Doing a 180: Madonna, Something to Remember

Rhino has made it a point to reissue classic albums on 180-gram vinyl on a regular basis. This is the latest to get that treatment.

During the course of her career to date, Madonna has released a handful of best-of collections. The first was 1990’s brilliantly-titled THE IMMACULATE COLLECTION, a set which earned an official sequel in 2001 when GHV2 was released, and in 2009 she issued CELEBRATION, a two-disc, 36-track retrospective which received near-universal acclaim.

There’s another compilation in the mix, however, and if you’ve forgotten it, then hopefully you’ll appreciate the irony when we remind you that it’s called SOMETHING TO REMEMBER.

Released in 1995, only a year after her BEDTIME STORIES album, SOMETHING TO REMEMBER was devised as a way of spotlighting the softer side of Madonna, if you will. As she wrote in the liner notes of the collection, “So much controversy has swirled around my career this past decade that very little attention ever gets paid to my music. The songs are all but forgotten. While I have no regrets regarding the choices I've made artistically, I've learned to appreciate the idea of doing things in a simpler way. So without a lot of fanfare, without any distractions, I present to you this collection of ballads. Some are old, some are new. All of them are from my heart.”

You may also recall that all of them are pretty great: the collection includes “I’ll Remember,” “Take a Bow,” “Crazy for You,” “This Used to Be My Playground,” “Live to Tell,” “Love Don’t Live Here Anymore,” “Something to Remember,” “Forbidden Love,” “Rain,” and “Oh Father,” along with two new tracks produced and co-written by David Foster (“You’ll See” and “One more Chance,” and a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You” recorded with the help of Massive Attack. The picks are solid, and now that it’s on 180-gram vinyl, the sound is better than ever.

Go pick up a copy of SOMETHING TO REMEMBER. You’ll never forget it.