Hmm I’m not sure how I gave Isaac an 8 rather than a 10 but apparently it happened. Mistakes were made!
I think it's because Future Lovers is a euphoric dance masterpiece and the opening performance from the Confessions tour cements it as an absolute banger.
61 SCORE: 8.248 2015 PLACEMENT: UP 29 - 90 of 210 (7.437) HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 26 (@Tigerlily @Vasilios @No hay banda @HEARTCORE @Dangerous Maknae @Angeleyes @Suburbia @soratami @Phonetics Boy @elear @Andy French @torontodj @Dreampopboy @NightmareBoy @Modeblock @Coochi @MilesAngel @Zdarlight @joeee @Xanax @VeryPSB @DinahLee @Crisp X @KingBruno @Beautiful Child 2 @Maki) LOWEST SCORE: 4 x 3 (@matthew. @Ana Raquel @Up Down Suite) MY SCORE: 8.5/10 A song about yearning for things you will never have? What kind of homosexual crack? We've all been there, females. When He's Just Not Into You But It Doesn't Stop You Anyway. When you will happily settle for a crumb of affection and attention and treat it like a ten course meal. When you're literally just happy to sit next to someone and take in all their silly wee features as they talk to you; tiny lines around the eyes, the curve of their top lip, that hint of collarbone at the edge of their t-shirt, the single crooked tooth in their smile... sorry, what were you saying about your weekend? "To Have And Not To Hold" is all about being suspended in that no-space; where the only light in your life is being cast by a person you can't get close enough to to feel their warmth as well. It's a cold, desperate song about infatuation turning into poison, and Madonna brings it to life wonderfully; her vocal caught somewhere between listlessness and disdain for herself for being this weak, for settling for proximity and nothing more. William Orbit's production sets the stage of longing magnificently, accentuating that feeling of when a cute crush becomes that all-consuming need for intimacy. I also enjoy that it withholds the chorus, if only for the irony in it happening in a song all about the best of things always being out of your reach. Can we also talk about how it has jumped nearly thirty places since 2015? Will the rest of the album see as high a boost? "To Have And Not To Hold" has not ever been performed live, although it would have been the perfect song to dust off for Tears Of A Clown. Here's the demo, purely so I can finish this post with a video.
Every time one of my 9.5s gets eliminated I forget I didn't give it a 10 and come THIS close to accusing RJF of fumbling the scores Ladies and gentlemen please welcome go the stage... ISAAC!
Isaac - 8.5. Isaac is great but it's slightly too long. The 'Remember, remember...' lyric that RJF quoted in the write-up is one of my favourite Madonna lyrics ever.
I knew it was going to happen eventually. "To Have and Not to Hold" is my favourite song from "Ray of Light" and one of my favourite Madonna's songs in general, so this is a very painful elimination, especially seeing it leave at the brink of the top 60. I love it so much that, if we rated only her album tracks, it would've been my 11. An essay about this masterpiece is in line.
I’m sure I said it before in here and will repeat it at least two more times, but the three-song run of Frozen, The Power Of Good-Bye, and To Have and Not to Hold is absolutely staggering. The other girls past, present, and future could, would, and will never.
I like To Have... but it beating Isaac is... weird. And I will take Ray of Light over Confessions any day.
60 SCORE: 8.252 2015 PLACEMENT: N/A 11 x 1 @Mjg0806 HIGHEST SCORE: 10 x 43 (@RJF @Vasilios @aux @dodoriazarbon @eatyourself @djmakemewet @discoteca @Lucy Honeychurch @Euphoria @maverick_79 @tylerc904 @rav4boy @OSHi @Future Lover @Cutlery @Suburbia @matthew. @Mirwais Ahmadzaï @Andrew.L @elear @fatyoshi @Up Down Suite @torontodj @Joe. @muddleddreams @Drew @Robsolete @joe_alouder @Miss Lange @wintersleep @evilsin @TheChoirgirlHotel @Remorque @MrMannacroix @acl @RainOnFire @Markus1981 @sexercise @Mr Blonde @Music Is Life @FrozenNight @Bangers&Bops @Weslicious) LOWEST SCORE: 4 x 1 (@Pop Life... now I'm glad your 11/10 is gone bitch) MY SCORE: 10/10 First, let's get this out of the way: maybe the worst single cover of Madonna's career. Like the Rebel Heart single covers are awful but at least they look moderately sound. Was this made on someone's phone during the last five minutes of some photo editing app free trial? The borderline invisible text; the picture of Swae Lee that looks like it was found on GeoCities; the lack of integrity in the aspect ratio; the way it's literally just two photos put next to one another with no context. We had a video filmed. Could they not have just... taken a photo together there? I can't. That said, the song? A modern Madonna classic, one of her finest singles of the 21st Century, and anyone who disagrees can eat every square mile of my gigantic quarantine ass. It's gorgeous. And how ironic we move between two songs about longing; if "To Have..." is about the cold, brittle warping of your emotions yearning for someone can do, "Crave" is all about the passion and boldness of laying it all there to be accepted or rejected. The warmth, the fragility, the bravery of it all. I live. Mother's vocal is also wonderful here; it's so full of colour and experience. This was apparently one of the first songs Madonna started writing for Madame X, and it's not all that surprising that the first song she wrote since moving to Lisbon also touched on being a little homesick and yearning for familiarity, because like all amazing Madonna songs, they can apply to so many different situations. Craving for home, craving for love, craving for dick. It's even a biT of a vore anthem if you're into that. Swae Lee also adds a lot to proceedings here as well; playing a great male foil and hesitant recipient to Madonna's cravings; warning of everything that could be lost. Madonna's middle-eight, however, is an easy Madame X highlight for me. I think it maybe even took my breath away a bit when I first heard it. That quiet exhale of her vocal shared like a secret with us. I love it. It's too easy to say that none of Madonna's more recent work can stand tall with the giants in her earlier work, because while it might be largely true (because honestly, what does stand up to her earlier work in any walk of life?) there are exceptions, and "Crave" is one of them. The song acted as the second single for Madame X, becoming her biggest hit on HAC radio since "Frozen". It also got a video where mum looks amazing and is in New York and... something to do with pigeons idk. She even touches one?! SIS. The germs! "Crave" was apparently used as part of the encore during the Madame X Tour, in which the absolutely atrocious Tracy Young remix was employed instead of the original version. Mess. I've included both the video and the remix below, but not the performance as I'm pretty sure that the Madame X Tour was a collective gay fever dream at this point. Enjoy!
Wait I thought we were done for the day and now this elimination punched me in the gut when I wasn't expecting it, much like the song itself
Well, "To Have and Not to Hold" isn't the only song from "Ray of Light" I gave a 10 to, and who said there aren't other amazing songs from that album. Technically, it didn't beat "Isaac", since both songs are tied at #61. But really, I'm having a bit of a breakdown after seeing some of the songs that have outlasted "To Have and Not to Hold".
