This Thursday, the one and only Madonna celebrates her 60th birthday. Wet Thud is marking the occasion with a whole week of features, starting today with this painstakingly-crafted list of our sixty favourite songs from her vast back catalogue. Tomorrow, we'll rank all of Madonna's tours, and then on Wednesday and Thursday, we'll count down her albums and videos respectively. Finally on Friday, it's the results of our fan poll, featuring the Top 60 Madonna Songs as voted by you, the readers of Wet Thud.
But for today, it's our turn. Wet Thud has been following Madonna's career since the early days, and while we haven't necessarily been onside for every one of her many reinventions, we've always admired and respected her creative drive and stamina. We've bought every album, spent too much on concert tickets, and even sat through the movies that weren't 'Truth Or Dare,' 'Evita,' or 'Desperately Seeking Susan.' What we're saying is we might be what you might call a fan.
Spanning from her days as a club kid in early 80's Manhattan through her current status as, well, one of the most famous humans the planet has ever seen, this is Wet Thud's list of what we feel are the 60 greatest songs in the discography of Ms. Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. Find Spotify and Apple Music links through the story, as well as a Spotify playlist of the entire countdown following number one below.
060. "Mer Girl" (album cut from Ray Of Light, 1998)
Though much of 1998's Ray Of Light is brimming with life, the album's final track is a fitting conclusion by instead examining death. Inspired in part by the loss of her mother at age five, Madonna wrote "Mer Girl" not long after the birth of her first child, daughter Lourdes. Written and produced by Madonna and William Orbit.
The campy movie bombed in theatres, but the soundtrack to 'Who's That Girl?' actually sold rather well, thanks in no small part to the inclusion of four new Madonna songs. The lead single/title track was a summer hit infused with Latin rhythms. Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard.
The 'Who's That Girl?' film, soundtrack, and tour weren't Madonna's only stopgap projects between studio albums in 1987. She also released You Can Dance, a continuous album-length mix of redone versions of some of her best loved songs. The set's one new track, "Spotlight," was an uptempo slice of dance-pop, released as a single in Japan only, where it also soundtracked a Madonna-starring TV campaign for Mitsubishi VCRs. Written by Madonna, Stephen Bray and Curtis Hudson. Produced by Madonna and Bray.
A deeper cut off Madonna's twelfth studio album. Teaming up with producer William Orbit again, M revisits the Eastern vibes the pair explored during her Ray Of Light era, at the same time also revisiting one her favourite lyrical themes, taunting the church. Written by Madonna, Orbit, and Jean-Baptiste.
The last track on 2003's American Life continues the record's sonic theme of blending acoustic guitars and heavy electronics, a calling card of producer Mirwais Ahmadzaï. "Easy Ride" is a gentle ballad that gradually swells into a ball of glitchy synths and stuttering strings as Madonna mulls the spiritual ramifications of "the good life." Written by Madonna and Monte Pittman.
Madonna has a thing or two to say about the illusions of celebrity. "Hollywood" finds the singer waxing lyrical about Tinseltown and the American dream to a folk-pop beat. Written and produced by Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadzaï.
The girl-group inflected album opener from 1994's Bedtime Stories is one of the best examples of the harmonies created by Madonna and her former backing vocalists Niki Haris and Donna DeLory. The duo backed M on several songs and tours from the mid-eighties through to the mid-2000's. Written by Madonna and Dallas Austin. Produced by Madonna, Austin and Nellee Hooper.
She'd entered mass consciousness via a handful of singles and her storied performance at the inaugural VMA's the year before, but it's difficult to emphasize the degree to which Madonna permeated pop culture in 1985. She starred in the hit film 'Desperately Seeking Susan,' went on tour for the first time (with a then unknown opening act called Beastie Boys), married Sean Penn, performed at Live Aid, hosted Saturday Night Live, infamously had old nude photos of her published in both Playboy and Penthouse, and...oh yeah, had no less than six huge, international hit singles that year, courtesy of "Material Girl," "Crazy For You," "Angel," "Into The Groove," "Gambler," and the opening number from the setlist of her aptly named Virgin Tour, "Dress You Up." Written by Andrea LaRusso and Peggy Stanziale. Produced by Nile Rodgers.
There are few purer couplets in pop than, "Romeo and Juliet, they never felt this way I bet." "Cherish" is one of Madonna's several collaborations with producer and songwriter Patrick Leonard between 1985 and 1998.
While Bedtime Stories is Madonna's most R&B-leaning album, it also offered hints at her future foray into electronic territory via the title-ish cut, "Bedtime Story." After being understandably impressed by Björk's 1993 breakthrough album Debut, M approached the Icelandic singer through mutual producer Nellee Hooper about writing a song. The result is a surreal lyric that Bjork once described as the things she'd, "always wanted to hear [Madonna] say that she's never said."
Sometimes artists' efforts to shoehorn new material on to a hits collection can result in an uneven listening experience (or anticlimactic when arranged chronologically, like all good collections should be). Then there are the rare cases where the new songs hold their own against the best of an act's back catalogue, like with "Rescue Me," the second of two previously unreleased singles included on Madonna's essential The Immaculate Collection. Written and produced by Madonna and Shep Pettibone.
Another of Madonna's many co-writes with Patrick Leonard, "Sky Fits Heaven" and three other songs found on the Ray Of Light album remain the pair's final joint efforts to date (though Leonard did also provide the score for M's 2008 documentary about orphans in Malawi). Searching for a common thread in a world of competing philosophies and dogmas, Madonna posits, "isn't everyone just travelling down their own road?" over a skittering, trance-techno production from Madonna, Leonard, and William Orbit.
Madonna joined up with master producer and man of many monikers, Stuart Price, to record her tenth studio album in 2005. The end result was her most club-ready and beat-driven album since her debut over two decades earlier. On "Push," the penultimate cut from Confessions On A Dance Floor, Madonna sings the praises of those that inspire her, over the song's lumbering, but elastic beat.
One of the more personal lyrics in Madonna's repertoire, "Till Death Do Us Part" is a universally relatable lyric about what it can feel like when a relationship goes sour. But, released as it was, just months after she filed for divorce from Sean Penn (for the second time), and given the multiple, widely-reported, volatile incidents throughout their marriage, as well as the titular nod to Madonna's omnipresent Catholic guilt, it can be difficult not to read the song as entirely autobiographical. Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard.
With an artist as widely known as Madonna, there's not really many true rarities in her catalogue, as even her most obscure releases tend to get bootlegged and fetch collector prices the world over. However, in a relative sense, the "Gambler" single from the soundtrack to the 1985 Matthew Modine vehicle 'Vision Quest' remains a curious anomaly in that, despite reaching the Top 10 in several countries around the world, it has never seen re-release on another Madonna album since. Too bad really, as it holds up at least as well as most of the material found on her still widely available first albums. Written by Madonna and produced by "Jellybean" Benitez.
Madonna collaborated with R&B sweet-talker Babyface on two songs from the Bedtime Stories album--the sensuous "Forbidden Love," and the melancholy "Take A Bow." The latter bears the distinction of enjoying Madonna's most uneven transatlantic chart performance. Peaking only at number 16 in the UK, it halted her ridiculous streak of thirty-five consecutive singles to crack that country's Top 10, while in America, the track went all the way to the top spot and remained there for seven weeks.
This underrated single off M's sophomore breakthrough sometimes gets forgotten amidst the torrent of hits she flooded the charts with in 1985, but it's really about time she resurrected this one in a live setting again. Written by Madonna and Stephen Bray. Produced by Nile Rodgers.
For all the perks that Madonna's fame and fortune affords her, it really must be strange to be so in the public eye that there's a distinct possibility if you turn on a television or go online, you'll be confronted with stranger's criticisms of you. Written and produced by Madonna and Mirwais Ahmadzaï.
Originally appearing on the B-side of the "Burning Up" single, "Physical Attraction" is a cut from Madonna's eponymous debut that extols the virtues of lust. Written and produced by Reggie Lucas.
A truly incredible collaboration, Madonna and Massive Attack's version of "I Want You" is a highlight from 'Inner City Blues: The Music Of Marvin Gaye,' an otherwise largely unremarkable tribute album to Gaye put out by Motown Records in 1995. M and the pioneering electronic trio reimagined the 1976 R&B hit as a slow-burning trip-hop ballad. Written by Leon Ware and Arthur "T-Boy" Russell. Produced by Nellee Hooper.
Madonna does free jazz, anyone? The final track on Erotica is M's ode to the vagina. Written and produced by Madonna and André Betts.
The opening track off her debut album, "Lucky Star" and its iconic, twinkling synth intro is strongly connected to the memory recall of lifting needle to vinyl for an entire generation of Madonna fans. Written by Madonna and produced by Reggie Lucas.
The sole new composition for director Alan Parker's film version of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's Evita, "You Must Love Me" still stands out as one of the finest vocal performances of Madonna's career. The song won both the Golden Globe and Oscar for Best Song in 1997. Written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd-Webber. Produced by Nigel Wright, Alan Parker, and Lloyd-Webber.
1989's Like A Prayer album remains the most sonically diverse collection of songs in Madonna's discography, reinterpreting a variety of her pop influences over the course of its eleven tracks. On a Beatlesque tip, "Dear Jessie" is her Sgt. Pepper's moment, a psychedelic lullaby backed by a miniature symphony. Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, the Jessie in question is Leonard's daughter.
In December 2014, Madonna fell victim to hackers when incomplete versions of several tracks from her intended March 2015 release, Rebel Heart, were leaked online. The blow of the botched album rollout was cushioned slightly by a general consensus that the new material was her strongest in a decade, in particular the set's lead single and its gospel vocal line's echoes of the classic "Like A Prayer." Written by Madonna, Diplo, Maureen McDonald, Toby Gad and Ariel Rechtshaid. Produced by Madonna, Diplo and Rechtshaid.
The second coming of Madonna was well and truly in full swing with the release of the second single and title track off 1998's Ray Of Light. Madonna, the earthy mother, reconnected the singer with audiences who hadn't resonated with Madonna, the sexual provocateur, or Madonna, the mature balladeer. Written by Madonna, William Orbit, Clive Maldoon, Dave Curtiss and Christine Leach. Produced by Madonna and Orbit.
Madonna's second time working with her brother-in-law, musician Joe Henry, was for "Jump," one of her many anthems on the subject of self-empowerment. Written by Madonna, Joe Henry and Stuart Price. Produced by Madonna and Price.
For Madonna, becoming a mother meant reprioritizing her life, and with that came some revelatory experiences that made for some of her best songwriting. "Nothing Really Matters" is M's final recording to date featuring vocals from long-time back-up singers Donna DeLory and Niki Haris. Also one of Madonna's final co-writes to date with longtime collaborator, songwriter Patrick Leonard. Produced by Madonna, Leonard and Marius De Vries.
Musical highpoint from 2012's MDNA. Do kids still rave? Written and produced by Madonna with Alle and Benny Benassi.
Following Madonna's often controversial output in the early nineties, there was a concerted effort to soften her image toward the midpoint of the decade, culminating in the issue of her ballads compilation, Something To Remember. "You'll See" usurped the originally planned choice of "I Want You" to become the set's lead single, seeming a more fitting transition to Madonna's then upcoming role in the film 'Evita.' Written and produced by Madonna and David Foster.
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