Celebration

To commemorate the end of her recording contract with Warner Brothers, the label she had been with since 1982, Madonna released Celebration, a career-spanning greatest hits collection. There was the one-disc collection, a haphazard assembly of her biggest hits (with numerous omissions), and a deluxe two-disc variation, better but still a bit sloppy. What Madonna needed was roughly three-discs to cram her entire major output and provide a comprehensive overview of her career up to 2009.

In short, Celebration is not quite the cause for celebration its title and promotion promised. The omitted tracks – “Bedtime Story,” “What it Feels Like for a Girl,” “Deeper and Deeper,” “Human Nature,” “Angel,” “I’ll Remember” – are among some of her best and most underrated. The Madge taketh and she giveth – “Everybody,” “Burning Up,” and “Dress You Up” finally got added to an official compilation album. It seems as though assessing what songs make it on the tracklist and which don’t is a reoccurring problem for her as GHV2 and The Immaculate Collection, for all of their glorious highs, both still managed to chop off actual hits and undervalued gems.

Then there is the problem of the new songs, routine and hilarious pornographic with visuals and vocal performances that feel more generic pop tart than subversive, cultural defining as her best work. “Celebration” is fine, another Euro-disco song about dancing with Madonna voguing through the motions and beats she’s done a thousand times before. “Into the Groove” it is not. While “Revolver” finds her abusing AutoTune and singing through a nasal cavity while Lil Wayne makes a decent cameo appearance as a concession to the kids. (“It’s So Cool” is available digitally and has her repeating New Age mantras with lots of vocal effects and simplistic rhymes that she treats as depth.)

It does drive me bonkers that the songs are seemingly chosen at random and thrown together with as much forethought. Not counting the new songs, disc one opens with “Hung Up” and ends with “Justify My Love,” and disc two has “Dress You Up” and “Cherish.” There’s no rhyme or reason to the sequencing and causes four ballads to pile-up together towards the end. This makes the second disc a bit weaker than the first as that one has “Vogue,” “Music,” and “Ray of Light” to keep the energy up. “Take a Bow,” “Live to Tell,” “Frozen” are all great songs, but the mood turns somber and dour when everything up to this point had largely been upbeat pop maximalism demonstrating the blonde ambition she’s renowned for.

If there are any major takeaways from Celebration, it is just how towering and decade-spanning her genius for pop music is, was, and remains. We’ve never had a pop star quite like her before, and I doubt we’ll see the likes of her kind again. There will of course be imitators to the throne, but none will do with quite the voracious appetite for cultural appropriation, artistic reinvention, political subversion, sexual dominance, and keen ear for bubbling under trends primed for the spotlight. It’s hard to see just how the little moppet of “Everybody” turned into the imperial, icy queen of pop, and then you listen to Celebration and you walk away understanding.

Blonde ambition? Naturally. The real celebration is how the Material Girl’s career has emerged as one where two-discs and 36 songs are still not enough to get the complete picture.

DOWNLOAD: “Celebration (Benny Benassi Remix),” “Revolver,” “It’s So Cool”