Madonna - Celebration

Rating:

* * * *

The way Madonna still gets around in public wearing next to nothing and dating lads more than half her age, it's sometimes easy to forget she's been around since 1982 when her debut single,

Everybody

, was

released. That song - which to be honest, sounds like the theme to an 80s soft drink ad - is included on

Celebration

, the Material Girl's latest 36-track greatest hits collection.

Since

Everybody

, Madonna has had 12 No.1 singles and seven No.1 albums in New Zealand; clocked up more than 200 million album sales worldwide; and churned through many boyfriends, and two husbands. Oh, and it goes without saying, she's the biggest female music star ever - even if she has let her game slip through the 2000s.

Celebration

has nothing on her first greatest hits, 1990's

The Immaculate Collection

, which was a classic document of her heyday, but this new two-disc set is an excellent document of her vast catalogue of hits and a few misses.

Though compiling the album by mixing old classics with newer songs may have been seen as a masterstroke, it only serves to highlight how dreadful some of Madonna's music from the 2000s has been.

For example, the Justin Timberlake and Timbaland collaboration

4 Minutes

, sounds forgettable sandwiched between

Vogue

and the tin-pot P-funk pop of

Holiday

; and the cheesy throb of

Sorry

, from 2006's

Confessions On A Dancefloor

, pales between the stunning

Ray Of Light

and 1989's

Express Yourself

.

And beware of the awful Eurodance oonst of latest single

Celebration

.

Special mention has to be made of her best song, the ridiculously saucy,

Justify My Love

, which sounds just as naughty and wicked nearly 20 years on.

So the album's not quite immaculate, but a celebration nonetheless.

Scott Kara