Celebrate This: 'Crazy for You,' 'Ray of Light' top Madonna best-of lists

 

Hey kids, here are my picks for best ballads and dance tunes by the 51-year-old Madonna Ciccone. The formatting is a little funky on the Web version, but at the very least, I unveil all of the dirty details regarding my first kiss. Get into the groove right here.
  

Best Madonna Dance Song? Ballad? Video?

In celebration of Celebration, Madonna's new 2CD greatest hits comp out this week, I've been asked to compile a few Top 5 lists about our 51-year-old Material Girl.

BEST DANCE SONG?

BEST BALLAD?

BEST VIDEO (SEXY DIVISION)?

Celebration has 36 tracks (including two new songs); there's also a 2DVD video comp. I'm not a Madge Hater like Steve "Spearsy" Spears. And yet, I found myself skipping through a lot of her "hits," all digitally remastered from the original recordings. Papa Don't Preach hasn't aged well; same goes for Like a Prayer. Borderline, however, remains an incandescent bit o' fluff.

Madonna is inherently vainglorious, so anytime she tries to infuse substance or nuance into her music, I'm not buying it. For that reason, her horny dance stuff has survived much better. I'll BS about all this later. For now, let's hear your Madonna faves...

Top 5 Pop Divas: Will Madonna and Britney meet up on our list?

Tonight at 9, VH1 will revive its Divas series, in which well-piped rock royals belt, duet and hair-flip in each other's sparkly orbit. Previous eps showcased Diana Ross, Mary J. Blige and Mariah Carey, powerhouses all. The latest lineup features such high-wattage names as Adele (wait — what?), Leona Lewis (are we reading this press release right?) and Miley Cyrus (sheesh, is a 12-year-old booking talent at VH1?). The show -- which promises to hover somewhere between watchable and what's-on-HBO? -- has inspired Times performing arts critic John Fleming and "he-va" Sean Daly to restore order to the diva-verse and rank the Top 5 divas in opera, Broadway and pop. HERE YOU GO.

2009 MTV VMAs: Taylor Swift shoulda brained Kanye West with her moonman

The MTV Video Music Awards are still just a crass, hyperstylized shill for upcoming product. (Heck, the most anticipated moment of the night was a movie trailer for Twilight flick New Moon.) But the 2009 edition had some diverting moments. Lady Gaga drenched herself in theater blood and scared my kid. Beyonce showed off her coconut-cracking gams in a Single Ladies redux. And after Taylor Swift won a moonman for best female video for You Belong With Me, Kanye West bounded onstage (he's always bounding onstage), grabbed her microphone and said, "Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'll let you finish. But Beyoncé has one of the best videos of all time. One of the best videos of all time!" It was a pathetic move by Kanye, but mainly because he thinks there's great artistic merit in winning one of those stupid things.

BUT the best moment of the night came straight off the bat, when a rather lovely looking Madonna (who had the good sense to cover up her zombie arms) gave an honest, beautifully crafted eulogy to Michael Jackson. HERE'S THAT SPEECH RIGHT HERE. I'm man enough to admit I choked up a coupla times. 

Photo: Associated Press

DALY TV! It's Ladies Night, and my pants are tight (Whitney! Madonna! Mariah! And Babs!)

You know I'm really starting to bond with someone when I accuse them of digging trashy women. It's a curious sign of affection, but rest assured, it's solid. So although it might look as though I'm throwing ABC's regal John Thomas under the bus in this latest burst of Daly TV, I am in fact enveloping him in a figurative man-hug. This week, we take a peek at September releases by Whitney Houston, Madonna, Barbra Streisand and John's personal favorite, Mariah Carey. He loooooooves her. WATCH THIS.

Madonna: New song 'Celebration'

Madonna - Celebration / NEW SONG
Uploaded by Dritingtofrenchus. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

First Whitney Houston retreats back to her '80s days. And now Madge. What took them so long?! Unlike 2008's awkward Hard Candy experiment with Timbaland, this one might actually work out for the 51-year-old Material Girl. The new album, a hits comp titled Celebration, is set for Sept. 29. Whattaya think, Pop Lifers?

The Sweaty Playlist: Olivia Newton-John leads wet brigade of summer-hot hits

Hey gang, for the first Pop Life print column in Sunday's Floridian, we're starting out newcomers with a fastball right down the middle: The Sweaty Playlist! Readers are invited to come online and see how we do things around here. Go on, show 'em what you're made of...

As a doughy Northern transplant living in the Tampa Bay area, I basically spend June through October shellacked in sweat. I’m not talking about a sparkly bit of lip dew, either. Everyone has that in F-L-A. No, with me, it’s more like Meat Loaf wailing Paradise by the Dashboard Light sweat. Spartacus sweat. Kathleen Turner sweat. I sweat in Publix, I sweat in the shower, I sweat after the shower (like George Costanza, it didn’t take!). It's flippin' brutal down here.

So to kick off the new and improved Playlist game, let’s dig through our iPods for wet, withering heat-of-the-summer songs.

1) Burning Up, Madonna
2) Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), C+C Music Factory
3) Physical, Olivia Newton-John
4) Waterfalls, TLC
5) She Was Hot, Rolling Stones
6) Sweaty, Ne-Yo
7) And When I Die, Blood, Sweat & Tears
8) That Smell, Lynyrd Skynyrd
9) Dreams of the Funky Towel, De La Soul
10) High and Dry, Radiohead