42 peak, so what happened, maybe it was wrong timing and could have been seen as a bit too bold for its time and simply the world just wasn't quite ready for this hypnotic and trippy yet very experimental beat. But this was the brilliant little gem that would later inspire Madonna to further explore the electronica sound with William Orbit on her next album (which legend has it, was a masterpiece).


We are down to 11 now, same rules apply just vote for your least fave, and what do you want for the top 10. The next round will be coming at the end of the week and will be taking a break from the usual poll and will be a track ranking round, just to keep things more interesting.


Results So Far:
12. Bedtime Story = 6/40.00%
13. Human Nature = 7/31.82%
14. What It Feels Like for a Girl = 6/24.00%
15. Don't Cry for me Argentina = 13/86.67%