Madonna
Celebration

In the very distant 1982, the year in which the dearly departed Michael Jackson released that undisputed masterpiece, unbeaten and unbeatable, "Thriller", a peer of his, not yet famous and praised like him, decided to break into an immature music biz, still lacking a consolidated television network (MTV) that would crown her dream, that is, the strategic union of music and image. That subject was (and still is) called Madonna Louise Ciccone, a native of Bay City, Michigan, near Detroit.

Although musically and artistically active for 4 years, Madonna had not yet managed to secure a contract from any major record label. When she finally succeeded in this crucial endeavor, Madonna released her first single, "Everybody", which, despite having achieved great success in the Big Apple's club scene, failed to hit the target of entering the Billboard Hot 100, a target it completely missed even with the second release "Burning Up/Physical Attraction". But finally, the anthem to fun and frivolity, "Holiday", guaranteed her first Top Twenty, and her debut album, "Madonna", began to climb international charts.

From this point, the road to being consecrated as the undisputed Queen of Pop was all uphill, albeit with some bumps and turns. From the carefree nature of "Like a Virgin" to the extreme boldness of "Erotica", from the social commitment of "Express Yourself" to the desire for the dance floor of "Hung Up", Madonna has always been able to reinvent herself with each album release, both in image and music, a strategy that almost no other celebrity has managed to use to its fullest and has been the key to her decades-long success. A guarantee, a certainty that continues and will continue in the future ahead.

"Celebration" represents the third resting and recapitulation point of the Queen of Pop, after "The Immaculate Collection" of 1990 and "GHV2" of 2001. But it contains substantial differences compared to previous releases.

First of all, the album covers a greater time span than the other two, which were conceived respectively as the Greatest Hits of the '80s and that of the '90s (with exceptions), whereas here the intention is to celebrate Madonna's entire career and not a specific discographic era. Moreover, the vastness of Celebration is surprising: a whopping 34 hits plus two unreleased tracks (Celebration and Revolver, sung in collaboration with Lil Wayne), unlike the other two collections which were single-disc with fewer than 20 tracks.

The order of the hits is random, with no chronology or rational placement, a trick already used with GHV2. However, the collection is an authentic gem for all those who desire a complete summary of Miss Ciccone's career. What stands out is the presence of all five singles from the Madonna album, her debut, almost emphasizing how these initial tracks have remained close to her heart, legendary, and unrepeatable. But the knowledgeable Madonna fan will notice the absence of some of her greatest hits: Don't Cry For Me Argentina, American Life, You'll See, This Used To Be My Playground, I'll Remember, American Pie, True Blue. It is necessary to point out another fact: some of these songs are contained in various compilations such as Something To Remember (a 1995 ballad collection, ed.), and, to maintain still significant or nonetheless steady sales from these old releases, some exclusive songs need to be reserved to ensure they are still appealing to an audience, preferably young, who does not yet know Madonna and is potentially attracted to her. A clever marketing strategy, thus, according to economists.

The vastness of the catalog is nonetheless impressive: there are "Music", "Vogue", "Frozen", "Secret", "Erotica", "Like a Prayer", "Like a Virgin", "Into The Groove", "Hung Up", "4 Minutes", "Take a Bow". There are even songs that Madonna has rarely included in her previous compilations and that seem to have been of little concern to her, such as "Justify My Love" and "Who's That Girl". The latter, despite its enormous international echo, was not included in the legendary "The Immaculate Collection" of 1990, a lack that many fans had noted with disappointment but which was then "forgiven" the following year with an EP, now very rare, named "The Holiday Collection", containing other great successes that had failed to enter the tracklist of the previous and more renowned Greatest Hits, such as "True Blue" and "Causing a Commotion".

The unreleased tracks do not represent anything new for Madonna, but they consolidate her reputation as a Diva of the dance floor. In "Celebration", she invites everyone to celebrate and dance, while in the electro-dance Revolver, featuring rapper Lil Wayne, the Queen asserts that her sex "is a killer".

Faced with such wealth, one wonders: how did a small-town girl from Michigan of Italian-American origin climb to the top of the media industry? Perhaps it is her re-invention, perhaps that charisma many young women like Lady GaGa aspire to possess, perhaps that boldness that led her to clash with the most feared and unsurpassable taboos. No one can say for sure, but everyone can enjoy a quiet evening, turn on the stereo, adjust the volume, and savor the best (but for many, also the worst) of Madonna from "Everybody" to "Celebration".