"I Rise" is about as flat and uncompelling as "Masterpiece" but I think it should leave first just for how much it weighs its (obviously far, far superior) parent album down. But yes I'm kind of baffled they both got 7 averages or close to it.
Ugh the lack of taste you all have. I have to admit, I scored it a 10 originally and remarked to a 9. I wish I'd kept it as a 10!
I mean it wasn’t my most exhaustive effort! Along with the fact that I’ve always attributed it more to “Give It 2 Me”.
144 SCORE: 6.912 11 x 1 (@JonBcn) 2015 PLACEMENT: UP 13 - 157 of 210 (6.264) HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 3 (@Ana Raquel @torontodj @joeee) LOWEST SCORE: 4 x 7 (@Angeleyes @theelusivechanteuse @scottdisick94 @aaronhansome @Epic Chocolat @Filippa @MrMannacroix) MY SCORE: 6.5/10 A bop, but it looks like being a bop is not enough to get you to that elusive 7/10 benchmark. However, "Gambler" actually bucks the recent trend of eliminations being in lower spots than they were in 2015, which is legitimately difficult to get apparently. But yeah, this fucking slaps. That big stupid, propulsive guitar riff just keeps everything rollicking along as such a great pace; John Benitez (who also produces other Vision Quest track "Crazy For You" and the likes of "Borderline" and "Holiday) really did a great job here. It's a great tonic to the more sedate, lightweight sound she favoured at the start of her career and just doesn't let up once. A sibling to "Burning Up", I think. It's also another Madonna-only pen job, which is interesting when you think about how so many of the those tracks revolve around this kind of thrill-seeking bravado. She really just... blazed, didn't she? This is our second 11/10 to fall, and as such, we have a bit of commentary from @JonBcn, who is really gonna make everyone who gave this a bad score feel real bad: "Each time I do a rate I consider whether, apart from simply awarding more points to the songs I like most, I should also be surveying the cultural landscape. Assessing the historical legacy of the songs in question before making decisions on their relative worth. To consider how they may have impacted successive generations of songwriters before dismissing them with a cursory 7-points despite the song in question having changed the world (or not). And usually I do consider those things, kids. But with Madonna it was a bit futile, as so many of her songs shaped the world and our ears. How are you supposed to pick an 11 from ‘Into the Groove’, ‘Papa Don’t Preach’, ‘Like a Prayer’, ‘Music’…they’re in a league of their own. So, my 11 is simply my favourite song. It may not have had the cultural impact of ‘Vogue’ or the longevity of Material Girl. It’s often ridiculed, and is pretty much forgotten by Madge herself. I didn’t even realise it wasn’t on Spotify until I tried to find it for this. ‘Gambler’ may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for me it was a moment. 9-year old hammered the ‘Like a Virgin’ album. We lived in the middle east and couldn’t get hold of singles, except on bootleg compilation albums, and I would run to the shops with my pocket money every week to see if a new compilation had come out with Gambler on it, because I knew the song existed, but without English language radio stations or internet, I couldn’t hear it. My memory is a bit hazy, but I’m fairly sure that the first time I heard it was when I got the Virgin Tour on VHD for Christmas 1985. I must have watched that concert 100 times, and this was the highlight for me. I still *love* watching that Tour – it’s her most joyful, wall to wall classics, no filler. I know every ad lib and every duff note off by heart. That performance of ‘Gambler’ for me represents Madonna at her most thrilling: imperial, ambitious, on the cusp of changing the world…and yeah, just a little cheesy. Do you understand what I’m talking about?" ...I do, actually! Virgin Tour is obviously her most basic from a production point of view but it's easy to see the foundations in what would be one of the most prolific and celebrated touring careers of all time. She's like an unstable nuclear reactor on stage during it; energy just lashes off of her dangerously and whips the audience into an absolute frenzy. And can you blame them considering the amount of hits she already had by that time? I always appreciate on-the-ground testimonials from long-time M fans too. As mentioned above, the song was given a stomping performance during the The Virgin Tour, along with a glorified compilation video that got uploaded to Madonna's YouTube channel a couple of years ago. Between performance shots of her that involve what is clearly now-expired product placement pettily pixelated into nothing, you get... the entire plot of Vision Quest by the looks of things. It honestly looks like softcore gay porn with a heterosexual love story shoehorned in, but I sure as hell am not going to be watching it to confirm or deny. Enjoy!
Gambler is a cute girl. Part of me wishes it got a little more love, but like Your Honesty, I kinda like that it's a bit of a hidden gem in her discography (my flop ass didn't know it existed until 2007, at which point I'd been a stan for like four years).
"Gambler" has occasional melodic similarities to "Beat It", a whistle reminiscent of "She-Bop", an instrumental that channels a karaoke night Sunfly rendition of "Maniac", and pixelated product placement? Not everyone has that.
