12 things to forget — or remember — about Madonna

Some things about Madonna you will never forget.

The first time you saw the "Like A Virgin" video on MTV.

The cone bra.

Going on "Wayne's World."

Those black-plastic shades topping off a perfectly tussled look — not to mention that dryer blast to the armpits — in "Desperately Seeking Susan."

Likewise, there are many things about Madonna you've probably forgotten already. Say, the entire "American Life" album. Or the fact that there was a movie called "Shanghai Surprise," even though it was briefly celebrated for its sheer awfulness.

The downside of being a pioneer of "reinvention" is the need to reinvent; a pop career that rides on currency inevitably leads to disposability as well.

So, as Madonna returns to the MGM Grand Garden on Saturday, it seems a bit of a time-waster to remind you of her career peaks. In fact, "The Rebel Heart" tour is said to be as close to a look back as the star is inclined, touching on old hits such as "Holiday" and "Who's That Girl?," albeit sometimes in medley form or with new arrangements.

Instead, let's carve up a dozen Madonna moments. Half of them, ones to forget. Or stay forgotten. Or remember long enough to forget again. And no, we didn't just cut-and-paste her entire IMDB filmography and clock out early for lunch.

If that's the easy part, the harder half of the list is this: Less-than-iconic events that aren't rerun as often as "A League of Their Own" is on basic cable, and deserve another listen or look — whether that happens Saturday night or on your own time.

Forget about:

1. "Sex": The book, not the act. Hard to remember now, in the age of Internet porn and too many "celebrity skin" websites, why we cared about an old-fashioned dirty book enough to run out and buy 150,000 copies the first day it came out in 1992. However, bully for you if did. Amazon is getting $159 for a used hardcover.

2. "Swept Away" making you seem cool: Lina Wertmuller's 1974 flick "Swept Away," was a sexy, political feminist/anti-feminist art-house hit during Madonna's formative years, when hip college students were wise to claim they'd seen it. But Madonna's 2002 remake, directed by action-oriented then-husband Guy Ritchie? You'd have more campus hipster cred saying you'd cued up a double feature of "Showgirls" and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls."

3. Maverick Records: Madonna's label partnership with the Warner Music Group was a reminder of her music-industry clout and business savvy to those who couldn't see beyond the sex. The label gave us Alanis Morissette and Muse, and, uh, well, uh, Deftones, Candlebox and Michelle Branch, running out of steam well before it folded amid financial malfeasance in 2007.

4. "Die Another Day": Worst James Bond theme song ever? It's down to "The Man With the Golden Gun," "All Time High" and "Die Another Day." But the first one is hilarious, and the second has a melody. So you win Madonna. (But fun to see you as the movie's fencing instructor.) Oddly enough, a much better song, "Beautiful Stranger," is the soundtrack for a Bond spoof, "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me."

5. Madonna's gun fetish endearing her with the right wing: She made the National Rifle Association's crowded list of enemies in 2013, even though the previous year's tour found her waving a faux AK-47 during "Girl Gone Wild" and shooting down masked assailants in a blood-splattered hotel room during "Gang Bang." Seems like an NRA wet dream, right?

Maybe she had already crossed the line at the MGM in 2004, when she dressed up like Che Guevara and twirled a rifle during "Express Yourself." Apparently the NRA is familiar with the word "satire" after all. Now it's up to the Catholic League to figure out what to do with the new tour's show-stopping nuns on stripper poles.

6. The Britney kiss: I know a lot of you lads of all ages will argue it was an erotic dream come true when, at the 2003 MGM Video Awards, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera sang "Like a Virgin" and Madge awarded Britters with a full-mouth smack from "the mommy pop star."

But you know what? Like the sniping with Lady Gaga that would come later, the pandering moment seems even more Norma Desmond-desperate in its attempts to deny the years (and keep her enemies closer?) now than it did back then. Instead of worrying about the new kids knocking her off the pop throne, Madonna should have let her sold-out tours of the 2000s (if not the albums) speak for themselves.

Don't forget about:

1. "The Girlie Show": The tour that didn't come to Las Vegas. Or did it? Time called Madonna's late 1993 tour "an R-rated takeoff on Cirque du Soleil." And what did Cirque turn around and do? "Zumanity." In fact, the neo-burlesque vibe continues in most Las Vegas topless cabaret shows.

2. The Drowned Tour: Why? Because on Labor Day weekend of 2001, it was Madonna's long-delayed Las Vegas debut, that's why.

3. The 1994 David Letterman interview: With Dave off the air now, we just don't see how the new era of carefully controlled, upbeat late-nights with Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon can ever go off the rails with the wild train-wreck abandon of a cigar-smoking Madonna waving panties in Dave's face, calling him names and insisting that "Peeing in the shower is really good. It fights athlete's foot."

We shall miss Dave saying, "Get yourself some Desenex."

4. "Madonna: Truth or Dare": Kim Kardashian was still a child when this 1991 documentary followed Madonna around her "Blond Ambition" tour. But never has a movie so laid the foundation for the reality-TV era. The way it seemed so real on one level yet had us asking, "Wait. They all know this is being filmed. Would all this be so dramatic if the cameras weren't following?"

Or, as Warren Beatty says of Kim — er, Madonna — in the movie, "She doesn't want to live off-camera, much less talk ... what point is there of existing off-camera?"

5. The Oscars date with Michael Jackson: Academy Awards night of 1991 was a haters' binge on a whole bag of snark cookies when Michael Jackson served as Madonna's date to the big dance. It was hard to decide which overexposed star was being used the most.

But here's what tilted it into the Madonna "win" category. Jackson told Madonna biographer J. Randy Traborrelli that at a restaurant summit, "I had my sunglasses on. And the next thing I know, she reaches over and takes my glasses off (and) throws them across the room and breaks them: 'I'm your date now, and I hate it when I can't see a man's eyes.' "

6. Mooning us at the MGM Grand in October 2012: The point is not whether it's a butt that people still wanted to see at age 54. The point is what she said after she flashed it: "Why does anybody show their ass onstage? So that people pay attention."

And if there's one thing Madonna's been good at over the years, it's making people pay attention.

— Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com. Follow him @Mikeweatherford.