"Justify My Love" (Madonna)

If you were alive in 1990, you probably recall the controversy surrounding the video for "Justify My Love."  If you were old enough to stay up late and/or young enough to give a damn, you also probably watched the unedited video when it made its US debut on the December 3, 1990, edition of ABC's Nightline.  
I remember watching the video as a pre-teen and thinking it was the silliest thing I'd ever seen.  Yes, there were glimpses of people's bangers n' mash, but it wasn't nearly as raunchy and titillating as the media made it out to be.  The content certainly didn't warrant it being banned from MTV.  It was sexual hyperbole—an elaborate joke leveled by Ms. Ciccone at the puritanical world.  (And she laughed all the way to the bank when the VHS release of the 5-minute video became the top-selling music video release of all time.)
But so much for all that.
It's a song that sounds like no other.  Those whispered, non-sung lyrics* over that relentless, trip-hop beat** still sound fresh today.  And even though the song set the tone for what was on the horizon with 1992's Erotica, she never got quite this funky or seductive again.

* The song's co-writer/producer/background vocalist, Lenny Kravitz, was having an affair with Prince protégé, Ingrid Chavez, back in 1990.  Chavez wrote Kravitz a private love letter/poem, and that poem became the basis of the lyrics.  However, Kravitz used the words without crediting her.  She sued.  Yadda yadda yadda, they settled out of court, and now Chavez is listed in the song credits.
** The beat was sampled from the Public Enemy track "Security of the First World" without the group's permission.  It almost led to another lawsuit against Kravitz by Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee.  But then questions arose about whether Shocklee had himself lifted the beat from James Brown's "Funky Drummer," so Kravitz escaped lawsuit #2.