I swapped out Did You Do It? With Goodbye To Innocence and honestly, it works so well in the back end of the Erotica album, and flows perfectly into Secret Garden, it’s definitely a “what was she thinking leaving this off???” moment.
I completely erased "Did You Do It?" from existence - yes, that's the song "Goodbye to Innocence" should've replaced. The album outtake that was done totally wrong here is "Your Honesty". Now that should've been on "Bedtime Stories" for sure.
Sis how dare you imply that @RJF and I didn't make sure we ourselves were immune before we distributed the mind control devices. What is this, amateur hour? Anyway, while we're on the subject of soundtrack songs with the word "Beautiful" in the title that were nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes, let me smash my taint to Beautiful Stranger a biT.
I honestly never knew which out of Goodbye to Innocence or Up Down Suite, was the original version, until the former’s write up. Or maybe I should’ve known just by seeing which version we were rating...
You Must Love Me - 7.5. Madonna is the first person to ever sing this song and she does a phenomenal job. As a non musical fan this song is one of my favourites and that has a lot to do with Madonna's performance.
I wholeheartedly agree with @RJF's write-up of "You Must Love Me" - it's not among her best, but really shines on its own. That live performance is excellent. Exactly.
I still remember my best friend went to see some movie called The Relic which beat Evita to the top spot opening weekend at the box office here in North America. I didn't speak to him for six months. Being a Madonna stan is not easy.
American Pie and American Life pack a 1-2 punch that I really can’t put into words. Like, I fucking hate America, and yet would not have the opportunities I have had my parents not immigrated here. It’s frustrating.
Goodbye to Innocence would've been one of my favorites on Erotica, scored higher than like half if not more of the album.
139 SCORE: 7.042 2015 PLACEMENT: N/A HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 4 (@Future Lover @joeee @Trinu 3.0 @Markus1981) LOWEST SCORE: 2 x 1 (@theelusivechanteuse) MY SCORE: 7.5/10 As you can see from the extreme ends of the scoring, this was maybe undone by the fact that it doesn't appear to provoke a strong reaction in people either way, managing to get a relatively decent score without that much of a showing in full marks or complete bomb outs (is anyone even surprised at @theelusivechanteuse turning up in the lowest score section at this point nn) so I guess just scraping a 7/10 makes sense. That said, I don't think I have much to say about it either despite the solid score since... I think it's pretty self explanatory? A Starrah co-write, Jeff Bhasker and Mike Dean on production... on an album that sees her adopt several different moods and travel through various different topics and lands, the penultimate track of the album being her begging for salvation and companionship and maybe just a goddamn break on behalf of the world feels pretty narratively expected, and hits doubly in 2020 where the shit just won't keep coming. Still, it's really good. I enjoy the rhetorical questions in the bridges on each verse, the production is suitable tense and moody, and I love her tone on the pleading, imploring chorus too. A nice track, so perhaps it's fitting that it lands here, and it makes the blast of perseverance in "I Rise" all the sweeter. It's maybe a little trite. Madonna baring her soul in a confessional booth of a song isn't something that's new to her, but after nearly forty years in the game there's really not much she hasn't tried so I can't blame her for repeating ideas occasionally.
Looking for Mercy is heartbreaking - lyrically, there's something slightly Live to Tell about the verses which certainly isn't a bad thing - and she sounds incredible on the prechoruses. I wish it had a second verse, but at the same time, I can see how it would add to the mantra-like structure of the song.
I'll never not think of when she hashtagged #lookingformercy on instagram and somebody (I think on here) said "Where'd she go?"
