Last week, you may have noticed that Madonna released her first track in four years, “Medellín,” alongside Colombian singer Maluma. “One, two, one, two, one, two, cha-cha-cha,” she whispers at the beginning, like a faux dance instructor in an ASMR video. And then comes in the Auto-Tune, and some lyrics about champagne and being naked. It’s a serviceable pop song. It would sound great on the work overheads after three wines. But this is Madonna. She’s given us much, much more.
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To give a brief overview of Madonna’s career would be ridiculous. She’s been making music for longer than I’ve been breathing oxygen, and probably you too, and maybe us both combined? To imagine a world before Madonna is like trying to recall a distant dream. Impossible. But we all have a favourite Madonna song. Mine oscillates between “Power of Good-Bye” (underrated, appears on Ray of Light, was reintroduced recently via my hairdresser) and “Frozen” (the OG sad club anthem). In other words, you can’t say anything overarching about Madonna, because there are too many versions of her.Her latest persona is Madame X – also the name of her upcoming album, due on 14 June. She describes Madame X as “a secret agent, traveling around the world, changing identities, fighting for freedom, bringing light to dark places. She is a dancer, a professor, a head of state, a housekeeper, an equestrian, a prisoner, a student, a mother, a child, a teacher, a nun, a singer, a saint, a whore.” Quite a lot then. So how do we begin to make sense of Madonna, at all? I feel like the best we can do, at present, is identify all her personas and rank them. Here they are, in order of least to most powerful.I have a theory that the worst songs are the happiest ones (“I Got a Feeling”, “Happy”, “Uptown Funk”, basically anything that makes people stomp and nod while smiling). There are certain Madonna songs that feel like this, mainly from the 80s. I’m talking “Holiday”, “Lucky Star”, “Into the Groove” and “Express Yourself”. These are the ones that make your aunt with the mullet perm swing her head emphatically from side to side while clicking. This Madonna is very into trumpets and horns and power snares. That said, her look is exceptional and unparalleled here (the glove! The fishnets! The mole!). So extra points for that.As in, that time she played a starring role in the 1996 musical Evita. Yeah I forgot about that too.
Happy 80s Pop Madonna (1983 – 1989)
First Lady and Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina Madonna (1996)
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English Accent Madonna (1999 – ~ 2002)
Being a Happy Mum on Instagram Madonna (2014 - present day)
Tonguing Britney Madonna (2003)
Gentrifying Voguing and Ball Culture Madonna (1990)
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Folktronica Madonna (2003)
Toppling Backwards Because Her Cape Got Stuck to a Centaur Madonna (2015)
Losing Her Shit on the Dance Floor Madonna (2005 – 2012)
Post Punk Teen Madonna (1979 – 1982)
Bang into BDSM Madonna (1992)
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