To celebrate Madonna's birthday, Pitchfork have decided to review 4 classic Madonna albums.
9.0 | Like A Prayer
8.2 | Madonna
8.1 | Ray of Light
6.5 | Bedtime Stories
Read the full reviews below:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/madonna-like-a-prayer/
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/madonna-madonna/
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/madonna-ray-of-light/
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/madonna-bedtime-stories/
Very in depth reviews for each! Do you agree with the scores given for these 4 albums?
To this day I have never warmed to her debut album so that score seems far too high for my liking. The other three are there or there abouts correct I guess, both Ray of Light and Like a Prayer are great but not perfect enough to be a 10 while I totally agree about Bedtime Stories being her first non-event, it's a great description of it.
A few of the singles aside I've always kinda hated Like A Prayer as an album.
Bedtime Stories always gets shit on but honestly it is probably my joint favourite album of hers (alongside True Blue). It may not be the pop stompers we are used to from Madonna but I find it her most cohesive album and I've always enjoyed the more interesting and unique production on the album. It all just feels so much more exciting than her other albums but the strong hooks are definitely still there in tracks like 'Human Nature' and 'Secret', plus it has one of her strongest album closers with 'Take a Bow' which works so well in that final slot. I wish the album didn't get such a bad rap
I'm the same as Dandy in the sense that I've never warmed to her debut album, it definitely has high highs but it's pretty faceless and unexciting. She definitely grew into her sound as her career progressed. It's also too short to really get into before it's already finished
Bedtime Stories ranks fairly low down for me but I have grown to really like it. Her most cohesive album is surely Confessions though given its built around cohesion and a fluid structure musically.
I've got round to reading all the reviews. Interesting how they note Madonna talking about the intentions to fix the vocals for 'Oh Father'; I must say I am very pleased everyone involved agreed that the rawness of her voice is what makes the song so special and deeply emotional. Great example of "she doesn't sing the notes, she sings the words".
The reviewer very complimentary of her debut. As I said before, it's brimming with Madonna's then-potential and has great, care-free pop moments with interesting production, but one I'd ultimately have to place near the bottom of her album discography. I like that they picked up on the similarities between the intros of 'Lucky Star' and 'Cut to the Feeling' - I remember that immediately springing to mind when I first heard the latter.
I adore the comparison of the intro to 'Drowned World' to that of a child's heartbeat in the womb; it just makes it all the more an intimate and emotional experience. I'm listening to the song in full now and that imagery has really elevated it.
As for the Bedtime Stories review... at least the reviewer is complimentary of 'Human Nature' and its wonderfully whacky video.
Interesting reviews.
Like A Prayer is a masterpiece I adore it!
1. Like A Prayer
2. Ray Of Light
3. True Blue
4. Confessions On A Dancefloor
5. Music
6. American Life
7. Bedtime Story
8. Hard Candy
9. Erotica
10. Like A Virgin
11. Rebel Heart
12. MDNA
13. Madonna
That's my ranking of Madonna's studio albums, love 1-6, like 7-10, not very keen on 11-13 bar a few tracks.
Welcome to the Madonna forum Spiceboy
A brilliant ranking of the albums! I agree with the top 4 being my favourite 4 also although I would change the order - and swap Confessions with Like A Prayer as Confessions is my all-time #1 album.
Yes welcome to the forum! Agreed with Haus that I'd have Confessions at #1 with Ray of Light remaining #2, as well as putting Hard Candy in my bottom 3.
The rest changes all the time!
Thank you
I'm a huge Madonna fan, was able to go see her MDNA tour in Edinburgh which I thought was great (slightly annoyed she was 2 hours late and had to cut the show short though!).
I love confessions I think as an album is a great body of work, it flows so well as has such a great theme. However I don't feel like it has as many stand out songs as Like a prayer, Ray of light and True blue which is why they rank higher than Confessions for me. It's still a 10/10 for me though.
Also Hard Candy I really disliked when it first came out, especially following on from Confessions. I still cringe when I see the album cover too and the name, I was a little embarrassed by it at the time. However I've really come to appreciate how strong quite alot of the songs actually are and realised if it were any other female artists I would have really liked it so it has grown on me alot.
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