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Madonna VibeZ

Twenty-two tracks spanning forty years of the most persistently reinvented career in pop. Whatever you think of Madonna, the records are the argument.

The professional survivor

Madonna Louise Ciccone arrived from Michigan into downtown New York at the tail end of the disco era, absorbed the club culture around her — particularly the Black and Latino, largely queer dance scene that would later give her "Vogue" — and built a career on the principle that a pop star could change completely every few years and survive it.

The reinvention is the usual headline, and it is real: the club singer, the Catholic provocateur, the Erotica-era transgressor, the Evita-era respectability, the electronica turn, the disco revival. What gets discussed less is her ear for collaborators. Madonna has consistently found producers at the exact moment they were doing their best work — Nile Rodgers, Patrick Leonard, Shep Pettibone, Nellee Hooper, William Orbit, Mirwais, Stuart Price — and the records are as much theirs as hers.

What to listen for

"Holiday," "Lucky Star" and "Into the Groove" are the early club records, and "Into the Groove" in particular is one of the most efficient pop songs ever constructed.

"Like a Prayer" is the artistic peak — a gospel choir, a genuinely ambiguous lyric about faith and desire, and a video that cost her a Pepsi contract. "Express Yourself" and "Live to Tell" come from the same period of maximum confidence.

"Vogue" is the one with the most complicated legacy: a global hit built on Harlem ballroom culture, which it introduced to a mass audience while also, unavoidably, extracting from it. Both things are true and the record remains magnificent.

"Justify My Love" — written with Lenny Kravitz and Ingrid Chavez — is the strangest thing she ever released as a single, and "Frozen" is the William Orbit turn that reinvented her for the electronic era.

"Miles Away," "Get Together" and "Survival" are the later, less-played selections and worth the attention.

Go deeper

Like a Prayer (1989) and Ray of Light (1998) are the two albums that make the artistic case most clearly. Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005) is the most purely enjoyable.

For the culture "Vogue" drew on, the documentary Paris Is Burning is essential viewing, and Willi Ninja is the name to know.

And for the producers: Nile Rodgers' CHIC, Shep Pettibone's remix catalogue and William Orbit's own records all reward following independently of her.

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