According to Peter Griffin on Fox’s Family Guy, “1985 gave us the gayest music video of all time.” He’s talking about, of course, David Bowie & Mick Jagger’s Dancing in the Street. We don’t disagree.

1. Sister Sledge – We Are Family
2. MFSB – Love is the Message
3. Ultra Nate – Free
4. Book of Love – Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls
5. Carl Bean – I Was Born this Way
6. Gloria Gaynor – I Am What I Am
7. Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy
8. Sylvester – (You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real
9. Johnna – Pride
10. Book of Love – Boy Pop
11. C&C Music Factory – Pride (A Deeper Love)
12. Diana Ross – I’m Coming Out
13. George Michael – Freedom ’90
14. Barry Harris / Pepper Mashay – I Got My Pride
15. Village People – Go West
16. Tom Robinson Band – Glad to Be Gay

Madonna herself may not be an equalizer, but her music certainly is. With the release of her first single, “Everybody” (October 1982), she made it clear that her musical focus would be on movement, on the power of dancing and its ability to bring the people together and set them free. This latter notion is the point of the lyrics to her later release, “Holiday”. Madonna’s interest in dance goes back to her teenage years and continued in her days in New York City when she was an unknown struggling to make it as a singer and performer. No doubt it was her original intention in creating music, beside her professed desire to rule the world, to showcase her talent as a dancer, but along the way she gained an audience for multiple reasons, the most important being that she brought the street or underground world into the light and public domain (“Vogue” 1990) and began to bridge the mainstream and the socially marginalized. With strong financial resources and some of the most creative record producers and talented songwriters behind her, Madonna has made music that the world wants to hear not just because she is a household name, whether through scandal or charity, but because the primary motive behind her music is a message, the most important being that of the unity of the people, of humankind, through the dancing of feet which her music automatically and naturally inspires in the listener. The multiplicity of message types that she has also spread throughout the over-a-quarter century in which she has been performing and making music cannot be disputed but these are not meant to be discussed here.

After a careful perusal of Madonna’s discography one can easily recognize that the majority of her music is dance oriented; her ballads are few and far between in comparison, and there is a clear division between the music she makes which has a message that transcends the power to make one dance and the message that says “just dance”, calling us all to the dance floor to come together as one. It is these latter songs that will be briefly discussed in this essay. Madonna has released about a dozen singles (and there are others sprinkled throughout all the albums that have gone unreleased) in which the message is an absolute “invitation to the dance of life”; the most memorable and forceful of these include: “Everybody”; “Holiday”; “Into the Groove”; “La Isla Bonita”; “Where’s the Party”; “Spotlight”; “Vogue”; “Ray of Light”; “American Pie”; “Music”; “Give It 2 Me”; and finally, “Celebration”. The other singles released, whose momentum is all about getting the listener up to dance but which have more topical or lyric/content-driven messages include “Burning Up”; “Borderline”; “Angel”; “Dress You Up”; “Like A Virgin”; “Papa Don’t Preach”; “Open Your Heart”; “Who’s that Girl”; “Causing A Commotion”; “Like A Prayer”; “Express Yourself”; “Keep It Together”; “Deeper and Deeper”; “Bedtime Story”; “Nothing Really Matters”; “Beautiful Stranger”; “Don’t Tell Me”; “Die Another Day”; “American Life”; “Hung Up”; “Sorry”; “Get Together”; “Jump”; “4 Minutes”; and lastly, “Miles Away”.

It is a testament to Madonna’s wide-ranging beliefs and interests that she can create music and write lyrics that speak of love, loss, sex, human nature and psychology and set these to rhythms and harmonies that will make one think, feel, and dance. And it should be clear after these lists that an interesting thing is happening in Madonna’s oeuvre as of late; Confessions on A Dance Floor successfully incorporated her content/message-centered works with the drive of her dance-oriented pieces, while Hard Candy strove to separate the philosophical ideas of the former album’s music, though not completely, in an effort, (a quite amazing and lyrically provocative one at that!) to give the public a pure breed of dance music to which one can truly hit the floor and leave it exhausted and drenched in sweat.

Madonna’s music is about freedom, the freedom of being oneself, and all music testifies to the fact that one can be most free, and most truly whom one is, when dancing. It is this invitation to the dance of life that Madonna has repeatedly sent out to the world, not just her millions of fans, wherever they may be found. Music is the most transcendent of the arts because it lifts the solitary listener or the audience out of themselves and into the common element of the oneness of the spirit of what it means to be human, to be alive and to feel, sensitive to the highest truths of life. Madonna and her music continuously enjoin us to abandon our self-consciousness and just get out on the dance floor and let ourselves go, as well as to move past our prejudices and embrace all the colors of the human race, for it may be that we dance and see with the feet and the eyes, but it is with our soul that we truly feel and communicate with each other and with the world that is greater and more lasting than ourselves. And it is through the medium of music that we are able to achieve this power, and Madonna’s music in particular just so happens to be one of the many ways in which the gay community grasps this power, freedom, and sense of self and humanity.

This is a detailed link to Madonna’s vast and enduring discography, both in terms of singles and album released since her beginnings in 1982.

allaboutmadonna.com/madonna-discography

Dominick Montalto is a freelance writer, poet, and copy editor.

Rising star Peter Cincotti’s new album, Metropolis, is out!

CNN says of him: “Cincotti may be the best-looking newbie in the nursery because he’s writing music, not just reviving old tunes.”

Go to his site for more information, like his page on Facebook, and download the album now on iTunes!