Ranking Birthday Girl Madonna's Albums (continued)

MATTHEW RETTENMUND

RAY OF LIGHT — Pure brilliance, one-of-a-kind, her best work

MADONNA — Flawless, effortless, coated in disco goo due to its proximity to the late '70s

LIKE A PRAYER — Beautiful, masterfully written and produced, a corner turned

CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR — Inspired melding of audience needs and artistry

****-/14

LIKE A VIRGIN — Classic production, love the non-hits

****

TRUE BLUE — The classic smashes are far superior to the album cuts

REBEL HEART — Drastically underrated, gorgeously sung, cheeky and a return to form

***-1/3

AMERICAN LIFE — A true risk, remarkably deep singer-songwriter tunes, poetic

EROTICA — Some amazing work, some cloying stuff

***

MUSIC — Contains a favorite track ["Paradise (Not for Me)"] and great stuff, but felt a mish-mash to me

BEDTIME STORIES — Again, some great work, always hated "Take a Bow," though; love Bjork, love "Love Tried to Welcome Me" & "Secret" one of her best

MDNA — Good, but feels empty on re-listens, admired some of the risk-taking because nobody's doing that at 50 in pop

**-1/2
HARD CANDY — Lots of crappy songs; the good ones feel like she had little to do with them

I also hate that I'M BREATHLESS: MUSIC FROM AND INSPIRED BY THE FILM DICK TRACY is not a studio album. All but a few of the songs are original. I would rank it reallllly high, like above TRUE BLUE and with ****-1/2. EVITA is really not Madonna, but it's great and worthy of ****. WHO'S THAT GIRL isn't enough M to judge as an M project.

GREG ENDRIES:

If she kept all her albums to 8 songs this would be in a different order but after the 80’s she really starting filling out the albums with clunkers.  This is based more on percentage of listen-able songs.  Except the ones from the past 10 years which I barely listened to. Not as sure about those…

• Madonna (1983)
• Like a Virgin (1984)
• Music (2000)

• True Blue (1986)
• Like a Prayer (1989)
• Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)
• Dick Tracy (1990)

• Ray of Light (1998)
• Erotica (1992)
• Bedtime Stories (1994)
• American Life (2003)
• Hard Candy (2008)
• MDNA (2012)
• Rebel Heart (2015)

DAMIAN:
Bedtime Stories
Music
Ray of Light
Erotica
Like a Prayer
Madonna
Like a Virgin
American Life
Confessions on a Dance Floor
True Blue
MDNA
I'm Breathless
Rebel Heart
Hard Candy

GREG JELINEK:
1. Madonna
2. Ray of Light
3. True Blue
4. Like a Virgin
5. Like a Prayer
6. Rebel Heart
7. Erotica
8. Hard Candy
9. Confessions
10. MDNA
11. I'm Breathless
12. Music
13. Bedtime Stories
14. American Life

CHIP DUCKETT:
Ray of Light (really one of the best pop albums ever recorded, period).
Like a Prayer
Music
Confessions on a Dance Floor
Like a Virgin
True Blue
Erotica
Madonna
Bedtime Stories
I'm Breathless
MDNA
American Life
Rebel Heart
Hard Candy

American Life would be higher without the title track, it's actually a better album than you remember. But that title track.

CHAD TOWNSEND: 
Ugh! This is tough! I like so many of them! I feel like it’s hard to rate. And what are the criteria? I mean, so many albums were “better” for me personally because of the memories I associate with them. But are there “artistically” better? Tough call. I tried to do a mix of personal preference vs. artistic contributions.

  1. Like a Prayer
  2. Erotica
  3. Ray of Light
  4. Music
  5. Madonna
  6. Like a Virgin
  7. Bedtime Stories
  8. I’m Breathless
  9. True Blue
10. Confessions on a Dance Floor
11. Rebel Heart
12. American Life
13. MDNA
14. Hard Candy

SCOOTER LAFORGE:
1.Madonna Madonna
2.Ray of Light
3 Like a Prayer
4. Like a Virgin
5. Confessions on the Dance Floor
6. True Blue
7.Erotica
8.I'm Breathless
9.Bed Time Stories
10.American Life
11.Music
12.Hard Candy
13. MDNA
14.Rebel Heart

Be sure you put YOUR rankings in the comments!