Our third disco influenced number one in a row. And leave it to Madame Ciccone to show them all how it’s properly done…
Sorry, by Madonna (her 12th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 26th February – 5th March 2006
The question I’d like address before we finish today is thus: Is ‘Sorry’ better than ‘Hung Up’? Answers at the end of the post. The two records are cut from the same cloth, at least. This is a little more laidback, more electro/new-wave than its predecessor, more reliant on synths and bass than strings and an ABBA sample. But it is still a great dance tune.
Lyrically, it’s the flip-side of ‘Hung Up’. In the earlier hit, Madonna was largely gagging for an unnamed man. Calling him on the phone and being both literally and metaphorically ‘hung up’. On ‘Sorry’, though, she is reading the riot act, in a very disco-diva fashion. Don’t explain yourself, ‘Cause talk is cheap, There’s more important things than hearing you speak… is a great line, as is the withering: You’re not half the man you’d like to be…
And yes, it’s another shadow #1, following in the wake of an even bigger hit, like so many chart-toppers were in the low sales climate of 2006, as Britain slowly transitioned from CDs to downloads. Casual physical purchases were dropping, and so having a fanbase like Madonna’s, willing to hit the aisles of HMV, was vital. But again, I don’t want to bandy terms like ‘shadow number one’, or the even less complimentary ‘non-number one’, around with songs as good as this.
Any song by Madonna automatically qualifies for gay anthem status. What nudges this record into camp classic territory is when Madge shows off her impressive polyglotism, by reciting the title in various languages. And as a very (very) low-level speaker of Japanese, the one thing I can pull Madonna up on here is for getting the stress completely wrong on gomenasai.
But hell, it’s Madonna. If she wants to pronounce it wrong then Japan will just have adjust its language to suit. I love this song, I love Madonna. But. Is ‘Sorry’ better than ‘Hung Up’? Well, I am enjoying it today, especially because you don’t hear it half as much as its predecessor, but all in all, no. ‘Hung Up’ is the better track. Though this was a hell of a one-two for an artist over three decades into her career.
