So, the interwebs were abuzz this weekend as reigning Grand Dame of Pop dropped her video to new single Give Me All Your Luvin’.

While the song has divided Madonna fans and critics alike, it does provide an interesting insight in what we can expect from her forthcoming album MDNA. Basically the sound of her thirty year career almost turning completely inward on itself and coming full circle, it’s a delightfully bouncy old-school Madonna track, redone for the new millennium and, dare we say it, the first time ol’ Madge sounds like she’s actually having fun since the Bedtime Stories days.

After the whole Hard Candy debacle (aka the one where Madonna stopped creating trends and starting desperately following them), it’s nice to hear something unique and distinctly Madonna-ish from her again.

Whether the album will follow suit or not is yet to be seen but, in the meantime, lets take a trip down Madonna Memory Lane and remember some of the best songs she’s done that (outside of hardcore fans) you’ve probably never heard.

All are album tracks, and one can only hope MDNA contains anything half as brilliant as some of these…

Over and Over

While a lot of her first album is, by her own admission, “music to aerobicise to”, the Like a Virgin album saw Madonna come out with all pop guns blazing. Nine tracks that start to finish could have all been singles (something increasingly rare in the commercial pop landscape), some were unfortunately destined to be overlooked.

This has always been a favourite of her early work. Its peppy beat and unironic lyrics representing everything that was so joyful and good and fun about not just Madonna’s early work but of ‘80s pop in general. And, 28 years on, it still sounds as joyous and fresh now as it did back then.

And here’s an amazing clip of her doing it live on The Virgin Tour. God bless. Makes you long for the days when she still looked like she enjoyed being a pop star.

Till Death Do Us Part

If Like A Virgin was the first album where Madonna solidified her status as the most enjoyable pop star on the planet, it was 1989’s Like A Prayer that cemented her as the world’s most important. Taking every single pop hook, music trend and piece of iconography she had under her industrial-sized Boy Toy belt, she lifted her game into the next pop solar system by making a uniquely personal pop album that is still pretty much the greatest of all time.

Over sinister skittering synths, she recounts an abusive doomed relationship in a thinly veiled deconstruction of her own trials with ex husband Sean Penn. Rarely has pop music been so catchy, personal and affecting all at the same time.

Something To Remember

Madonna might always be remembered first and foremost as a pop artist, but it is some of her ballads that have proven to be her biggest hits. And, with a back catalogue of them as big as hers, there is a serious chance that this number off I’m Breathless may arguably be the best. This Dick Tracy spin off may always be remembered for tracks like Hanky Panky and the general revivalist attempt to become this generation’s hyper-sexualized Carmen Miranda, but it was the slower torch numbers that were huge artistic successes.

Few pop artists have as an emotive voice as Madonna and this mournful track highlights it perfectly, alternately hitting notes out of the park and vunerably cracking in all the right places. And the lyrics are, to this day, some of the best she’s ever done.

Secret Garden

While the whole Erotica project was the sound of Madonna all but bending over backwards in an attempt to appear sexy (clearly she hadn’t discovered her now famous Geri Yoga yet), this was pretty much the only track that just effortlessly was. Other tracks may have got bogged down in crass lyrics (the awful Colonel Sanders ‘finger licking good’ metaphor in Where Life Begins is still pretty single handedly responsible for turning a lot of us gay. And off eating KFC) but this relaxed and progressive Jazz-tinged Drum’n’Bass number more than made up for it. Intimate and casual, it proved that, when Madonna stopped trying to hard, she could be the perfect soundtrack to a sexy time after all.

Survival

After the public fallout with the Erotica project, 1994’s Bedtime Stories saw Madonna look back to her roots and embrace the poppier R’n’B sound so prevalent on radio at the time. While the single campaign of Secret – Take A Bow – Bedtime Story – Human Nature was one of the most progressive of her whole career, the album itself was full of beautiful trip-pop moments and sweet R’n’B numbers like this.

Using the more girlish side of her voice for possibly the last time in her career, it was both warmly defiant and as fresh as she’s ever been.

I Want You

Originally slated as the first single from compilation slash contract filler Something To Remember, I Want You was pulled from release schedules at the last minute due to some presumed legally wrangling on behalf of Marvin Gaye’s estate. Which is a shame, as this sexy, darkly percussive trip-hop number is just beautiful.

And here’s a link to the gorgeous orchestral version with Massive Attack.