In the lyrics she mourns her dissatisfaction in love in the video she takes it out on her useless boyfriends. Some silky smooth synths introduce this bouncy, complex track from Madonna’s eponymous debut. Key lyric: “ Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel“.
But none of that stops it from being a total banger. You can accurately date this song by any number of factors: its drum-machine claps, its electropop borps, its strange music-video cameo from Ali G, its trip to the strip club, or even Madonna’s cowboy-hat bling. Key lyric: “ Put your troubles down – it’s time to celebrate.”
Sadly Madonna herself doesn’t actually like it all that much any more, saying in 2008 that she didn’t want to ever sing it again “unless somebody paid me, like, $30 million or something.” Thanks to contemporary homages like Shura’s ‘Indecision’, we’re still feeling the influence of this funky vacation bop, whose video handily doubles as the perfect out-of-office autoreply. Key lyric: “ Last night I dreamt of San Pedro… It all seems like yesterday, not far away“. This Latin-inspired melody, written originally for Michael Jackson, instead went to Madonna for her album ‘True Blue’ – and in it she pays tribute to samba, San Pedro, and the chill life. Key lyric: “ Don’t ever tell me to stop.” Key lyric: “ I can’t help falling in love – I fall deeper and deeper the further I go.”Īrguably better than ‘Music’ – the title track from Madonna’s cowboy-style 2000 album – ‘Don’t Tell Me’ is a country-dance experiment that boogies around over a twanging guitar line, gobby synth, and bits of vocoder noise – and strangely appropriate lyrics about the importance of following your instincts. Don’t miss the bit in the middle, which we’re cautiously terming a ‘Flamenco drop’. ‘Erotica”s head-over-heels slice of dance-pop preaches pure “love is love” and includes a lyrical callback to ‘Vogue’, the single that preceded it.