GHV2
GHV2 is the second greatest hits album by American recording artist Madonna. It was released by Maverick and Warner Bros. Records on November 13, 2001, coinciding with the video album, Drowned World Tour 2001. A follow-up to The Immaculate Collection, GHV2 contains a collection of singles during the second decade of Madonna's career. Madonna mentioned that she only included "songs that I could listen to five times in a row" on it. The album did not contain any new songs, but a promotional single titled "GHV2 Megamix" was released, which contained remixes by Thunderpuss, John Rocks & Mac Quayle and Tracy Young. A promotional remix album was also issued, titled GHV2 Remixed: The Best of 1991–2001.
GHV2 received generally positive reviews from music critics, who deemed it an essential compilation, although some criticized the absence of new material. Commercially, the compilation was successful, peaking at number seven on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Elsewhere, GHV2 also attained success, reaching the top five in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and several other European countries. It was the 14th best-selling album of the year and has sold more than seven million units worldwide.
Background and development
In early September 2001, media reported that Madonna had recorded two songs, "Sex Makes the World Go Round" and "Veronica Electronica", to be included on a forthcoming greatest hits album. The last title was from an unreleased remix album in collaboration with William Orbit. It was also reported that the album would be titled The Immaculate Collection 2. However, both the title and new song rumors were proven false. After the final show of Madonna's Drowned World Tour on September 15, 2001, MTV News confirmed that the singer planned to release a greatest hits album in November 2001. On October 4, 2001, Maverick Records announced the track list of GHV2 as well as its official release date. The album coincided with the release of the DVD/VHS video album of the tour.A sequel to her first greatest hits album, The Immaculate Collection, GHV2 included fifteen singles released during Madonna's second decade in the recording industry, spanning "Erotica" to "What It Feels Like for a Girl". Unlike the former release, GHV2 did not feature any new material. In an interview with BBC's Jo Whiley, Madonna spoke about the selection of the tracks stating, "I like 'Fever', alright. But you know, the thing is they had to have listening power for me. I had to be able to listen to them five times in a row and think this is really good, this is a well written song, it's really well produced." She also added that "If you listen to the record, you can really see my evolution as a singer, songwriter, and, more important, a human being." Madonna felt that because it was a "greatest hits", it should only contain previously released hit songs. Several of her popular singles of that period were excluded from the album. Despite being a worldwide number-one hit in 2000, "American Pie" was not included because Madonna had regretted putting it on her eighth studio album, Music. "It was something a certain record company executive twisted my arm into doing, but it didn't belong on the album so now it's being punished... My gut told me not to , but I did it and then I regretted it so just for that reason it didn't deserve a place on GHV2," she said. Other notable exclusions were "This Used to Be My Playground", "Rain", "I'll Remember" and "You'll See"—all of which had been included on her ballads compilation Something to Remember.
The album was originally titled Greatest Hits: The Second Coming, but Madonna decided to change the name to GHV2 just before it was released as "it's a title you will remember" and also because of "laziness", due to the fact that she had just finished the Drowned World Tour and was about to begin filming Swept Away. The cover picture is from a 2001 photo shoot for InStyle magazine, by Regan Cameron. It was revealed through Madonna's official website, on October 18, 2001. Cameron recalled that they had been given the assignment of shooting Madonna for InStyle and he was nervous. It was shot at Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles and he tried out first with a polaroid. Two of the pictures from the session were used by Madonna, the first showing her with her finger on her lips as a promotional photo for the HBO debut of her Drowned World Tour video, and another one showing her with hair in front of her right eye for GHV2. Cameron also contributed artwork for the inner sleeve, which features 600 photographs of Madonna through the years. "GHV2" can also be seen on the cover art on Madonna's eye. The sleeve also contains Japanese lettering, which is the result of typing the letters 'M-A-D-O-N-N-A' on an English keyboard but with the keys re-mapped to their positions on a Japanese kana keyboard. It is pronounced as "Mo-Ji-Ji-Ra-Mi-Mi-Ji".
Release and promotion
In order to promote the album, Madonna's recording company Warner Bros. spent £1 million on its promotion, to generate excitement in the album without the support of media interviews or TV performances, as Madonna was in Malta filming Swept Away. A company executive said, "There will be no Top of the Pops appearance or interview on Radio One or in Q magazine this time so we want the unusual name to get people thinking about the association between Madonna and GHV2" and to generate extra media interest to compensate for the artist's unavailability to promote the release at the time. However, in December, Madonna made an appearance at the 2001 Turner Prize award ceremony and mentioned that she "had a new record in stores called GHV2".Madonna's company Maverick Records sent a promotional megamix titled "GHV2 Megamix" to radio stations on October 29, 2001. However, it was limited to airplay, and was never released commercially nor included on GHV2. The songs featured, in chronological order, were "Don't Tell Me", "Erotica", "Secret", "Frozen", "What It Feels Like for a Girl", "Take a Bow", "Deeper and Deeper", "Music" and "Ray of Light". Remixes were produced by Thunderpuss, Johnny Rocks & Mac Quayle and Tracy Young. Chris Cox from Thunderpuss explained, "Basically, they were doing the greatest-hits album... and so they approached actually a couple of different remix entities to take a stab at doing a megamix, and it was kind of a cattle call, actually. They basically liked ours the best and so they put it out." The remix peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart. An accompanying music video for the remix, directed by Dago Gonzalez of Veneno Inc., was compiled of images of Madonna's live performances and previous music videos and premiered on November 2, 2001, through Total Request Live and MTV's website. Chuck Taylor from Billboard complimented the remix, saying that "its quite a trip down post-'80s memory lane from an artist whose continually evolving body of work stands strong—even when summarized in this novel context."
On December 20, 2001, Maverick Records also released a promotional album GHV2 Remixed: The Best of 1991–2001, featuring remixed versions of tracks from GHV2, except "Take a Bow", "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", and "The Power of Good-Bye". Remixes were done by Victor Calderone, Junior Vasquez, BT, Sasha, Timo Maas, and Hex Hector. MTV France listed the remixes on their website for streaming.
Critical reception
The compilation received generally positive reviews from music critics. Music journalist Robert Christgau gave a positive review, stating that Madonna "gleans goodies from the overrated Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light, mixes in the glorious soundtrack-only 'Beautiful Stranger' and the dismal soundtrack-only 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina', and hands it all over to Mirwais for sonic tweaking I'm not interested enough to pin down", while calling it "an essential package". A writer from the South Wales Echo gave a positive review, saying that GHV2 is "an essential pop album" and "truly immaculate". MusicOMH's Michael Hubbard complimented the inclusion of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from Evita and "Beautiful Stranger" from the Austin Powers sequel The Spy Who Shagged Me, saying that they "are worthy inclusions... compiling this collection didn't require much imagination, the end result does the job—the CD is exactly what it says on the tin."John Aizlewood from The Guardian gave the compilation four out of five stars, stating: "GHV2 is sufficiently confident to avoid remixes or new tracks. Desperate times, however, call for desperate measures". Ian Wade from Dotmusic positively reviewed the compilation saying, "Had GHV2 been released before 1998, it would've been a not much fun bunch of ballads and arsery. Thankfully, for the sake of herself, her fans and mankind in general, Madge had a bit of re-think. GHV2 contains some of the best pop music made by anybody", although he criticized the omission of some singles like "Nothing Really Matters" and "Rain". Cristine Leach from Raidió Teilifís Éireann gave the compilation 4 out of 5 stars, saying that " is still the queen of pop and GHV2 is essential listening. One for the multiple personality in you this Christmas." Dugald Baird from Music Week noted: "the set is something of an anti-climax, although it is an essential purchase for her army of fans".
Giving the album 8 on 10, Alex Needham from NME criticized the compilation's lack of new tracks, and said "while far from immaculate, this is still quite a collection". About GHV2, New Straits Times Christie Leo commented that "this second volume of greatest hits isn't as immediately accessible as the first. But that's not what this collection is all about. This 14-track set actually provides a more daring glimpse into the inner machinations of the music marketing juggernaut, Madonna". AllMusic writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave a mixed review calling it "slightly disappointing", justifying that it was because during the 1990s, Madonna was an album artist. He finished his review saying that "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." Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine commented that "GHV2 certainly encapsulates the second decade of the performer's boundary-bridging career", but criticized the lack of new material, and its "choppy edits, random sequences and missing links", saying: "the collection doesn't seem to do justice to a career that has always been ahead of the game and focused on the future". Charlotte Robinson from PopMatters criticized its sequencing, stating, "Chronological sequencing would have made it easier to follow the course of Madonna's musical evolution. But would these changes have made GHV2 a significantly better album? Probably not. As it stands, it's the best summary of Madonna's second decade as a performer we're going to get."