Rebel Heart should have never had that much songs.

[Tama 5,713]

I'm listening to the entire album right now and my God, this album is too long. Too much. The standard edition is cool, though I don't actually need the last 4 songs at all. But the deluxe and then the super deluxe...why did this happen? Sure, the leak sucked, but the way she retaliated by releasing this many songs.  A lot of the extra songs aren't even good, while the few good ones are easily overlooked because of the sheer amount of music.

If anything, the standard tracklist should have been consisted of 10/11 tracks, and the deluxe should be 14/15 tracks. That separate EP shouldn't be at all, like, what even was the point? The titular track is good and it could have been included in the standard tracklist, but I kind of get why she didn't include it in the actual standard tracklist. It sounds like a retirement farewell song. 

Anyway, this album deserved a much bigger success than what it actually got. It's so good. What do you guys think? Do you think it's good too? Does it need a trim with its tracklist? Or is it just, uhm, perfect as it is?

[jrdn 26,670]

I agree tbh. A few songs could've been taken off the tracklist.

[Mario Spears 5,235]

The only tracks that deserved to be on the Rebel Heart album are Devil Pray, Ghosttown, Hold Thigh, Joan Of Arc, Best Night, Messiah, SEX and Rebel Heart. The rest should've been taken out. Unreleased tracks like Revolution, Back That Up, God Is Love, Heaven, QUEEN, Freedom and Take A Day deserved to be on the album. Demo versions of Iconic, HeartbreakCity and WAOM are superior to the released versions.  

[Tama 5,713]

8 minutes ago, Billie Frank said:

I agree tbh. A few songs could've been taken off the tracklist.

I actually take Messiah and Rebel Heart from the deluxe and add it to the standard tracklist of my digital copy of the album. I like Body Shop, it's different. It's also better than Candy Shop. I never liked Holy Water, Inside Out and Wash All Over Me. The first song sounds too similar with Illuminati, while the latter two are the same ole "I want to be forgiven from all of my sins by choosing to love you AW!!!" from ha. 'My tracklist' consists of 13 tracks then (I know, kind of going against my own idea above that the standard tracklist should be 11 at max), but I do skip both Unapologetic Bitch and Illuminati every time I spin the album. So...

 

5 minutes ago, Mario said:

The only tracks that deserved to be on the Rebel Heart album are Devil Pray, Ghosttown, Hold Thigh, Joan Of Arc, Best Night, Messiah, SEX and Rebel Heart. The rest should've been taken out. Unreleased tracks like Revolution, Back That Up, God Is Love, Heaven, QUEEN, Freedom and Take A Day deserved to be on the album. Demo versions of Iconic, HeartbreakCity and WAOM are superior to the released versions. 

SEX sucks, but I can agree with the other released songs. For the unreleased, I don't know them. But I believe that Back That Up is a bonus track for Madame X.

[jrdn 26,670]

28 minutes ago, Gwen Stefanee said:

I actually take Messiah and Rebel Heart from the deluxe and add it to the standard tracklist of my digital copy of the album. I like Body Shop, it's different. It's also better than Candy Shop. I never liked Holy Water, Inside Out and Wash All Over Me. The first song sounds too similar with Illuminati, while the latter two are the same ole "I want to be forgiven from all of my sins by choosing to love you AW!!!" from ha. 'My tracklist' consists of 13 tracks then (I know, kind of going against my own idea above that the standard tracklist should be 11 at max), but I do skip both Unapologetic Bitch and Illuminati every time I spin the album. So...

You can't get rid of Illuminati, it wouldn't be a Madonna album without at least one song about a boomer conspiracy theory. 

[Chris 59,246]

4 hours ago, Gwen Stefanee said:

But I believe that Back That Up is a bonus track for Madame X.

Back That Up to the Beat is a repurposed version of Back That Up, which leaked around the time RH was released. 

 

[SeekingThrill 10,040]

Well the point of the deluxe editions is to deliver more songs.  

In Madonna's case that was a bad idea during the 2010s, because most of the bonus songs sucked. Or a great song was on a deluxe edition, while a bad song was on a standard edition.

 

The thing many tend to ignore is Madonna who didn't have a vision. Yes, she wanted to have two sides of the album, but that was just a concept for presentation of the album's substance. Madonna was productive and that was great, but she got caught up. Instead of being selective and focusing on finishing only great songs, she was making more and putting more to the album.

The album is eclectic like Madame X, but it isn't that much cohesive. Many songs are out of place.

The album reminds of so many songs from her past, that it is like a retrospective album. Maybe that was Madonna's vision, but it was badly executed.

 

 

 

[Tama 5,713]

12 minutes ago, SeekingThrill said:

Well the point of the deluxe editions is to deliver more songs.  

In Madonna's case that was a bad idea during the 2010s, because most of the bonus songs sucked. Or a great song was on a deluxe edition, while a bad song was on a standard edition.

 

The thing many tend to ignore is Madonna who didn't have a vision. Yes, she wanted to have two sides of the album, but that was just a concept for presentation of the album's substance. Madonna was productive and that was great, but she got caught up. Instead of being selective and focusing on finishing only great songs, she was making more and putting more to the album.

The album is eclectic like Madame X, but it isn't that much cohesive. Many songs are out of place.

The album reminds of so many songs from her past, that it is like a retrospective album. Maybe that was Madonna's vision, but it was badly executed.

 

 

 

The fact that there could be a hundred Icons (isn't this the 'official' fandom name for ha fans?) telling us that every single song from RH is all killers no fillers always wanna make me laugh. Sometimes fans/stans can be blind...ugh. Madame X, with ha annoying vocoder, is miles ahead from this album but the tunes here are pretty great for the most part!

[Miss Icon 900]

MDNA, Rebel Heart, and Madame X could have all been stronger albums overall if they had cut a few of the tracks tbh 

[Unapologetic Bitch 9,207]

I will never understand people complaining about too many songs

Like... don't like something, just don't listen to it, it's always better to have more to chose from

Its better to have 10 you like from 18 than 2 songs of 8 for example.

And especially now in streaming/digital era tracklists don't really matter even.

 

For me what doesn't have absolutely any sense is still doing standard and deluxe editions of the albums especially if there is no difference between them except number of tracks.

[Tama 5,713]

10 hours ago, Unapologetic Bitch said:

I will never understand people complaining about too many songs

Like... don't like something, just don't listen to it, it's always better to have more to chose from

Its better to have 10 you like from 18 than 2 songs of 8 for example.

And especially now in streaming/digital era tracklists don't really matter even.

 

For me what doesn't have absolutely any sense is still doing standard and deluxe editions of the albums especially if there is no difference between them except number of tracks.

...do you think that there's only two to three good songs from debut? Or from Like a Virgin? Music? The only album of hers that I can agree on this is True Blue, but then again it's impossible to create better songs than Papa Don't Preach, Open Your Heart, and Live to Tell. For her other short length albums, I'd say that they've always been better than Rebel Heart or even Madame X.

[Unapologetic Bitch 9,207]

58 minutes ago, Gwen Stefanee said:

...do you think that there's only two to three good songs from debut? Or from Like a Virgin? Music? The only album of hers that I can agree on this is True Blue, but then again it's impossible to create better songs than Papa Don't Preach, Open Your Heart, and Live to Tell. For her other short length albums, I'd say that they've always been better than Rebel Heart or even Madame X.

I can maybe name 3 songs max from LAV i sometimes might listen to but overall don't think its a strong record for me 

 

I don't think her old albums are good example for this discussion as they came from different time and there were different rules as for recording albums. They would not record song in a studio if they wouldn't think its good enough cos every single song cost a lot of money to record so they had to be sure going to studio as for what they want to do there, now you can make songs literally in your living room on your laptop and you can record as many you want as there are no real financial boundaries when it comes to recording songs (not counting production and mixing) 

Now artists can record as much as they want so nothing really stops them to put out as much they want (except label maybe  )

 

[Tama 5,713]

49 minutes ago, Unapologetic Bitch said:

I can maybe name 3 songs max from LAV i sometimes might listen to but overall don't think its a strong record for me 

 

I don't think her old albums are good example for this discussion as they came from different time and there were different rules as for recording albums. They would not record song in a studio if they wouldn't think its good enough cos every single song cost a lot of money to record so they had to be sure going to studio as for what they want to do there, now you can make songs literally in your living room on your laptop and you can record as many you want as there are no real financial boundaries when it comes to recording songs (not counting production and mixing) 

Now artists can record as much as they want so nothing really stops them to put out as much they want (except label maybe  )

 

Maybe she should be stopped by label from making too many songs in one album, then. 

When she's creative, there's no one like her. But a lot of times her creativity resulted in 10 absolute killers and 20 more fillers. I guess that's somewhat better than Janet who could make 20+ songs all fillers, though..

[Unapologetic Bitch 9,207]

1 hour ago, Gwen Stefanee said:

Maybe she should be stopped by label from making too many songs in one album, then. 

When she's creative, there's no one like her. But a lot of times her creativity resulted in 10 absolute killers and 20 more fillers. I guess that's somewhat better than Janet who could make 20+ songs all fillers, though..

I just read she builds her own recording studio at her Hamptons estate

Now we are going to get 50 song albums if she has studio at home

 

[Madonna 46,062]

The standard edition (which isn't even a thing on streaming anymore) shouldn't have existed and was probably done by mistake. The only version Madonna has ever acknowledged was the regular Deluxe edition with the official cover. 

That version had 19 tracks and it was perfectly fine. In fact, it was meant to be two discs but Interscope refused to let her do it, so she kinda gave up when everything leaked. The tracklisting itself is one hell of a mess and I can really recommend you this optimized tracklisting which splits the album into two thematically and sonically cohesive parts:

REBEL:

1. Iconic
2. Veni Vidi Vici
3. Illuminati
4. Bitch I'm Madonna
5. Unapologetic Bitch
6. Best Night
7. S.E.X.
8. Holy Water
9. Inside Out

HEART:

1. Rebel Heart
2. Joan of Arc
3. Body Shop
4. Devil Pray
5. Ghosttown
6. Messiah
7. HeartBreakCity
8. Living for Love
9. Hold Tight
10. Wash All Over Me

@Gwen Stefanee

[Tama 5,713]

1 hour ago, Grams said:

The standard edition (which isn't even a thing on streaming anymore) shouldn't have existed and was probably done by mistake. The only version Madonna has ever acknowledged was the regular Deluxe edition with the official cover. 

That version had 19 tracks and it was perfectly fine. In fact, it was meant to be two discs but Interscope refused to let her do it, so she kinda gave up when everything leaked. The tracklisting itself is one hell of a mess and I can really recommend you this optimized tracklisting which splits the album into two thematically and sonically cohesive parts:

REBEL:

1. Iconic
2. Veni Vidi Vici
3. Illuminati
4. Bitch I'm Madonna
5. Unapologetic Bitch
6. Best Night
7. S.E.X.
8. Holy Water
9. Inside Out

HEART:

1. Rebel Heart
2. Joan of Arc
3. Body Shop
4. Devil Pray
5. Ghosttown
6. Messiah
7. HeartBreakCity
8. Living for Love
9. Hold Tight
10. Wash All Over Me

@Gwen Stefanee

The fact that Rebel Heart (song) could be placed at either the end of Rebel or the beginning of Heart and still makes sense. Maybe you have a point there! 

[SeekingThrill 10,040]

16 hours ago, Unapologetic Bitch said:

I will never understand people complaining about too many songs

You are missing the point. You are basically choosing quantity over quality.   

The idea of a lot of songs is tempting, but that usually means a lot of fillers and not so good quality of an album. Just imagine masterpieces like Erotica and Ray of Light having some inferior outtakes.

 

[Madonna 46,062]

1 hour ago, Gwen Stefanee said:

The fact that Rebel Heart (song) could be placed at either the end of Rebel or the beginning of Heart and still makes sense. Maybe you have a point there! 

It’s the CENTER PIECE. The actual heart of the album, so that’s why it has to be in the middle  

[Unapologetic Bitch 9,207]

40 minutes ago, SeekingThrill said:

You are missing the point. You are basically choosing quantity over quality.   

The idea of a lot of songs is tempting, but that usually means a lot of fillers and not so good quality of an album. Just imagine masterpieces like Erotica and Ray of Light having some inferior outtakes.

 

Im not missing anything or choosing something over other thing  more songs doesn't mean the "good ones" are suddenly bad, the stay the same but as people have different tastes for other people different songs might be the "good ones" so in that case more people have chance to have more positive reaction to album as anyone can find something they like vs 8 songs and liking only one or two tracks of it  and then claiming that "album sucks because it has only two good tracks on it"

I mean lbr if RH was 10 track album it would  probably be: bitch im madonna, unapologetic bitch, lfl, hold tight, ghosttown, devil pray, holy water, illuminati, joan and rebel heart and then half of you would complain that she "wasted space on tacklist for BIM/UB/HW/Illuminati when she should put XXX on it instead!!!1!"

And when we have long album with plenty of songs to choose from there's no reason to complain (tho some still do  ) everyone can find"their" own songs

[Warlock 1,346]

some of the unreleased demos should've been finished and included, while others shouldn't be in the final cut.
This is the after warner madge standards.