Though Madonna’s been called the “Queen of Pop” for the majority of her 37-year recording career, in a way she’s also strangely underrated. "People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough—and now it’s that I’m not young enough," she told British Vogue recently.

Feminist author Germaine Greer claimed in 2006 that Madonna’s real genius lies in marketing, writing , "She has always kept an ear out for whatever was happening on the underground. The trick was to recognize what could be commercialized and to go ahead and do it.” Madonna’s ability to recalibrate cutting-edge culture for a mainstream audience is definitely worth celebrating, but this talent has sometimes led to accusations of cultural appropriation. Her 1990 smash “Vogue” was inspired by the buoyant house tracks and glamorous dance moves of the Harlem ballroom scene. It was a shrewd move, superbly executed with an iconic video , but critics have argued that by name-checking an all-white list of Hollywood icons in her lyrics, Madonna was “erasing voguing’s original context as a creation of queer people of color."

But since 1978, when she relocated from Bay City, Michigan to New York with just $35 in her pocket, according to legend , Madonna has insisted on speaking her truth. “I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay,” she famously said in a 1992 People interview . Her ability to adopt different personas and attention-grabbing scandals have been well-documented , even when critics haven’t fully appreciated the creative risks they involve. Her 1992 Sex book remains the only glossy coffee table tome to show a pop superstar simulating S&M and analingus . Because Madonna is a button-pushing figure whose body has been scrutinized as much as her work, her music’s sheer pop brilliance often gets sidelined, too.

At the same time, Greer’s assessment of Madonna’s skillset feels, well, reductive–to borrow a term that Madonna deployed when asked about perceived musical similarities between her 1989 hit “Express Yourself” and Lady Gaga’s 2011 single “Born This Way.” As co-writer and co-producer of the vast majority of songs she’s released since her 1982 debut single “Everybody,” Madonna has built one of contemporary pop’s most impressive songwriting catalogs. "Someone who you might not think of as the world’s best lyricist is Madonna," Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tennant said last year, "but she always gets the emphasis on the right syllable.” Stuart Price, Madonna’s main collaborator on 2005’s excellent, club-ready album Confessions on a Dance Floor, praised her “inherent understanding of dance music and pop music.”

Her third album, 1986’s True Blue, is one of the most enjoyable pop collections of its era, home to the iconic bops "Open Your Heart," "Papa Don’t Preach," and "La Isla Bonita." By this point, Madonna had become known for a certain kind of perky and super-melodic pop tune, but she was already beginning to push its limits: The album's title track is a joyous 60s girl-group homage that she revived on 2015’s Rebel Heart Tour .

This playlist could be longer—much longer. Madonna’s first couple albums yielded the instant-classic hits "Borderline," "Lucky Star," "Material Girl," and "Like a Virgin." "Virgin" is often painted as Madonna’s first scandalous moment , partly because she writhed on the floor in a wedding dress when she performed it at the 1984 VMAs . But I've always found "Borderline" every bit as suggestive, probably because my mom insisted that the lyrics are "really about reaching orgasm, you know." I'll leave you to decide whether you agree with her sex-positive interpretation.

Because her decades-deep catalog can be daunting to navigate, especially outside of those classic albums, we put together a streamlined guide to some of the most enduring moments in her restlessly creative and game-changing career. If you still think Madonna’s kind of overrated after listening to these tracks, then take a tip from Britney Spears. "I'm sorry, but I'd rather meet Madonna than the President of the United States,” the younger pop star wrote in 2004. “Madonna was the first female pop star to take control of every aspect of her career and to take responsibility for creating her image, no matter how much flak she might get."

With all this in mind, I've picked 13 Madonna songs that sparkle particularly brightly in a space where communal dancing is possible: the club, say, or your kitchen after a couple glasses of Chardonnay. Recorded for Madonna's first and arguably best movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985's blissful "Into the Groove" almost feels like a manifesto: "Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free," Madonna sings euphorically. A few years later, her early 90s collaborations with DJ/producer Shep Pettibone produced some heady house bangers—you surely know "Vogue," but "Deeper and Deeper" and "Rescue Me" are equally sinewy and thrilling.

Deciding whether some Madonna songs are more "pop" or "dance" feels kind of arbitrary. Any wedding DJ will tell you that "Like a Prayer" fills the floor every time, and she's scored a record 46 number-ones on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. Quite simply, clubbing is in Madonna's musical DNA: Before she smashed into the mainstream with 1982's "Holiday," she was a regular at legendary New York City nightspot Danceteria , where she persuaded DJ Mark Kamins to play her post-disco debut single "Everybody" and later gave her first ever live performance.

Follwing 1989's musically rich and inventive Like a Prayer album, which dazzled listeners with its still-ubiquitous title track as well as feminist rallying cry "Express Yourself," kept churning out pop hooks: Check out the killer chorus on 2005’s "Jump." But many of her career highlights from the 90s onwards saw her delve deeper into dance music and electronica, even when the unshakable choruses kept on coming. Some exceptions are "Secret," a lovely folky number from 1994’s Bedtime Stories; 1999 psychedelic gem "Beautiful Stranger"; and Madame X promo single "Crave," an appealingly hazy collaboration with Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee that boasts one of Madonna’s stickiest melodies in years.

It may be more than two decades old, but the title track from 1998's Ray of Light still slaps remarkably hard, and 2005's "Hung Up" remains a masterstroke. Who else but Madonna would think to build a shimmering club banger around an ABBA sample—then persuade the Swedish pop supremos, notoriously protective of their own music, to grant her permission to use it? "Get Together"—a fan favorite from the same album, Confessions on a Dance Floor—even earned a Grammy nomination in the Best Dance Recording category; ace singer-songwriter Shura recently confessed that she jammed it non-stop on a bus from Lima to Buenos Aires.

More recently, 2012's patchy MDNA album produced an underrated EDM thumper in "I'm Addicted," and "Living for Love," from 2015’s messy but sometimes magical Rebel Heart LP, shows Madonna’s unflagging passion for making people move. Co-producer Diplo revealed that he and Madonna went through around 20 different mixes before settling on the housey final version.

Playlist: "Everybody" / "Holiday" / "Into the Groove" / "Vogue" / "Rescue Me" / "Deeper and Deeper" / "Ray of Light" / "Music" / "Hung Up" / "Get Together" / "Celebration" / "I'm Addicted" / "Living for Love"

So you want to get into: Balladeer Madonna?

Madonna is best known for her bangers, but by 1995, she already had enough superior slowies to release a ballads compilation, Something to Remember. "You’ll See," recorded expressly for that album, is so classy and dramatic, it was even covered by Susan Boyle. Yes, really.