The Immaculate Collection is the first greatest hits album by American singer Madonna, released on November 13, 1990, by Sire Records.

"Justify My Love" was released as the lead single from the album, with a controversial music video featuring overtly sexual imagery.

Earning elevenfold platinum from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), it became Madonna's second diamond-certified album in the United States.

[3] Following the completion of the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, Madonna began preparing the project aimed to be released in time for the year's Christmas season.

The remix was just really to create the QSound, and make the song kind of envelop you when you listened to it in a certain sweet spot in front of the speakers [...] That wasn't easy to do.

[15] Lyrically, "Rescue Me" expresses the extinguishing of deranged behavior in a relationship and features spoken word verses, like on "Justify My Love".

[8] Photographer Herb Ritts shot the booklet's black-and-white images, which previously appeared in the June 1990 issue of Interview magazine.

[26] In 1993, a "limited edition" of The Immaculate Collection was released in Australia to commemorate Madonna's visit to the country with the Girlie Show tour.

[50] AllMusic senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that the album "remains a necessary purchase, because it captures everything Madonna is about and it proves that she was one of the finest singles artists of the '80s."

[43] Billboard commented that the album was "irresistible holiday buying fare", and praised the QSound process for adding "unheard detail and depth to the recordings".

[51] David Browne from Entertainment Weekly opined that the album was "as relentless as the woman herself", and "refocuses our attention on how brilliant her records have been over the years—and gives us a peek into the obstacles she might face as her career enters the '90s.

"[41] Peter Buckley, author of the book The Rough Guide to Rock, wrote that the album "stakes Madonna's claim to be the best singles act of the 80s.

[46] In a review for Music & Media, Pieter de Bruyn Kops complimented the album's new material as "brilliant" and said that "Madonna proves again she is the ruling Queen of Pop.

"[42] Robert Christgau called it "the greatest album of [Madonna's] mortal life" featuring "seventeen hits, more than half of them indelible classics.

"[57] Lucy O'Brien in her book Madonna: Like an Icon deemed the album a "seamless marriage of high-octane pop and dance", as well as "the ultimate party record".

"[39] Kevork Djansezian of Tulsa World commented that "if the controversy, the outrage, the boycotts, and the sexual revolution it created don't spark your interest, at least you can have a great time dancing and lip-synching to its acclaimed and definitely catchy pop tracks.

"[59] Douglas Wolk from Pitchfork stated that the album is "the kind of perfect straight-into-orbit retrospective pop artists dream of achieving.

[70] The Immaculate Collection became Madonna's second album, after Like a Virgin (1984), to receive diamond award from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and was later certified eleven-time platinum denoting 11 million album-equivalent units.

[78] It received twelve-time platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and has sold over 880,000 copies as of January 2013,[79] making it one of the best-selling albums in Australia.

[86] In France, the album reached number four on the chart and was certified diamond by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP).

[88] The Immaculate Collection peaked at number 10 in Germany and was certified triple gold by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI), denoting 750,000 units shipped.

[91] Nick C Levine from Dazed magazine stated that The Immaculate Collection cemented Madonna's iconic status and "distilled her early career into one era-defining pop single after another.

"[92] According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic, the album "captured the time when Madonna was the defining figure of American pop culture.

"[93] Mike Wass from Idolator described the album as "a time capsule of the 1980s... [showing] the Queen of Pop's progression from bubblegum-pop diva to the risk-taking, rule-breaking icon she went on to become in the 1990s.

"[95] Writing for The Guardian, Lucy O'Brien recommended The Immaculate Collection for listeners who want to discover Madonna's back catalog since her 1980s hits "are brilliantly captured" on the album.

She was a change-agent of Hollywood-blockbuster proportions, embodying womanhood's power while simultaneously upending musty notions of femininity... And, since this is above all expertly built, wonderfully sung music, the songcraft lets listeners ignore all of the above and just dance.

"[103] Selena Dieringer from Houston Press listed The Immaculate Collection among the "ten really fantastic Greatest Hits albums".

[106] It was also included in Out's The 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time, addressing the influence of records for the gay community, with staff calling it "the definitive document of her stratospherically successful first decade".