We're still hung up on you: The ultimate Madonna mixtape

Although the two big singles from her eponymous debut weren't written by Madonna Louise Ciccone herself, "Holiday" remains an iconic mid-tempo boogie that is everything we've grown to love about Madonna's output: memorable, catchy and trendsetting. In a clever move meant toward keeping her relevance with the indie kids, she granted permission for the first-ever sample of that song's indelible bassline in 2000 for Australian DJ group The Avalanches on their album "Since I Left You." Good idea: That album is now considered a generational mashup classic.

The intro is simple and lovely, but once that groove kicks in, those synth bass notes take us straight into disco heaven. Pre-dating the arrival of Cyndi Lauper's monster smash "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by a year, "Borderline" ironically stood on the border between the early '80s post-disco hangover and the synthpop future that was about to unfold. Even in 2018, "Borderline" is just as funky as ever.

While the Madonna of her debut album was a fun dance-pop diva, the Madonna of her sophomore album, "Like a Virgin," was more confident as a vocalist and performer. This is when she began to push boundaries, and the title track soon became her first chart-topper due to its risque themes and alluring synth pulse. "Material Girl" may be up next for some, but to hear Madonna tell it, it's one of her least favorite songs she's ever recorded.

Yes, "Material Girl" is regarded as the other "big" single off "Like a Virgin", but the four-on-the-floor banger that was "Into the Groove" has endured in surprising ways, even appearing in a 2003 remix version featuring Missy Elliott. The original still kicks though and stands out perhaps due to being the only "Like a Virgin" track to not be produced by Nile Rodgers — this one was co-produced by Madge herself.

Having not released a ballad as a single as of yet, "Crazy for You" was initially a bit of a risk for Madonna. Deep in the midst of promoting the culture-defining "Like a Virgin," this little number was written for the Matthew Modine vehicle "Vision Quest" and featured a mid-tempo vibe that radio hadn't heard yet from the Queen of Pop.

From its faux-Baroque opening to its minor-key guitar chimes, "Papa Don't Preach" is a dark psychodrama dressed up like a big pop single, not unlike some of Michael Jackson's best paranoid dance floor jams. It tells a story, has one of the most memorable choruses in all of the '80s and is a staple for any Madonna playlist or greatest hits compilation ever. Essential doesn't even begin to cover it.

While some would argue that "La Isla Bonita" might be the more lasting single off her cult classic third album, "True Blue," the joyous four-on-the-floor party that is the overly romantic "Open Your Heart" holds a soft spot in all of our hearts. Yes, those synth tones haven't aged well, but when you have a groove this propulsive, you can overlook such flaws and open your heart to just how good (and surprisingly overlooked) this single was.

While the Madonna of the mid-'90s had very much turned into a balladeer following the backlash she received from her "SEX" book and the corresponding "Erotica" album, there is nothing wrong with shamelessly loving girly dance-pop Madonna. While the title track from "Who's That Girl?" was another easy No. 1 for the Queen of Pop, that album's high-charting but largely forgotten single "Causing a Commotion" is a funky little number that deserves some time in the sunlight — and on this playlist.

Listen, people the world over have done vastly inferior rewrites of the bass line to "Holiday." No one should even try to attempt it — unless you're Madonna. Released as a single off her first remix album, "You Can Dance," this fun bit of dance fluff has pretty much been forgotten by the mainstream but makes for a killer shuffle surprise on any Madonna fan's playlist.

While "True Blue" was the first Madonna album where she co-wrote every track, "Like a Prayer" is truly when she came into her own as a songwriter, highlighting her ability to be sultry, sweet, and everything in between on what many regard as her finest album. The title track (and that controversial music video) helped propel her to the top of many critics' lists, and even now when you hear that choir come in near the end, it feels like a euphoric release.

OK, we all love "Express Yourself," but which version? While the album version jumps right into the action, most people are probably familiar with the famed Shep Pettibone remix, aka the one that leads with Madonna's spoken word intro before the beat drops. This is the version featured in both the music video and on her famed greatest hits compilation, "The Immaculate Collection." Yet no matter which version you get and no matter how many times Lady Gaga tries to cop it, this is arguably Madonna's finest dance-pop moment. Arguably. We would love to hear your arguments.

A top-five single in the U.K. but pushed only there and not in the U.S., "Dear Jesse" is a surprising, sweet little moment off "Like a Prayer" wherein Madonna reflects on childhood and all the promises that life has before you when you're young. String sections, tablas, a royal trumpet solo not too far from that of a Beatles record — this is one of Madonna's most idiosyncratic singles, but a neglected, joyful classic.

Amazingly, "Vogue" — one of Madonna's most iconic singles — comes from one of her least-iconic albums. "I'm Breathless," her soundtrack to the Warren Beatty film "Dick Tracy" (which she also starred in) has her embracing her femme fatale character from the film, trying out a lot of noir-appropriate burlesque numbers. The production is painfully dated, but her performance is surprisingly versatile. Tacked on at the end is an "inspired by" track, "Vogue," which has us dancing just thinking about it.

One of the most surprising chart-topping singles in Billboard history (to say nothing of the fact that it's one of the most bizarre Lenny Kravitz co-writes of all time), this sultry, spacey and surprisingly ambient slice of mid-tempo pop truly defied radio conventions. But it was the racy and hallucinatory music video that helped drive public interest in the song. Even today, it sounds fresh, modern and new.

While maybe not Madonna's most lasting song, it is nonetheless important to her career, netting her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song (it was written for the film she was starring in at the time, "A League of Their Own") and marking her 10th overall chart-topper in the U.S. It's stately, languid and so unlike most of what else she was doing at the time. In the wake of the backlash to "Erotica," she would return this adult contemporary template again in the future.

For all its controversy, "Erotica" is still an oddball album in Madonna's discography, working closely with "Express Yourself" remixer Shep Pettibone to explore sounds that, honestly, she's already covered before. "Deeper and Deeper" is easily the most lasting dance track from this record and still a Madge classic.

Here's the thing: "Rain" is great. Although mostly forgotten, this is one of the most coherent ballads on "Erotica" and a lovely bit of overproduced ambient pop. The lyrics aren't anything to write home about, but Madonna's vocal tones here work nicely with the blankets of soft synths that surround her. Even listening to it now has a fun nostalgic quality to it, and that rising-action synth into the bridge? Gets you every time.

While "Bedtime Stories" was a course correction from the raw revelations of "Erotica," Madonna didn't enter her stately ballad period without completely abandoning her love of the upbeat and the new. Shockingly never released as a single, this funky Me'Shell NdegéOcello duet felt like Madonna aiming for contemporary hip-hop-inspired trends without overreaching or trying to adopt a pose too hard. It's fresh, it's fly, and it tackles romance with an interesting angle. Underrated in the extreme.

While this single underperformed on the charts (and, admittedly, was an odd follow-up to her No. 1-peaking and rather formal ballad "Take a Bow"), the weirdness Madonna achieves on this Björk-penned number helped inform most of her late-'90s/early-2000s work: danceable but seductive; otherworldly yet approachable. Sorry kids: The weirder Madonna gets, the better she sounds.

Crafted out of a forgotten folk song by the forgotten group Curtiss Maldoon and an early demo made by producer William Orbit, Madonna saw an opportunity and pounced on it. With her voice stronger than ever due to the rigorous training she gave it for the film "Evita," she absolutely owns this astonishing piece of guitar-and-drum-machine psycho-pop with vocal lines that streak, peak, echo, and slide down the scale. It's effervescent, goofy, feel-good, and memorable. Madonna successfully rebooted her career again and did so thanks to this trailblazing number.

In some circles, "Ray of Light" is considered Madonna's greatest album. It's really hard to rebut that argument, but this groundbreaking record (which netted the Queen of Pop her first-ever Grammy statues for music) has just as many memorable album tracks as singles. It's a hard pick ("Little Star" is definitely a contender), but our favorite song on here might be this psychedelic guitar number about addiction that is "Candy Perfume Girl." Madonna never really got along with rock guitars all that much in her recorded output — but this is the one great exception to that rule.

From its sawing strings to simple-yet-direct electronica elements, "Frozen" is one of Madonna's more curious ballads, but undeniably one of her most musically distinctive. With several rising and falling actions and her quiet hums in the chorus giving the song a real emotive element, "Frozen" is one of the darker numbers Madge has shopped out to radio. But Madonna knew exactly what she was doing: People responded to it, and the song went all the way to No. 2 here in the U.S.

Included in the soundtrack for "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," what could've been a one-off effort actually turned out to be one of the best post-"Ray of Light" singles she's ever released, riding a '60s-style degree of psychedelic camp that was fitting with the upbeat, goofy tone of the film it is paired with. Incidentally, it could've very well fit on "Ray of Light" with maybe just a few tweaks, but honestly, it's worth adding to any Madonna mixtape just due to that while flute outro.

While "Music" turned out to be Madonna's most recent (to-date) chart-topper, it's the fun cut-and-sliced acoustic dance number "Don't Tell Me" that we remember most. It's an oddball pop single that sounds like nothing Madge has done before or after, which makes it all the more distinct. The melody is catchy, the beat is simple, the lyrics are ace, but it's those Aaron Copland-style string swells that get us every time.

Produced by Frou Frou mastermind Guy Sigsworth, this remarkable and oft-forgotten single from "Music" might very well be Madonna's greatest feminist statement. Over a simple bass bump and haunting synth pads, Madonna integrates film dialogue and her own worldview to show that while many men are curious as to what women feel, there is an inherent sense that women are still viewed as "lesser." It's an incredible song with a pointed message and one of the greatest Madonna tracks ever made, full stop.

While her political protest album "American Life" is fairly maligned for its obvious "insights" and atrocious attempts at rapping, there is still some salvageable material here. The best song by a long shot is the stuttering folktronica number "Love Profusion," a late-era single that stands out for its curious message of cultural confusion and immediate beat and melody. We understand why people skip this album, but in doing so they miss out on gems like this.

Built off arguably the greatest use of an ABBA sample in recorded history, "Hung Up" was yet another dance floor classic from Madonna, now a full two decades into her career. Immediate, catchy-as-hell and having an early flair for all the Eurodisco trends that would follow in its wake, Madonna's 2005 album "Confessions on a Dance Floor" was arguably a few years ahead of its time. Going No. 1 everywhere in the world (except in America), Madonna proved once again why she's a trendsetter and not a trend chaser.

While "Confessions on a Dance Floor" failed to generate another single as impactful as "Hung Up," the album was still filled with great songs. "Jump" is wonderful, but "Isaac" was the deep album track that mixed strings, vocal samples and some smart acoustic guitar work to make a distinct moment that sounded different from the rest of the synth-strobe textures that decorate another late-career stunner for the Queen of Pop.

Madonna's career after "Confessions on a Dance Floor" became a bit rocky, as the quality of her albums took a notable dip. Instead of looking for hot new incoming talent to collaborate with, she hitched her wagon to some of biggest hitmakers of the day, and her "Hard Candy" album was littered with lesser Pharrell and Timbaland collaborations. The best of it all was the explosive lead single, "4 Minutes," which was a snappy Justin Timberlake duet that showed Timbaland riding the monster hot streak he was on at the time. He was at the peak of his powers, which Madonna gladly reaped the benefits from.

Following a disastrous early leak of the material that would make up 2015's "Rebel Heart" album, Madonna felt the need to rush to finish a great amount of it. However, the Diplo-produced lead single, "Living for Love" — while not a chart or radio hit like her previous albums — gave us a modern, relatable take on Madonna that far outdid the tired EDM effort "MDNA" from a few years prior. It may not have topped the charts, but "Living for Love" sounds like a greatest hit.

While Madonna has been fine with integrating her name into choruses for the past few years now (to an almost embarrassing effect), "Bitch I'm Madonna" is so defiant and middle-fingers-up contemporary that such a bold branding effort doesn't feel put on, but rather more in line with current trends. This song is weird, club-ready and features her best Nicki Minaj collaboration to date (sorry, "Give Me All Your Luvin'"). Yeah, put it on. It's a jam.

"Rebel Heart" is Madonna's lowest-selling studio album at this point in her career, and we get it: "Hard Candy" and "MDNA" were so bad that she lost a lot of fans. It's a real shame though, as "Rebel Heart" featured a lot of progressive, striking numbers that felt like Madonna was back to finding out what made her such a distinct, lasting pop star. "Body Shop," an oddly Ani DiFranco-styled acoustic number that sets an obvious car/sex metaphor to a downright lovely acoustic melody, is an album-cut highlight that deserves some time in the spotlight and absolutely earns its place on this playlist.