Consolator

Although I do like her stuff a lot, I can easily understand why someone wouldn't like Madonna. No need to go nuts on someone who doesn't care for her.

I didn't care for her early work too much. Her first five albums were very bleh. I did like a lot of her more recent albums, though. Her Erotica album definitely had some nice tracks, as did Bedtime Stories. I enjoyed most of Ray of Light. I'd probably say her Ray of Light album is my favorite. Music would have been great if it wasn't so half-baked (or short) and if she hadn't chose the most god awful song to grace the earth as the lead single. American Life was definitely underrated in some aspects imo, especially considering the warmth and introspective nature of some of the songs (Intervention, X-Static Process, Nothing Fails, and Easy Ride come to mind.) Confessions On A Dance Floor was definitely fun, though I was listening to it the other day and felt it already sounded pretty dated. I did really like Forbidden Love from that album, though. Hard Candy was a huge letdown. HUGE letdown. When I heard it, it was like a bad joke. It was nothing more than a desperate attempt to remain hip / trendy / relevant. That's not to say what she usually does isn't a desperate attempt to remain relevant, but she is usually at least somewhat clever at masking it. The only song I liked was Miles Away, though that was definitely more poignant than the rest of the album.

Her live stuff is interesting. I really really liked her Re-Invention Tour, but not really anything before that. In her Re-Invention Tour, I liked how her producers remixed her old stuff. In addition to that, she didn't sing in the super high nasal-ey voice that she used to. Confessions Tour wasn't terrible by any means, I guess I just felt it lacked diversity in the sound. I don't know what the correct terminology to use to describe the effect they used on her voice in that tour, but whatever it was, I loved it. It wasn't auto-tune I don't think. It corrected her pitch and made her sound slightly robotic. Sticky & Sweet Tour was too contrived, much like her Hard Candy album. Don't get me wrong, there were certainly some gems from that tour (You Must Love Me, Into The Groove, Vogue, and Like A Prayer), but for each gem there were several duds, too.

Necromancer

I enjoyed reading your post. I think all artist have "duds" that go along with the gems as well. Its just that maybe some bands may have more or less (duds/gems) than certain other bands do/and vice versa. It goes along with the game.

I was only joking around, having fun. I hope I didn't hurt anyone's feelings, just fishing a little and I got a bite, as we say on the islands.