Decent sampling of most of her best work, but not quite what the title suggests, either
By the time this collection was released in 1990, Madonna had already made about 90% of her most essential recordings, so there certainly are several great songs here. However, this collection is flawed in a couple of ways. Some of her most essential songs, such as "Holiday," "Borderline," "Like A Virgin," and "Like A Prayer" are all here, as they well should be. However, if you listen closely, you'll notice that many of the songs sound considerably different than they did on the LPs or cassettes that you had in the 80s. Also, some of the songs (noticeably "Borderline") have had quite a bit of their original length chopped off. Finally, there are some less-than-subtle omissions. "Dress You Up," "Angel," "True Blue," and "Causing A Commotion," which were all big hits, are curiously absent. What Madonna needs at this point is one of those Columbia/Legacy "The Essential" anthologies, because it's impossible to collect all of Madonna's greatest on a single disc, and it's somewhat surprising that after this much time, this album, along with GHV2 (which concentrates exclusively on the 90s) are the only Madonna hits collections available.
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