Being that this is a greatest hits compilation, this isn’t so much a review but just commentary on the material offered. Having racked up a staggering amount of hits that just seems infinite at this point; unless a huge multi-cd box set gets released, no compilation like this is ever going to be able to please everyone because there’s just not enough fucking room to collect all of her hits.
Deluxe Edition Cover Art.
That is a testament in itself of how big, talented, and hugely influential this troublemaker woman has been and continues to be. Say what you will, she’s a genius, plain and simple. Only the Beatles and Elvis could arguably match her genius, no one else, not even dearly departed Michael Jackson, though he was a gifted artist as well, that goes without saying. And while we are on the subject of kings and bugs: The Beatles were huge mostly out of their musical talent and how they revolutionized music… that’s it. Huge yes, but it was all about the music which can be enough for some. Elvis on the other hand was huge mostly out of image, not that his music wasn’t bad but when people talk about the Beatles they talk music, when they talk about Elvis is always about how he presented himself, about how he was this sexual being, about some memory of seeing him or how he looked during a period of his life and then those images influenced how people perceived his music. He revolutionized rock and roll by adding sex into the equation.
In the years after Elvis and the Beatles lots of people (arguably, influenced by them) approached music by either the Elvis or Beatles path to all kinds of results, none matching the originals; not even David Bowie and he almost came close. That isn’t to say that the music wasn’t good, heck everyone knows that the 60s and 70s (even a punk like me who wasn’t around back then… or was I? I am a Cylon after all) were and still are the holy grail period of music, and by the dreadful looks of things no other period will ever be as good; music today is awful, dumb down to the lowest level possible. There are good musicians out there trying to save us all but overall, popular music sucks balls.
Michael Jackson came and threw his revolutionary hat into the ring, making a name for himself and rightfully racking up sales and awards for his talent, and though I’m not putting him down by this, and save your *too soon* crap: his star crashed; it simply burnt under the unscrupulous light of celebrity-life and he became a shadow of his former self. Starting with the DANGEROUS album on, his music wasn’t as good as his previous work. He had only three good albums in him, there’s a chance that if things would have been different he would have produce more but his demons got the best of him, turning him into a reclusive egomaniac, and made no mistake, the man thought himself a higher being, a King, with feverish passion; even after his kingdom was no longer there, but he refuse to accept that. A sad, cautionary tale; the Howard Hughes of music.
Madonna may or may not, consciously or subconsciously, have decided back in the early 80s to take on what the Beatles and Elvis taught us, heck, she herself have said her influence was David Bowie who was, as I pointed out influenced by Elvis and the Beatles (that order is crucial) so therefore she was too, but the thing is Madonna saw what everyone before her simply failed to see: you didn’t have to choose between the Elvis or the Beatles path, you could do both.
As Elvis and David can attest, anything remotely sexual is going to get the most press and so by putting her sexuality front and center, Madonna has been fighting for almost 30 years now to get people to pay attention to her music. I mean people have paid attention, just not in the same way that other less talented people get praised on and on about. Not that she cares and at this point she probably doesn’t because her legacy is sealed in the history books no matter what the critics have to say.
Celebration makes that point clear, heck, it hits you over the head with it. Though it isn’t arranged in chronological order, it does a superb job at showing…. anyone really, how essential, how good-thrilling, and how revolutionary/visionary her music has been, is, and will remain until the end of time just like that of the Beatles and Elvis. And like Elvis, her image and how she shook the Establishment with it, will also remain and will be studied and will continue to influence generations for years to come.
No other artists have been bigger than them three, and it is unlikely that anyone else will ever achieve that status ever again.
Now, if only they would have included “Angel” “Rescue Me” “This Used To Be My Playground” “Oh Father” “Bad Girl” “Human Nature” “Nothing Really Matters” “Nothing Fails” and the list could go on and on. Even “Drowned World/Substitute For Love” is missing and that’s just criminal. Grade: A+
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