GHV2 - Madonna

Why isn't this as good as it should be? Why does it seem to have songs missing when it really doesn't? Why is it slightly disappointing? You could blame it on the non-chronological sequencing, which tends to rob this collection of Madonna's '90s hits of any momentum it might have had, or you could blame it on the presence of radio edits (which is actually sort of a good thing, since these are indeed the versions that were on the air), or the very presence of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," which simply does not feel comfortable next to the rest of the savvy, modern music here. But the real problem is that during the '90s, Madonna was a true album artist, even as she was making singles as tremendous as "Take a Bow," "Deeper and Deeper," "Ray of Light," "Don't Tell Me," and the non-LP "Beautiful Stranger." Which means that these songs don't really hold together when taken together, since they were designed to be part of a bigger context -- either their parent album or the airwaves of the time. Taken on their own, most of these are still pretty tremendous, but tossed together on GHV2, the end result is less than the sum of its parts, even if this is a good way to get all of Madge's '90s hits at once. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide