Remixology: My 10 Favorite Madonna Remixes, Part 2

Part two of this post has been delayed due to illness - whatever I caught knocked me flat. Part one of this is here. Hopefully, you've had a chance to listen to my co-blogger P.Viktor's podcast on his 10 favorite Madonna remixes. Anyway, here's my final five as always, in no particular order.

1) Erotica (WO 12" Mix)
"Erotica" is such an odd song. When I first heard it, I felt like it was the bastard cousin to "Justify My Love." If you listen to the original demo, ("You Thrill Me") you wonder what would have happened with the song had they continued in that vein. And then there was the Sex book version of the song. Included as a one song CD with the purchase of the Sex book, it had even saucier lyrics than the album version, but for me, they're the definitive version.

William Orbit, in one of his first collaborations with Madonna, took that version of "Erotica" and gave it a Middle Eastern trance feel that is lacking in the original album mix. Sadly, it still does not allow Madonna to finish the famous line "I'll give you love, I'll hit you like a truck/I'll give you love, I'll teach you how to...." (rhymes with truck). If any version of the song really demands that, it's this one.

2) Human Nature (The Runaway Club Mix Radio Edit)
I still think "Human Nature" was such an odd choice for a single. The fourth single from Bedtime Stories, it followed Madonna's first single to miss the top 40 since her debut, so the momentum was certainly not there. Also, it's her big "fuck-off" song for the brutal treatment she got from the press during the Erotica years. Still, I do like the song and this remix in particular is quite good. It is a pretty straight forward club mix with heavy beats and some great piano glissandos (what was it with pianos and 90s dance music?) The whispered/spoken parts of the vocals are featured prominently and repeatedly. I think what I liked most about this single release was the large number of remixes, how different they were from each other and how Madonna resisted the temptation to go to the Junior Vasquez well one more time. Junior's work on "Secret" was great, but his remix of "Bedtime Story" sounded pretty much the same (thank goodness for the Orbital remix.) I remember many fans discussing how pissed they were that Junior turned "Bedtime Story" into "Secret." You'll find no such trouble here. Even though a lot of fans prefer the Human Club Mix, The Runaway Club Mix still sounds good today even if you really can tell it's a 90s remix.

3) Miles Away (A Crowd Electric vs. Madonna)
By the time "Miles Away" was released as a single from Hard Candy, I had kind of lost interest in the album even though it was one of my favorite songs on the album. As other people have said, it's the most "Madonna-sounding" song on Hard Candy, but I always felt like it was better off as an album track since it had zero chance of getting played on the radio. When I heard the official remixes, I was horrified. They were awful, even Stuart Price's remix was below average. The mistake they made was trying to turn what is basically a bittersweet mid-tempo ballad into a dance floor stomper. Sometimes it works, but this time, it fantastically didn't.

Enter A Crowd Electric who, using the a cappella that WB released, mashed it up with one of their songs ("The Waiter") and turned it into something that was a little more true to the spirit of the original song. They made it available for download on their web site. It was heads and shoulders above the official remixes. And then WB got their panties in a bunch and forced them to take it down, even though they had released the a cappella so what were they expecting? Glad I grabbed it while I could because it has been in heavy rotation in preparation for this post.

4) Hollywood (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duck Mix)
The trouble with so many of these latter-day singles is that barely anybody outside of the die hard fans have heard of the songs, let alone the remixes. Such is the case with "Hollywood," the second single from American Life. I don't know if this remix was the first time that Madonna worked with Stuart Price, but his remix of this song really changes up the song. Of all the remixes on my list, it's the one that uses the smallest chunk of the original vocal - something that usually drives me batty. Nothing makes me crazier than a 12 minute remix with 1:30 of vocals. But this one really works. It hints at things to come when Madonna worked with him on Confessions on a Dance Floor. It was also version of "Hollywood" that Madonna used on the Re-Invention Tour. Of all the remixes to come out of American Life, I think this is probably the only one worth anyone's time.

5) Jump (Extended Version)
Rounding out my favorite Madonna remixes is the only remix from Confessions on a Dance Floor to make the list. As P.Viktor alluded to in his podcast, the vast majority of the songs on COADF needed no remix to improve them - most were perfect just the way they were. The output that Madonna had with Stuart Price puts him just one notch below Patrick Leonard in terms of being her musical muse. "Jump" is one of my all-time favorite Madonna songs. Its simple dance beats surround a message of self empowerment which I find very personally inspiring. But if there's any criticism to level against "Jump" it is that it always felt like it was a little bit too short. So what did Madonna do? She gave us the first honest-to-God extended remix of a song since probably "Bad Girl" and the result was glorious. This remix basically is the album version with the Confessions Tour outro tacked on. It took an already great song and made it perfect. It's my preferred version of the song.

Look for more Madonna posts from P.Viktor and me in the future.

Should have been singles

My friend P. Viktor and I hatched the idea for this post a few weeks ago while discussing songs that Madonna has released that should have been singles but, for whatever reason were not. We each picked five songs from Madonna's back catalog (we compared notes early on so to make sure there was no overlap) and, after much deliberation, I've finally settled on mine. His five choices can be found on his blog. He is also hosting on his site a limited-time-only download of the non-singles that we chose plus 4 more so that all of her studio albums are represented. And Jeff, I regret to inform you that "Spanish Eyes" and "Mer Girl" are not among my five choices.

Dan's Top 5 Madonna Songs That Should Have Been Singles

1) Over & Over (from Like A Virgin)
Of all the Madonna songs that should have been singles, this one is the one that I think deserves that honor the most. Madonna was doing everything right at this point in her career, riding high with the Like A Virgin album and spinning off career-defining singles like "Material Girl," "Dress You Up" and of course, the title track. "Over & Over" feels like it's cut from a slightly different cloth than the rest of the album - it's still 80s pop, but the guitar lick in the chorus is what sets it apart. Guitars, despite their relative frequency in Madonna's live shows, are pretty scarce on her studio albums. As I've blogged before, the lyrics are very personally inspiring to me, a line from the bridge is currently the tag line for this blog. I'm not afraid to say I hear a different beat/Oh, and I'll go out in the street/And I will shout it again from the highest mountain. It's Madonna as she's just starting to climb the mountain of fame and fortune and it's simply fantastic. Definitely should be brought out for the next tour.



2) Something To Remember (from I'm Breathless)
I have always felt like I'm Breathless is Madonna's forgotten album, its lifespan cut short by the release of The Immaculate Collection. Containing music "from and inspired by the film Dick Tracy" I'm Breathless is very showtuney and non-Madonna and it is one of her lowest selling albums from that time period. "Something To Remember" is, however, a hidden jewel on that album. Madonna liked it so much that she plucked it out of relative obscurity and not only put it on her 1995 ballads collection but also named the damn thing after it. I've always been of the opinion that if WB was so insistent on releasing an old song from that project as a single, they should have gone with "Something To Remember" rather than insisting on releasing "Love Don't Live Here Anymore."

Her vocals are strong, in a pre-Evita way and the production is solid. While many of the songs on I'm Breathless play like novelty songs - even top 10 hit "Hanky Panky" - this is one that I could imagine hearing on pop radio. It is, however, marred by Madonna's infamous "chewing" of her you - I was not your woman/I was not your friend/But chew gave me/Something to remember. My sister and I would always change it to "chew gave me/oropharyngeal cancer." Chewing of yous really is unforgivable, but we give it a pass because the song is just so damn good.

3) Spotlight (from You Can Dance)
I nearly disqualified this song as technically, it was a single - in Japan. I remember it getting some minor radio airplay in late 1987, but there was no official single release in the US, no video, and subsequently, it did not chart on the Hot 100. If it had been released, it would have been another Top 10 for Madonna without question. It feels every little bit like the True Blue cast off that it is and it would have been very much at home on that album. Instead, it was the lone new song on Madonna's first compilation, You Can Dance. It's funny, because the song is very strong in that the combination of vocals and production is again superb, but it's also as light as a feather. Had it been recorded by a lesser artist, it would have been a completely forgettable bit of 80s fluff. It's still fluff, even in Madonna's capable hands, but as I always say about "Who's That Girl" - for fluff, it's quite brilliant.

4) Sky Fits Heaven (from Ray of Light)
Even though the lyrics came partially from a Gap ad, "Sky Fits Heaven" is the strongest non-single on Ray of Light. Like most of of the rest of the album, it is full of blips and bleeps courtesy of William Orbit. "Sky Fits Heaven" is a "driving fast at night with the windows down" song, especially during the "traveling down my own road/watching the signs as I go" section. I love how she hearkens back to "Bedtime Story" with the "Traveling, traveling..." part. Its inclusion in the Drowned World Tour was a huge surprise (mostly because I had not spoiled the set list like I have on every other tour since.) I always admire how Madonna makes such bold choices of obscure album tracks for her live shows, even though the Drowned World Tour certainly had more than its fair share of obscure album tracks.



5) Devil Wouldn't Recognize You (from Hard Candy)
This blog is littered with criticism of Hard Candy and its songs. Thanks to the distance granted by the nearly 2 years since its release, my opinion on Hard Candy is that it is somehow less than the sum of its parts. I like quite a few of the individual songs, but don't really care for the album much. "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" is easily my favorite of all the songs on Hard Candy. Truth be told, it had been a really long time since we had a true Madonna ballad, and "Devil" fits the bill nicely. Its minor key, interesting rhyming scheme and a much more organic pairing of Madonna and Justin Timberlake than the herky-jerky "4 Minutes" are all points in its favor.

I wonder though, if this song isn't best left as an album track. XO, in his review of Hard Candy, compared "Devil" to Bedtime Stories' "Love Tried To Welcome Me" saying "it's the kind of album track that sticks with you for years because it's never overplayed." It would have probably not charted and considering her track record with videos these days, we couldn't even count on something amazing there, although I can think of no track more deserving of a brilliant video. But we do have the performance of the song from the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which was stunning.



Now get on over to P. Viktor's blog and read about his choices.