Celebration!

I've been a neglectful Madonna fan, it took me a week to pick up "Celebration," her new career-spanning retrospective, and I still haven't picked up the accompanying DVD set (I completely blame Best Buy for that one, though. How can they not have it in stock? Wouldn't they think that a Madonna fan who pays the few extra bucks for the 36-song, two-disk CD set would also want to buy the DVD featuring 47 Madonna videos?). After a somewhat challenging day at work (it's taken me way too long to get over the three-hour time difference in North Carolina and the lack of sleep I had all weekend), I needed a little pick-me-up, and Madonna was the answer.

I flat-out, unapologetically adore Madonna. It took me a while to get there, though. She first started taking over the world when I was a Catholic school first-grader, my mom wouldn't let me have the lace fingerless gloves (somehow she thought that was an inappropriate look for a six year old) and the church very much frowned upon everything Madonna said and did (25 years later, I think it still does).

I paid attention to what Madonna did, I liked quite a few of her songs, but wasn't pushed to buy any of her albums until high school when I got "True Blue" on tape and LP. Dance class introduced me to more of her music and I purchased "Erotica" on CD because my group was choreographing a piece to "Fever." By this point, Madonna was not very cool, the lukewarm reception for "Erotica" (a tremendously underrated album) and furor over the "Sex" book, "Bodies of Evidence," her choice in men and so forth made it seem like Madonna wouldn't last the '90s.

That all changed when I was in college. "Evita" reminded the world what a force Madonna can be. I caught Madonna/Evita fever that Christmas, asking for the CD, tickets to the movie, the accompanying picture book, and snatching up any magazine Madonna was featured in. "Ray of Light" came the following year and I could hardly contain my excitement for the release date. While I didn't line up at midnight to buy the CD and get my souvenir candle holder, I did get the CD the day it was released and reviewed it for my college paper. It was the best thing she'd done until that point.

From there on, I was hooked. I started buying up the back catalog. I dressed up as Madonna in "Desperately Seeking Susan" for an '80s-themed party. I developed a policy of buying magazines simply because Madonna was on the cover. I watched VH1 the entire week of her 40th birthday (the same week I turned 21) to catch all the specials and videos I could handle.

I bought "Music" the day it came out and took the time to let it grow on me ("Ray of Light" was like love at first site, "Music" was like realizing you'd been in love with the boy at the next desk all along). I had my first Madonna live experience at Staples Center a few days after Sept. 11. I wondered why it took me so long to get there, sorry that I missed the legendary spectacle of Blonde Ambition but so happy to be on the floor that evening, watching this amazing woman do her thing.

Next came "American Life," another album that grabbed me quickly and still hasn't let go. My friend and I had tickets for opening night of that tour at the Forum, seats not quite as good as what we had before but at least we were in the room. A few days later, thanks to an MTV contest, we were dancing inside the stage, just a few feet away from Madonna all night.

"Confessions on a Dance Floor" was a grower like "Music." I was at opening night for the tour at the Forum once again, dancing and singing my heart out, blown away by the mother of two nearing 50 who just a few months earlier had been nearly crushed by a horse.

"Hard Candy" had me dancing in my car on the long commute. I couldn't make it to the concert because of work but did take my friend to the local gay club for Madonna night for her bachelorette party. What better way to say goodbye to singlehood than to be in a room with 6-foot-tall-plus Madonna impersonators and a DJ whose memorabilia collection covered the walls?

All that time spent listening to and watching Madonna, and today felt like the first time I'd really heard so many of her songs. With headphones on tight, I listened through the two-CD set while editing our latest issue, and was able to catch backing vocals and bass lines and flute solos and so many other things I've missed over the years of listening to Madonna CDs in a car or the shower, a lot of layers of her songs drowned out by my singing along. After all this time, I thought I really knew these songs, so it's nice to discover that even old favorites can still surprise.