INTO THE GROOVE

As the Queen of Pop prepares to unveil her 15th album – a sequel to her masterpiece ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor’ – Adam White picks the top 20 tracks from 45 years of music

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Madonna. Madge. Mistress Dita. The queen of Pop. The queen of working out. The queen of wearing sunglasses indoors and sporting grills on your teeth that make you borderline unintelligible. However you see Madonna, you'll have a favourite – and probably least favourite – incarnation. Her catalogue is enormous, comprising sexy songs and sad songs, political songs and nonsensical songs, and songs that continue to scandalise the clean-living and respectable among us.

Picking the best is nigh-impossible, but we’ve tried to. As she prepares to unveil her 15th studio album, Confessions II - a sequel to her 2005 disco masterpiece Confessions on a Dancefloor - we’ve ranked her top 20 songs released so far.

Your faves might be missing, entire albums could be absent (don’t shoot me, Rebel Heart stans!), but it speaks to the sheer brilliance of Madonna herself. She’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is - then, now and for always - the moment.

20. “Thief of Hearts”

Appearing on 1992’s Erotica, this is one of Madonna’s angriest songs (it opens with a smash of glass and Madonna snarling “Bitch!”), but is sung with the languor of someone by now used to being romantically disappointed. Before, that is, the incredibly fizzy bridge you may have seen on TikTok recently: “You'll do it, you’ll take it / You'll screw it, you'll fake it...”

19. “Into the Groove”

Madonna’s first UK No 1, and the song you could argue properly announced her as the queen of pop. But (whisper it), she does basically this exact same track a bit better later down the line. That doesn’t mean this isn’t masterful, though. The synth hook of this 1985 song is irresistibly danceable, and there’s something so thrilling about Madonna’s vocals on that bridge: “Now I know you're mine!!”

18. “Justify My Love”