When one is the progenitor of an entire pop cultural lexicon, it gives her plenty of license to reuse and redesign whatever she sees fit. As Madonna has done so many times with her vast catalogue of hits. This includes what was essentially the “first remix album,” 1987’s You Can Dance. To this day, it remains the second best-selling remix album of all-time (after, quelle surprise, Michael Jackson’s Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix). Maybe, one day, Finally Enough Love can ascend to the same heights (if Club Future Nostalgia doesn’t).
It’s definitely robust enough to do so (weighing in at fifty tracks), even if not fully complete without “Lucky Star,” “Angel” and “Causing A Commotion” (the former two “piggybacking” to the top of the chart as B-sides to a single). Even so, Madonna achieves what she aimed to do by naming the album after a lyric from Madame X’s “I Don’t Search I Find,” remarking, “I named this record Finally Enough Love because at the end of the day, love is what makes the world go round [this also being a nod to the final track on True Blue]. It also is representative of one of my biggest loves in life, which is dance [and, unfortunately, New York]. I love to dance, and I love to inspire people to dance—so with fifty number one dance hits, that is a lot of love to share.” Indeed it is. Especially for those who require a “crash course” in the Madonna canon (presumably, anyone who doesn’t know how to effectively use the internet, so… most of Gen Z).
That, in the end, is the ultimate goal of a project like this, even if billed as “a thank you to the fans.” Yes, thanks for giving them something new yet old to buy so as to fill the pop star’s coffer. Still, there are some noticeable highlights of an “unreleased” (or rather, previously unpeddled) nature, including the Alternate Single Remix of “Keep It Together” and the Peter Rauhofer Radio Mix of Britney Spears’ 2003 collaboration with Madonna, “Me Against the Music.” Because, for the most part, the lone remix of the latter that gets pushed is the, at this point, tired Rishi Rich’s Desi Kulcha remix (surprisingly, Madonna didn’t go for the Kanye West remix for this album instead). And then there is the triple threat positioning of the Orbit Edit of “Justify My Love,” the Underground Club Mix of “Erotica” and the David’s Radio Edit of “Deeper and Deeper” to marvel at. All three serving to highlight Madonna’s vast knowledge of how a sweltering dance floor environment can bring out everybody’s inner freak. And, speaking of, “Everybody,” it’s the only single (it marking her first official release) that feels (and is) out of chronological order on the record, but that’s to keep it in line with the other remix from her self-titled record that appeared on You Can Dance, “Physical Attraction.”
Apart from seamless transitions and Mike Dean’s glistening work on remastering every one of these club-tailored hits, the most noticeable aspect of the collection is how much Madonna’s American Life era truly wasn’t appreciated enough, with the remixes of “Nothing Fails” and “Love Profusion” being of particular note. It’s also clear which albums Madonna’s fans had a preference for based on the number of singles that were actually able to chart from each one. For instance, 1994’s Bedtime Stories and 2008’s Hard Candy only reveal two singles (“Secret” and “Bedtime Story” and “4 Minutes” and “Give It 2 Me,” respectively) to have made the cut for the Billboard dance chart, ergo the compilation. Miraculously, even the Evita Soundtrack materializes by way of the Miami Mix Edit of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” (even though everyone knows that “Buenos Aires” is the true banger from that soundtrack).
Although there is little that fans haven’t heard all before from M, Finally Enough Love is, nonetheless, a testament to the long-standing reputation she’s had for constantly evolving—this being the quality most would like to attribute to her success and longevity in the industry. But that extends not just to her “look”—for, more important than that, it is her sound. Never sticking to one “niche,” per se, M’s ability to collaborate with a wide array of producers with varying sensibilities (whether it’s Stephen Bray, Patrick Leonard, Dallas Austin, Nellee Hooper, William Orbit, Mirwais Ahmadzaï, Stuart Price, the trifecta of Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Justin Timberlake, SOPHIE or Mike Dean) is an undeniable part of her enduring appeal. And the ease with which she manages to coalesce into each new decade (as made patently obvious by 1990’s “Vogue” and 2000’s Music).
As for her talent for proving that, sooner or later (a song that was sadly never remixed), everything old is new again, this philosophy was a key component to how she presented an image that was an amalgam of every Golden Age Hollywood movie star from Marilyn Monroe to Jean Harlow to Marlene Dietrich (yes, all are named in “Vogue”) in order to establish her own in the eighties and beyond. What Madonna might do next, as far as music is concerned, is a mystery for the moment. But whatever it is, it’s sure to rely on her natural instinct to employ a combination of pastiche and experimentation. Both of which have consistently served her well, as Finally Enough Love makes abundantly clear.
