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What Is Madonna's MOST Underrated Song? Is It "I'll Remember"?


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I'm loving this piece below. I agree how Madonna's most underrated song would be "I'll Remember"!! I'll never understand why Madonna ignores it for her tours, etc? This song is such a MUST for her next tour imo!

This is Madonna's most underrated song

Madonna is just full of surprises. It's how she's remained the Queen of Pop for literally decades. She thrives in contractions. While she consciously crafts herself as a sex symbol, she's a mother to several children. While she puts forward an impenetrable shell, fortified by her massive net worth, Madonna has also had a really tragic life.


With this mystifying persona surrounding the woman (not to mention the controversy), sometimes it's easy to forget that she's first and foremost a musician. According to The Guardian, Madonna is, in fact, the best-selling female artist of all time. She is the only "female artist to have sold more than 250 million units in claimed sales," according to Decluttr, putting her up in the ranks of The Beatles and Elvis Presley. As such, Madonna beats other heavyweights like Lady Gaga or Beyonce and is sitting pretty at the top.

With such a huge catalogue of music, it's tough to narrow down a favorite tune among Madonna's singles but there is one song in particular that totally deserved more attention than it received. Check out Madonna' most underrated song and see if you agree with us.


Madonna's 90s masterpieces

Madonna's had so many hits. How do you even choose between "Holiday" or "Material Girl?" While a lot of her songs get the attention they deserve, there's one that got pushed by the wayside that totally should have received more praise. That special song is the 1994 ballad, "I'll Remember."


Prior to the release of this song, Madonna was fueling a sex-charged persona, made iconic through Erotica and her coffee table book, Sex, according to EW. Following this, Madonna entered a more subdued and considerably more sophisticated period, marked by this gentle ballad from the movie With Honors. According to EW, Madonna's frequent collaborator, Patrick Leonard, worked on the music for this film and he co-wrote and produced this song.

What made "I'll Remember" so unique, according to EW, was that the song had another co-writer, Richard Page of the '80s 'Broken Wings' group Mr. Mister.

"I'll Remember" is so remarkable, according to The Guardian, because its atmospheric verses pave the way "towards Madonna's Ray of Light masterpieces." It's totally a game-changing tune.

 

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Yes! People always claim that Take a Bow brought up Madonna to the top again after Erotica, which is true, but songs like I'll Remember and Secret were top 5 around the world and definitely played a huge part at that.
I think it's forgotten because, you know, our little diva doesn't seen to like it, it was never performed live and it was out of the Greastest Hits that cover that era (Ok, it was on STR but still..., it was a #2 in the US and #7 in the UK).
If you think of the amount of Madonna's top 10 between the US and UK that are often forgotten and never got a chance to shine live since it's debut (some have never) and never got a spot on compilations... 
Angel
Dress You Up
Gambler
True Blue
Who's That Girl
Causing a Commotion
Cherish
Keep It Together
Rescue Me
This Used to Be My Playground
Bad Girl
Fever
Rain
You'll See
Another Suitcase in Another Town
The Power of Good-Bye
Nothing Really Matters
Beautiful Stranger
American Pie
Hollywood
Sorry
Get Together
Jump
But at least we still have the great trio of Human Nature, Like a Prayer and Vogue getting saturated tour after tour :smuglaugh:


 

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I do love I'll Remember. The song evokes melancholy and nostalgia with sophistication and immediacy, which isn't an easy task. However, I think that This Used To Be My Playground is a much more important underrated song in Madonna's discography...It's simplicity is deceptive, and it's overt saccharine vocal pining is so intensely authentic. I'll Remember has moments of this same version of Saudade, but in affirming her emotional resilience and transcendence the song feels less vulnerable and more about self-empowerment, which is a regular theme throughout Madonna's discography. TUTBMP feels genuinely self-aware, but with a tiny twist of hopeful romanticism to it. That has always felt devastatingly honest to me; like a good cry in private. 

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19 minutes ago, Alibaba said:

I do love I'll Remember. The song evokes melancholy and nostalgia with sophistication and immediacy, which isn't an easy task. However, I think that This Used To Be My Playground is a much more important underrated song in Madonna's discography...It's simplicity is deceptive, and it's overt saccharine vocal pining is so intensely authentic. I'll Remember has moments of this same version of Saudade, but in affirming her emotional resilience and transcendence the song feels less vulnerable and more about self-empowerment, which is a regular theme throughout Madonna's discography. TUTBMP feels genuinely self-aware, but with a tiny twist of hopeful romanticism to it. That has always felt devastatingly honest to me; like a good cry in private. 

I'm so with you on that. This Used To Be... is definitely a forgotten gem (#1 for fuck's sake!) and it's a shame cause it's an amazing track with great lyrics. 

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42 minutes ago, Alibaba said:

I do love I'll Remember. The song evokes melancholy and nostalgia with sophistication and immediacy, which isn't an easy task. However, I think that This Used To Be My Playground is a much more important underrated song in Madonna's discography...It's simplicity is deceptive, and it's overt saccharine vocal pining is so intensely authentic. I'll Remember has moments of this same version of Saudade, but in affirming her emotional resilience and transcendence the song feels less vulnerable and more about self-empowerment, which is a regular theme throughout Madonna's discography. TUTBMP feels genuinely self-aware, but with a tiny twist of hopeful romanticism to it. That has always felt devastatingly honest to me; like a good cry in private. 

Can u please describe every song in her catalogue. You do words good. 

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How I love I’ll Remember. My issue with songs long forgotten that are brought back... they either come back as an interlude or an acoustic version. Or a sample. 
what about Where’s The Party? Sampled on CT. Open Your Heart. First sampled in DWT then very much brought down in MDNA. She performed a mildly upbeat version of it for that fundraiser for Leo... what happened to that? 

I’ll Remember is so beautiful. I’d love to hear her sing it again.

ugh.

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Truly underrated? Probably "Get Together". Should have been a much bigger hit. A great video would have helped.

And when they were released "American Life" (song/album)

"Bedtime Story" (one of her finest moments ever)

"I Want You"

"The Look of Love"

"Fever" 

"One More Chance" gets a lot of shit but she sounds great and like she believes and feels everything she's singing.

"You Must Love Me" (yes it won an Oscar but it wasn't exactly huge. Not an easy song to sing and she sounds amazing)

 

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I feel like Drowned World and You'll See don't get the praise and attention they deserve in her discography. It's like only fans remember them.

00s: Gone, Nothing Fails, Hollywood, Forbidden Love, Devil Wouldn't Recognize You. The last one since JT had a big hit with Mirrors in 2013.

10s: Falling Free, Beautiful Scars, Devil Pray, Messiah. I don't know if GGW applies in this but it should have been a top 20 in the charts AT LEAST. Beautiful Killer  should have been a big moment in her 10s career too.

 

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I'll Remember is a beautiful song, yet minor in pop history and M's career. For us fans, let's not forget that it was co-written by Pat Leonard and that William Orbit's remixes were amazing, and still are. They opened a whole new path. It was another creative move in the making that led her to Frozen and Ray of Light ffs!

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Well most 90's Madonna is underrated. Through the next decades she's been underrated too but most fans seem to agree that her music was still excellent in the 90's. The reason I never got into I'll remember is because the video gave me that Rain look and vibe but the song itself doesn't have that majestic flow that Rain has. There is a beating instrument that's sort of chopping the sound to my ears and the main melody isn't very strong. I think that as a song ironically you won't remember it unless you have memories associated with it. The lyrics are cute though and it gives me some jungle vibes (that beating thing again) unusual for a Madonna tune. Maybe I get confused with it because I don't think the song has decided if it wants to be a Rain or an Africa lol. Both are much better in my opinion.

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I don't know the rest of the world, but in Italy I'll Remember is still played at the radio stations, same with Causing A Commotion, Jump, Give It 2 Me and You'll See; therefore I wouldn't call them "underrated"... in fact, it seems to me that they are appreciated by casual listeners, as proven by Spotify streaming numbers and Youtube visualizations.

Underrated singles? Well, a lot; Angel, Gambler, Rain, Deeper And Deeper, Bad Girl, The Look Of Love, Oh Father, Bedtime Story, Nothing Really Matters, Drowned World, What It Feels Like For A Girl (unpopular opinion: the video remix is forgettably generic and it didn't help the track), Impressive Instant (yeah, I know it was only promotional), I Want You, Get Together (it deserved a better video) could and should have been more successful.  

As far as Human Nature, Keep It Together, Hollywood, Love Profusion, Die Another Day, American Life, One More Chance, Nothing Fails, Miles Away, Fever, Love Don't Live Here Anymore and Rescue Me are concerned, sorry, to me are just ok songs, nothing else. And Masterpiece is a bland, overrated ballad.

Edited by Renato Iodice (see edit history)
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I dont agree with this assessment.  "I'll remember" was a hit, during its time.  It wasnt "under-rated" in the least, atleast here in the US, where her career was written off post SEX/Erotica, and this movie single gave her a #2 hit in America! Also #1 Canada, #7 UK and mostly within the top 10 across the bigger markets.

To me "underrated" is reviews/chart performance (however we want to define "rated") as lower than expected based on the quality(?) of the output. (open to better definitions)

I think these are her most under-rated tracks, in order:

7. Living For Love

 

6. Look of Love

 

5. Ghosttown

 

4. Nothing Really Matters

 

3. Crave

 

2. Nothing Fails

 

and to me, this track seemed to be forgotten about by M and her team, during the COADF era and since:

 

1. Get Together

 

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