Madonna. Madge. Mistress Dita. The queen of Pop. The queen of working out. The queen of wearing sunglasses indoors and sporting grills on your teeth that make you borderline unintelligible. However you see Madonna, you’ll have a favourite – and probably least favourite – incarnation. Her catalogue is enormous, comprising sexy songs and sad songs, political songs and nonsensical songs, and songs that continue to scandalise the clean-living and respectable among us.
Picking the best is nigh-impossible, but we’ve tried to. As she prepares to unveil her 15th studio album Confessions II – a sequel to her 2005 disco masterpiece Confessions on a Dancefloor – we’ve ranked her top 45 songs released so far, one for each year she’s been releasing music.
