So why is Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
WiWithin the admittedly wacky concept of figuring out and then ranking the best 1,000 albums ever, there’s the challenge of figuring out which “kinds” of albums to even consider in the first place – EPs, live albums, compilations, bootlegs, mashups, and on and on.
One of the trickiest ones of these is whether or not to consider “best of” albums or retrospective box sets produced by a single artist or band. With this one and with these kinds of considerations overall, I’ve leaned towards being inclusive versus exclusive for best 1,000 albums ever consideration purposes.
When it comes to Madonna, I’ve already covered three of her best albums that came out in the 1990s or later: Confessions on a Dance Floor(#588), Ray of Light (#634), and Bedtime Stories (#745).
The Immaculate Collection does a fantastic job of aggregating the astonishing number of smash hit singles that Madonna produced early in her career over the course of the 1980s, and for me it clearly deserved to be the “top” Madonna choice on this here best 1,000 albums ever project. And in this particular case, I’m supported and corroborated by Rolling Stone, which puts it at #138 on its greatest 500 albums rankings.
When I was a kid, I would watch whatever was on TV at a time when the choices were much more limited than they are today. Thankfully, my parents subscribed to HBO, and so I’d often watch movies that they ran over and over. One such movie is Desperately Seeking Susan, from 1985, which stars Rosanna Arquette, Aidan Quinn, and Madonna.
“Get Into the Groove” is featured in that movie, and it remains one of my most favorite Madonna songs. All of Madonna’s early pop hits have this incredibly vivacious energy, this wholly 1980s jubilant spirit to it, and “Get Into the Groove represents this perfectly.
Whereas “Material Girl” to me represents Madonna at the peak of her domination of MTV. If Michael Jackson as the King of Pop ruled on his throne for a time, Madonna was surely the Queen of Pop for a stretch of years there. And the “Material Girl” music video is inextricably tied with the song in my head: classic and elegant in one way, yet slightly gaudy and trashy in the best kind of way fitting with 1980s pop culture.
When “Like A Virgin” burst onto the scene in 1984, I was young enough to be… let’s just say, not fully wise to the ways of the adult world. Nonetheless I had a sense even then of how masterful Madonna was at crafting and delivering a pop gem from the moment she became a star.
And speaking of more mature fare, “Like A Virgin” is further immortalized in the 1992 movie, Reservoir Dogs, when Quentin Tarantino himself arrived on the scene as a film director.
I’ll end with just two more songs from The Immaculate Collection, but I could really just go on and on with the smashers packed into this album. “Lucky Star” is a super fun early hit, while “La Isla Bonita” is simply gorgeous.
I’d say the only early Madonna single that’s a major disappointment as it’s not included on The Immaculate Collection is the beautiful and catchy “Who’s That Girl?” which is from the 1987 movie of the same name, starring Griffin Dunne and (of course) Madonna.
Some stats & info about Madonna – The Immaculate Collection
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Pop Music, Dance Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #138
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was The Immaculate Collection released? 1990
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #266 out of 1,000
Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.