Madonna’s first-ever single set the tone for much of her catalog to come, persuading club-goers to lose themselves to dance and kick-beginning the theme of inclusivity that remains to be central to her message immediately: There is no such thing as a separation of class, gender, race, sexuality or another label when all people is sweating it out collectively on the dance flooring. The song’s strut (partly courtesy of The Revolution’s Wendy Melvoin on acoustic guitar) and winkingly paranoid lyric provide all the juice the song really wanted, but it surely acquired an extra spark anyway when Madge played it as part of her mash-up of "Express Yourself" and Lady Gaga’s "Born This Way" on 2012’s MDNA tour - inspiring some educated hypothesis about who’d most not too long ago been freaking Madonna out by dressing like her and talking like her. As Madonna slips from lovestruck coo to sultry contralto, producer Nile Rodgers peppers in sprightly guitar and wry giggles from the star herself. As the second observe on the Music album, "Impressive Instant" makes clear that Madonna and French electro producer Mirwais were fearlessly bizarre whereas working in tandem in the early twenty first century.

A half-decade earlier than "Blurred Lines," The Neptunes granted Madonna a very similar bass-and-cowbell shuffle for her finest Hard Candy single. The tightest of Madonna’s collaborations with superproducers The Neptunes on her underrated Hard Candy album, "She’s Not Me" is a disco throwback with a deadly groove and a wicked sense of humor, which even offers its personal 12-inch remix with an outro that dissolves into Auto-Tuned twenty first-century clubbiness. From the start, Hard Candy was by no means going to be Madonna’s most original album. Overshadowed by album-mates "Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl," "Angel" is a sadly undervalued gem from her second album. Yet it’s no massive shock that the presence of a titan like Madonna impressed her collaborators to step their games up, and this marching-band-inspired stomper was certainly a cut above every thing else Timbo was cooking up by 2008. Madonna and co-star Justin Timberlake keep the apocalyptic talk light and fun, however even she can’t assist trying to actually save the world by slipping some recommendation about how "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" into the second verse. " The then-27-12 months-old’s effervescent tribute to put up-workweek revelry acknowledges a crucial impending maturity - "Guess I’m one of the grown-ups/ Now I need to get the job completed," she sighs in the second verse - however by way of sheer drive of dance-pop will it ensures that the carefree good occasions will final for not less than another song.

Its flippantly flickering beat and moaning synths were pitched at a really radio-unfriendly midtempo minimalism, and Björk’s anti-lyric about eschewing phrases (rallied across the chorus "Let’s get unconscious, honey") hardly rated as Madonna’s most rousing. Madonna matches the relentless groove with lyrics of Terminator-like resSecret" to an much more sweeping place of emotional balladry, with drums that appeared and swelled unpredictably; cinematic strings worthy of earlier collaborator Björk; and synths that throbbed threateningly below the production’s icy floor. With "Swim," Madonna was wading between a spiritual awakening (as a consequence of a newfound curiosity in Kabbalah), adjusting to motherhood, and a very shocking tragedy: The singer-songwriter realized concerning the demise of her shut good friend and esteemed designer Gianni Versace whereas recording "Swim," which gives it even more of a chilling feel.