I also think Madge will be remembered more for her antics than her music, but I'm not one to judge an artist on image or gimmicks. For me it's the music and only the music.

I don't like Madonna.

Oh, she's had a few choice tracks here and there. I actually enjoy “Like A Prayer” quite a bit, and “Ray of Light” and “Music” are tolerable. But the rest…uh…blah. And I >have< heard most of her stuff because my wife is a BIG BIG BIG fan.

Her early output is so shrill and horribly recorded that it is almost unlistenable. Madonna's voice is not that great on these early tracks, and the up-front mix only accentuates her weakness as a vocalist. As far as the songs themselves, (e.g. “Holiday”, “True Blue”) they are amateurish, very simplistic and boring.

Yeah, she was a front runner in many pop culture movements, and I guess you could credit her with the empowerment of today's female singers (if you consider that something admirable) but in the end, it's just the music coming out of the speakers that matters most. And I'd rather listen to something else, thanks anyway.

I also think Madge will be remembered more for her antics than her music, but I'm not one to judge an artist on image or gimmicks. For me it's the music and only the music.

I don't like Madonna.

Oh, she's had a few choice tracks here and there. I actually enjoy “Like A Prayer” quite a bit, and “Ray of Light” and “Music” are tolerable. But the rest…uh…blah. And I >have< heard most of her stuff because my wife is a BIG BIG BIG fan.

Her early output is so shrill and horribly recorded that it is almost unlistenable. Madonna's voice is not that great on these early tracks, and the up-front mix only accentuates her weakness as a vocalist. As far as the songs themselves, (e.g. “Holiday”, “True Blue”) they are amateurish, very simplistic and boring.

Yeah, she was a front runner in many pop culture movements, and I guess you could credit her with the empowerment of today's female singers (if you consider that something admirable) but in the end, it's just the music coming out of the speakers that matters most. And I'd rather listen to something else, thanks anyway.

I also think Madge will be remembered more for her antics than her music, but I'm not one to judge an artist on image or gimmicks. For me it's the music and only the music.

I don't like Madonna.

Oh, she's had a few choice tracks here and there. I actually enjoy “Like A Prayer” quite a bit, and “Ray of Light” and “Music” are tolerable. But the rest…uh…blah. And I >have< heard most of her stuff because my wife is a BIG BIG BIG fan.

Her early output is so shrill and horribly recorded that it is almost unlistenable. Madonna's voice is not that great on these early tracks, and the up-front mix only accentuates her weakness as a vocalist. As far as the songs themselves, (e.g. “Holiday”, “True Blue”) they are amateurish, very simplistic and boring.

Yeah, she was a front runner in many pop culture movements, and I guess you could credit her with the empowerment of today's female singers (if you consider that something admirable) but in the end, it's just the music coming out of the speakers that matters most. And I'd rather listen to something else, thanks anyway.

With regard to her image, if people think that's all there is to her then they're idiots who are missing the point. The image has always been to get people's attention so they'll listen to her music and what she has to say. For people to take it so seriously only proves her right. If you dangle something shiny in front of people they take notice.

People dismiss her incredibly solid 25 year music career without ever really having heard her music. That's just ignorant. Elvis was flashy too so let's dismiss him. The Beatles had funny haircuts so I guess they don't count either. Detractors rail about her image changes yet they're the ones paying so much attention to it.

Anyone who can't get past an artist's image or “gimmick” doesn't deserve the terrific music behind it.

Her voice was never the best, but she can make it fit any style. Her ability to change her image was as good as David Bowie's, if not better at points. With him you could always see that it was all just a persona, but with Madonna it seemed like she was actually changing. The music and stylistic leaps were not large enough to be offputting but big enough to let you know that something has changed.

This post has turned much more stream of consciousness than I had originally intended. I should stop before it becomes a Thesis.

Madonna's music–or at least much of it–is eminently worth defending. She basically created post-disco dance music (or at least the female variety) with “Borderline,” “Lucky Star” and “Into the Groove.” She also basically invented “girl power” as a post-feminist concept, and, even if it was sometimes more provocative than artistic, changed the female face of pop with songs like “Papa Don't Preach” and “Express Yourself.” For better or worse, she brought Latin inflections into '80s pop with “La Isla Bonita,” “Who's That Girl” and several other songs.

For most of a decade, from “Burning Up” to “Vogue” and even “Justify My Love,” she was on top of trends rather than following them. And has any other artist brought trance/electronica/whatever into the pop mainstream any more successfully than she did with the “Ray of Light” album?

And don't get me started on the massive, massive influence of her videos. Doctoral dissertations have been dedicated to the female-empowerment tropes of “Papa Don't Preach” and “Open Your Heart,” as well as the socio-religious themes in “Like a Prayer,” and the film homages abundant in “Express Yourself” (Metropolis) and “Vogue” (Looking for Langston). My favorite class in graduate school was a comp-lit class in which the professor convincingly linked the lyric poetry of writers from Petrarch to Shakespeare with the visual narratives of late-'80s Madonna and George Michael videos.

I wholeheartedly agree that the balance shifted dramatically from her music to her extracurricular shenanigans, beginning with the Sex book. However, there are still a multitude of bright spots over the intervening years that haven't been mentioned already: “Rain,” “Deeper and Deeper,” her work in “Evita” (even the acting!), the entire “Ray of Light” album and much of “Music” as well…even “Hollywood” and “Love Profusion” from “American Life.”

Her music on the last two albums has seemed almost willfully disposable, as if in reaction to the savaging she received for “American Life.” Maybe the disaster of that album showed her that it's no longer possible for her to make iconic music as she once did, and she has ramped up the Liz Taylor, celebrity-for-celebrity's-sake behaviors to compensate. If the A-Rod story seems not only particularly tawdry but also unfamiliar, it's because Madonna's been unable to stage-manage the entire thing–and, for the first time in a very long time, her celebrity has been eclipsed by someone else's. Who'd a thunk it?

“”make it palatable to a generation who see Madonna as a leather-bound Medusa creeping from the caverns to ensnare more horny Greeks.”"

This is priceless, thanks for the laugh.

She was not necessarily musically cool or innovative but she put out a string of great singles and, as pure pop goes, The Immaculate Collection very nearly lives up to its title (even if some of its mixes stink).

Since that first compilation, though, she has been the living musical embodiment of the law of diminishing returns – with occasional gems like Frozen and Beautiful Stranger merely flattering to deceive.

If there is still a market for the music of the Sixties girl groups today, I've no doubt there will be a market for Madonna's 80s output in 2028 – but she won't necessarily be seen then as more of a musical influence than Ronnie Spector is now.