Jump to content

Madonna: The World's Biggest Star


groovyguy
 Share

Recommended Posts

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-perezferia/madonna-the-worlds-bigges_b_5967112.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Madonna: The World's Biggest Star Is Just Hitting Her Stride

Posted: 10/10/2014

 

After more than three decades on top, Madonna has never been more relevant, more powerful or more interesting than she is at this very moment. How in the world does she do it? I'm writing about Madonna. Again.

 

In one of those full circle moments Oprah tends to get very excited about, my first professional journalism assignment came in the form of writing a review of True Blue, the Detroit native's album released in 1986. As an ambitious writer/editor of 21, I took the job very seriously. Just a day after turning in my earnest critique (a rave), I arrived in Manhattan to start my dream job at Esquire, magazine home to some of my writing heroes Tom Wolfe, Gay Talese and John Gregory Dunne. It had been a very good week.

 

The first time I heard Madonna was back in 1982 during my first semester at Tulane University. As I hurried to get dressed to meet friends for a long night of New Orleans' particular brand of debauchery (how I do miss those days), I heard a voice I couldn't place coming from my roommate's radio -- female, African-American, sounding a bit like a grittier Jody Watley. The song was "Everybody," Madonna's first released track, and something about the song, her voice and her one-word moniker struck a winning chord with me. Her second hit, "Holiday," an irresistible happy dance confection, solidified that this Madonna was the next hot R&B female vocalist and I wanted to hear more. You can imagine my shock when I first laid eyes on Madonna on MTV burning up my screen in her video for "Borderline"--her first Billboard Top 10 smash --and discovered that Madonna was, in fact, white and blonde! Who was this Madonna? I was hooked.

 

It's surreal recounting the early days we were first introduced to the ambitious life force tornado bursting with in-your-face bravura that became the all-encompassing, omnipresent, intergalactic superstar with a Biblical name.

 

From the moment we laid eyes on Madonna--with crazy fishnet stockings, dirty jeans and fingerless lace gloves--she had us under her spell. As the singer once famously said to a reporter, "Love me or hate me, but you have to deal with me." And dealing with her is something the world has been doing with wide-eyed fascination for more than three decades. There's no stopping this woman.

 

Madonna's tireless, unapologetic, get-out-of-my-way armor she wears heavily reminds me -- oddly -- of the late great Joan Rivers. Think about it: Both women, against impossible odds, not only survived to reach their respective fields' mountaintop, but remained relevant competing against upstarts decades their junior. I'm not sure if anyone had connected Madonna with Rivers before, but their shared take-no-prisoners, relentless modus operandi is undeniable and quite admirable.

 

At the height of Madonna's white-hot fame, there wasn't a more recognizable woman on the planet, save Princess Diana. I took personal pride as year in, year out Madonna accumulated more ammunition--fame, money, power--and her numerous critics of all stripes sharpened their knives claiming that the public's interest in Madonna had run its course. With the release of every album, every film, every failed romance, every trumped-up moral controversy, the cry was the same: How could a marginally talented singer hold the world in the palm of her hand for this long? How indeed?

 

Over the course of her remarkable career, Madonna has been called many things--Material Girl, Queen of Reinvention, Madge, diva, maverick, whore--which, for vastly different reasons, all are partly right, but mostly wrong. What Madonna ultimately achieved is nothing less than reigning as the universe's Queen of Pop, as in music, culture, life. Madonna has impacted the planet's pop cultural zeitgeist more significantly than anyone in my lifetime. By a mile. Her detractors be damned: The world we inhabit is a better, less predictable place with Madonna in it -- it's also more colorful, more artistic, more tolerant, more exciting. It's just more, a hell of a lot more.

 

And then there's her music and those songs happily stuck in our heads forever: "Like A Prayer," "Papa Don't Preach," "Into The Groove," "Like A Virgin," "Take A Bow," "Material Girl," "Ray Of Light," "Cherish," "Open Your Heart," "Vogue," "Music," "Deeper And Deeper," "Don't Tell Me," "Frozen," "Hung Up," "Rain," "Erotica," "Lucky Star," "Secret," "La Isla Bonita" and on and on and on--a head-boppin' jukebox for the ages.

 

Here's what those songs have done for Madonna. Bluntly -- and indisputably -- Madonna is the best-selling female recording artist of all time and is certified as such by Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Madonna is also the best-selling female artist of the 20th century with an astonishing 64 million albums. Only The Beatles rank ahead of Madonna on Billboard's 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the American singles chart. Billboard also anointed Madonna the top-touring female artist ever. Ever -- as in all of recorded history. To top things off, Madonna -- that "moderately talented singer" who most critics agreed had vastly outstayed her welcome -- was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in her very first year of eligibility. Nobody's bigger, folks. And nobody's done more with less than Madonna. Nobody. Ever.

 

Of course, it's not like Madonna came out of nowhere without any influences to guide her. In her earliest incarnations, you can see a bit of Cher in her shtick, a touch of Bette Midler's sass, a dose of Marilyn Monroe's ingénue mystique, but, incredibly, Madonna never came off as derivative. She borrowed, sure, but she always Madonnaized it. When she appropriated dance moves from the club underground, she made it palatable and relatable to the general public by demystifying its very subversiveness. Call it merely her mastery of reinvention if you want, but what Madonna's thousands of rapid-fire changing looks, clothes, hairstyles and passions have resulted in is an intoxicatingly graphic, multi-dimensional scrapbook for contemporary sociologists to marvel. Is it any wonder why several universities offer advanced courses analyzing the many facets of Madonna's amazing career?

 

But while Madonna was inspired by Cher, Bette and Marilyn, it's eye opening (to say the least) how, um, directly, Madonna's younger musical contemporaries have liberally taken from her. Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Kylie Minogue and Miley Cyrus all owe Madonna a huge debt of creative gratitude for sure, but most audaciously, gifted vocalist and provocateur, Lady Gaga, seems to have dissected Madonna in an unsubtle Single White Female copycat-stalker manner. I mean, c'mon. But no problem, I'm from the school that believes imitation is the highest form of flattery and the more talented women the merrier. If anyone can pivot away from the current crop of pop stars and go in a new, unexpected direction is Madonna. Trust me, people.

 

With the buzz for Madonna's new album--coming later this year--generating a deafening "this is the best in her career" frenzy, the 56-year-old gorgeous single mother is exactly where she wants to be. But old attitudes are hard to shake. After telling a close (though pretentious) friend that I was planning to write a big Madonna story about her unprecedented perseverance at the top of the music world competing with the likes of Beyoncé and Pink, great singers decades her junior, my friend's reaction was immediate: "Madonna? Really?" He punctuated his sarcastic query with an epic eye roll to leave no room for misinterpretation. I asked him where his eye roll was for Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney, both of whom are still touring nonstop well into their great-grandfatherly years. His silence was both deafening and telling. It's a friggin' woman thing. Again.

 

That's the thing about powerful, no B.S. women like Madonna, like Joan Rivers, like Barbra Streisand--they get labeled as "difficult" or "aggressive" or "whore"--anything to knock them off their perch a bit for upsetting the natural (male) order of things. Well, Madonna's having none of it. When she was photographed by Steven Meisel completely naked hitchhiking in broad daylight on a busy public street in Miami Beach (looking gorgeous, incidentally) in her wildly controversial book, Sex, a reporter asked her if she was "sorry" for causing such a fuss. Madonna burst out laughing and on her next album, released a single called "I'm Not Sorry." Perfect.

 

Is there any wonder why Madonna has always had a lock on the gay community's heart? From her true friendships with artist Keith Haring and photographer Herb Ritts--both of whom died of AIDS--to her current ferocious defense of rock band Pussy Riot's right to perform freely and for gays to exist without fear in Vladimir Putin's increasingly draconian Russia, Madonna isn't only fighting for what's fair and just in her own life, but in yours.

 

One of the first times Madonna ever appeared on TV was her debut on Dick Clark's iconic American Bandstand. After performing, Clark asked the young singer a prescient question: "What are your dreams?" Madonna, with the chutzpah of a cat who ate the canary, looked at the television legend, smiled and said sweetly, "To rule the world." Against all the odds, she's done it.

 

Madonna is the reigning Queen of Pop. And, yes, of course, her haters will continue to hate, but she's already won the game. Boy, did she ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 74
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

groovyguy

THE 33 MOST POPULAR ARTISTS DURING 2015 : MADONNA, KYLIE MINOGUE ,OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN, PET SHOP BOYS AND DONNA SUMMER LEAD THE WAY! In News, Polls/Charts by david cocas May 18, 2016 http://www.therealmusicdivas.com/the-33-most-popular-artists-during-2015-madonna-kylie-minogue-olivia-newton-john-pet-shop-boys-and-donna-summer-lead-the-way/     Madonna is the most popular artist as far as TheRealMusicDivas readers are concerned. We decided to research the most searched artists back in 2015

groovyguy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-perezferia/madonna-the-worlds-bigges_b_5967112.html?utm_hp_ref=tw Madonna: The World's Biggest Star Is Just Hitting Her Stride Posted: 10/10/2014   After more than three decades on top, Madonna has never been more relevant, more powerful or more interesting than she is at this very moment. How in the world does she do it? I'm writing about Madonna. Again.   In one of those full circle moments Oprah tends to get very excited abou

groovyguy

For your #mondaymotivation: How @Madonna's music videos changed the face of pop culture:   http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/strike-a-pose-madonnas-20-greatest-videos-20160707 Madonna's music videos defined the MTV era 
and changed pop culture forever. Here are the stories behind the 20 greatest   Madonna's first album was released in July 1983, just two years after the birth of MTV, and no artist conquered the medium like the Queen of Pop. To salute the Material Girls' unsurpas

  • 4 months later...
Is Madonna out of the groove? Not quite yet...
EVER since a lace-clad Madonna burst on to the music scene three decades ago she’s possessed the knack of reinvention.
 
Despite being bumped off Radio 1's playlist, Madonna will always be a superstar
 
Love or loathe the American singer there’s no denying that she has the ability to spot and exploit a trend. It’s helped her rack up global record sales of 300million and earn the title Queen of Pop. 
 
Now, however, it seems time has finally caught up with 56-year-old Madonna. At the end of a week in which she flashed her bottom at the Grammys in LA it was revealed that her songs are no longer considered cool enough for Radio 1. 
 
The mother-of-four has joined a list of other ageing stars, including Sir Cliff Richard, whose records are banned from the station’s main day time playlist. 
 
“At the end of the day it’s all about relevance,†says a Radio 1 source. “It’s natural that as an artist gets older their audience goes elsewhere and Radio 1 has to reflect that. The station has a duty to meet the needs of younger listeners.†
 
It’s a snub that would once have been unthinkable but reflects growing suggestions that the singer has lost her way. 
 
The daughter of Italian immigrants she left Michigan to seek fame in New York in the early 1980s. 
 
Madonna’s rise coincided with the advent of music videos and her style of dressing, including fishnet tights, fingerless gloves and crucifixes, soon caught on among teenage girls. 
 
It was her second album, the provocatively titled Like A Virgin, that catapulted her to stardom and the surrounding controversy set the tone for the rest of her career. 
 
Released in 1984 the title track drew condemnation that it promoted pre-marital sex and undermined family values. 
 
Another song from that album, Material Girl, was to become her trademark. There was a successful debut movie, Desperately Seeking Susan, and her edgy image was enhanced by her marriage to bad-boy actor Sean Penn. 
 
In 1985 Madonna had her first UK No 1, Get Into The Groove. Then her video for Like A Prayer became a target for the Catholic Church because of its mix of burning crosses and sex. 
 
However Madonna entered the 1990s on the back of a messy divorce, while her performance in the movie Dick Tracy set back her acting career. 
 
Her coffee table book Sex, featuring herself in a series of erotic poses, received mixed reviews but sold 150,000 copies on its first day. 
 
Again Madonna, who had a fling with her Dick Tracy co-star Warren Beatty, shamelessly capitalised on her ability to cause jaws to drop. 
 
She once said: “I know I’m not the greatest singer or dancer but that doesn’t interest me. I’m interested in being provocative and pushing people’s buttons. If I can’t be daring in my work, or the way I live my life, then I don’t see much point being on this planet.†
 
Yet there was always more to Madonna – whose first child Lourdes was born in 1996 – than simply a talent to shock. Over the decades she has kept her finger on the musical pulse. 
 
Her album Ray Of Light, in 1998, delved into electro pop and won a string of Grammys. There have also been collaborations with the likes of Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams. 
 
Explaining her approach Madonna has said: “I’m always looking for a new inspiration, a new philosophy, a new way to look at something.†
 
For almost 20 years she has been a devotee of Kabbalah, a mystical offshoot of Judaism. 
 
For a while she also played the English lady, following her marriage to director Guy Ritchie in 2000, which ended eight years later. 
 
 
Her most recent in a series of much younger lovers was dancer Timor Steffens, 26, who was still in nappies when Madonna released her first greatest hits compilation. 
 
Her latest album Rebel Heart is out next month, which might explain her recent antics. 
 
In December she also posed topless (again) for a magazine. 
 
Some observers complain that the star, who has 13 UK No1 singles to her name, is behaving in an increasingly desperate manner as she competes with younger performers. With an estimated fortune of £550 million it’s not as if she needs the cash. 
 
PR guru Mark Borkowski questions her recent tactics. 
 
“We’ve seen the shock-horror photos before. It’s all a bit 20th century and there’s always the danger of slipping into cliché. But I don’t think Madonna is irrelevant. She is one of the great artists and with the fan base she has doesn’t really need Radio 1. However nobody likes to think they aren’t wanted.†
 
And he has a warning for any one predicting the demise of the best-selling female artist of all time: “It’s dangerous to write Madonna off and I’m sure she will surprise us all again.â€
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/9124443/Pops-20-greatest-female-artists.html?frame=2159503

 

Pop's 20 greatest female artists

 

1. Madonna

Love her or loathe her, it would be hard to deny Madonna’s pole position as the greatest female pop star of our times. Her world-beating, shape-shifting, trend-setting and at times ground breaking pop music has covered the gamut of female archetypes: virgin, whore, wife, mother, witch, diva, saint, sinner and 50-year-old cheerleader, and put it all to dance beats and catchy hooks. She might not be the greatest singer, she may not be the finest songwriter, she may favour surface over depth and make music that barely ripples the soul, but Madonna’s pop genius has carried her on a three decade winning streak that no other star, male or female, can match.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hate these stupid "opinion" polls on who's the greatestWe all know that Madonna is the best and her stats and influence back it up, we shouldn't need a tabloid like The Independent to legitimize it for usAnd besides like Madonna herself has said "When people write nice things about you and you buy into it then you have to buy into the negative things as well, so IT'S NOT GOOD TO GET CAUGHT UP IN WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Radical Notion‘s Tanya Parker wrote a very interesting article about Madonna’s fearlessness listing five moments proving that she is the OG (original gangster) of pop music.

 

5 Times Madonna smashed the patriarchy

http://www.theradicalnotion.com/five-times-madonna-smashed-the-patriarchy/

 

I remember listening to the True Blue album on my walkman so much that a tangled mess of tape would come out and I would fix it with a pencil. (If you’re in your thirties, you know what I’m talking about it. If you’re younger than that, you’re probably still stuck on “what’s a walkman?â€) I never wore the classicMadonna outfit–the black half shirt, the fish net gloves, lace leggings, and mini skirt. I was a little young for that but I totally would have if my mother would have allowed it.

 

Madonna is known for being a boss. Her business skills are often described as “manipulativeâ€, “relentlessâ€, and “brilliantâ€. Some of those adjectives might not have been used if she were a manMadonna is a shrewd businesswoman who worked hard for her successes. She knows her brand and she has marketed it well.

 

Aside from her business successes, she has indisputably had an effect on music and has opened the doors for female artists to express their sexuality and while some may not find that to be much of a feminist accomplishment, it speaks directly to the patriarchal concept of the virgin-whore dichotomy. Madonna fought for freedom of expression–yes, much of what she wanted to express was sexual in nature–but why shouldn’t women have equal opportunity to express whatever they want artistically?

 

So let’s recognize Madonna’s fearlessness with five times that Madonna proved that she’s the OG of pop music:

Posted Image

1. Like a Prayer & Papa Don’t Preach

When Like a Prayer came out, I remember my mother having an opinion on it which was rare. She didn’t often comment on pop culture. We weren’t a religious family. I remember going to church twice, once for Easter and the other time I was there because they were offering free family portraits. Nevertheless, my mother was absolutely horrified that Madonna was getting down in a church with a black man. Scandalous! I, however, thought that this was the greatest video ever made and I could listen to that song on repeat for days.

Like a Prayer really was pretty shocking. Madonna made a video in 1989 featuring a black man getting arrested for a white man’s crime, interracial sexual activity in a church, stigmata, and burning fucking crosses. Boom! That was hardcore for 1989.

 

This wasn’t the first time Madonna pissed everyone off with a video and it wouldn’t be the last time she would anger religious leaders. With Like a Prayer, Madonna shook things up even more than when she released the Papa Don’t Preach video in 1986 which If you haven’t seen Like a Prayer, what are you waiting for? Classic Madonna!

Posted Image

“Sexâ€, currently out of print. It is the most sought after out of print book on eBay and Amazon.

 

In 1992, Madonna released a coffee table book of soft-core erotica images called Sex. I emphasize coffee table book because seriously, who would do such a thing in 1992? A coffee table book is just that. It’s sitting on your coffee table when your Aunt comes over for tea. No one had a book that needed to be relegated to the back of the closet when relatives came over in 1992. If the internet was a thing when Sex was released, Madonna would have broken it. Conservatives were nearly being overcome with the vapors over this. It was shocking and certainly contributing to the downfall of society and the demoralizing of America’s youth.

 

<a data-ipb="nomediaparse" data-cke-saved-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Don" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papa_Don" t_preach"=""> The book contained images, many of which were sadomasochistic, of Madonna alone and with models, some of which were women. They were all engaged in various sexual poses. This was one of the first times that Madonna addressed gay sexuality. She was later praised by LGBT groups for depicting lesbian sex openly and equally with the heterosexual pairings in the book. For an example, click here(obviously not safe for work. duh).

 

The release of the book was simultaneously a shit show and also fairly epic. It was banned in some countries including India and Japan. Bookstores were on the ready to deliver a speech about censorship and the role of book sellers to anyone who protested their selling the book. The Vatican publicly condemned the book. All the while, Madonna said that she did it to “liberate†America because we were all too Puritanical and then she went on being a boss.

 

Fun Fact: Vanilla Ice, who was unfortunately Madonna’s boyfriend at the time, said that seeing Madonna with other men in the book was the reason for their break up. If I were Madonna, I would be grateful every day that I published that book. That man is a tool.

 

3. Human Nature

By the time Human Nature came out in 1994, I was no longer listening to pop music and was way more into the punk stuff. I couldn’t relinquish my punk cred by listening to Madonna but Human Nature was so fucking fantastic that I still secretly listened to it when my friends weren’t around. The lyrics are rather feministy:

“Human Natureâ€
Express yourself, don’t repress yourself

And I’m not sorry (I’m not sorry)
It’s human nature (it’s human nature)
And I’m not sorry (I’m not sorry)
I’m not your bitch don’t hang your shit on me (it’s human nature)

You wouldn’t let me say the words I longed to say
You didn’t want to see life through my eyes
(Express yourself, don’t repress yourself)
You tried to shove me back inside your narrow room
And silence me with bitterness and lies
(Express yourself, don’t repress yourself)

Did I say something wrong?
Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex
(I musta been crazy)
Did I stay too long?
Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t speak my mind
(What was I thinking)

You punished me for telling you my fantasies
I’m breakin’ all the rules I didn’t make
(Express yourself, don’t repress yourself)
You took my words and made a trap for silly fools
You held me down and tried to make me break
(Express yourself, don’t repress yourself)

Did I say something true?
Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about sex
(I musta been crazy)
Did I have a point of view?
Oops, I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about you
(What was I thinking)

Express yourself, don’t repress yourself
Express yourself, don’t repress yourself

(I’m not apologizing)
(Would it sound better if I were a man?)
(You’re the one with the problem)
(Why don’t you just deal with it)

(Would you like me better if I was?)
(We all feel the same way)
(I have no regrets)
(Just look in the mirror)

(I don’t have to justify anything)
(I’m just like you)
(Why should I be?)
(Deal with it)

Posted Image

4. The Feminist Interview

Madonna did this interview in March.  It’s really a great read and if you’re interested in Madonna’s views about social justice, feminism, women, and sexuality, you should definitely read it. Madonna has this to say about the state of the world for women right now:

Well, I think that we still live in an incredibly sexist society, even though it seems like women have made a lot of strides. A woman is still put in a category, still put in boxes. You can be sexy, but you can’t be smart. You can be smart, but you can’t be sexy. You can be sexy, but you can’t be 50.â€

So, we live in a very ageist society, which means we live in a sexist society because nobody ever gives men shit for how they behave, however old they are. There is no rulebook. As a man, you can date whoever you want. You can dress however you want. You can do whatever you want in any area that you want. But, if you’re a woman, there are rules, and there are boundaries. And, I feel like a lot of my biggest critics are women.

For another take on Madonna as a “feminist iconâ€, click here.

Posted Image

Madonna performing Vogue during the 2012 MDNA Tour. Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

 

5. She’s a survivor

I would be remiss if I didn’t write about Madonna as a survivor. As a child, Madonna experienced the death of her mother to breast cancer which affected her deeply. She was raised in a religious family with strict gender roles and patriarchal influences. Despite all of that, she left her home and set about making herself into the best selling female artist of all time. While in New York, Madonna was raped at knife pointbut never reported the crime. She has since spoken out about how shame and fear about the reporting process kept her from reporting the rape. Madonna is a survivor who has worked damn hard to get where she is today. She said this about her new song with Nicki Minaj called Bitch I’m Madonna:  â€œI feel like I’ve earned the right to say, ‘Bitch, I’m Madonna. Don’t fuck with me.’ I’m allowed to do this now. I’ve earned my stripes.† Fuck yeah, Madonna. You have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In case you forgot, Madonna is still awesome

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11470356

Madonna is finally headed to New Zealand for the first time and we thought it might be good to remind you why she has been - and remains - one of pop's biggest and most intriguing figures.

 

It's all her fault

There's no doubt Madonna's influence has been both broad and enduring. She was the first Queen of Pop, breaking into an industry that was dominated by men with impressive force. She also changed the role of women with her fearless attitude towards sharing opinions, and introducing new ideas of feminism and sexuality.

 

She broke taboos, created controversy, was stylistically adventurous, and throughout it all, exerted remarkable control over her own career. Wikipedia lists over 150 artists who have named her as an influence (Katy Perry, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, and Britney Spears among them, as well as Adam Lambert and Justin Timberlake), and the reason the world's music charts are now dominated by solo female artists is certainly, in major part, down to Madonna.

 

She's not just a successful pop musician, who continues to try her hand at all sorts of genres, but a cultural icon whose creative output will be referenced for decades to come.

 

She went viral before the internet existed

Remember the furore that her "touched for the very first time" lyrics from hit single Like A Virginsparked in 1984? How about the videos for Like A Prayer or Justify My Love, clips that were big on religious imagery? What about Madonna's best-selling 1992 coffee table porn anthology Sex that critics branded "hardcore pornography"?

Or her 1994 interview with David Letterman where she swore, called him names and handed over her underwear.

It's fair to say most of Madonna's controversies have been expertly contrived.

 

But her biggest ones were all done before Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. In short, she went viral before "going viral" was possible. And that's no mean feat.

 

Video did not kill this radio star

From choosing to work with directors like David Fincher on the kaleidoscopic video for Vogue, and the elaborate Express Yourself, which drew on Fritz Lang'sMetropolis and Marlene Dietrich, Madonna really pushed the boat out with her videos.

 

From lion-taming to peep shows, Marilyn Monroe to the S&M fest of Justify Your Love she's played with all sorts of high and low concepts, and even won a Grammy for the urban time-lapse of Ray Of Light.

 

She also pioneered the notion of making your live stage show look like your music videos, taking costume and set design cues from various music video singles, and pouring them on stage through her cone-shaped bras, religious iconography, cowgirl get-up, and all kinds of leather underwear.

 

She sure got around

From directors to rappers, actors, politicians and one-hit wonders, Madonna's love life has remained a source of amazement. She's been married twice, first to Sean Penn from 1985 to 1987, then to British director Guy Ritchie, a relationship that spawned one child, Rocco Ritchie, and one appalling movie, the Guy Ritchie-directed Swept Away. In total, she has four children: Lourdes (her father is fitness instructor Carlos Leon), 18, Rocco, 14, and adopted children Mercy James, 9 and David Banda, 9. But it's Madonna's rotating cast of famous boyfriends that really keeps the gossip mags busy.

 

Her list includes musicians Vanilla Ice, Mark McGrath and Tupac, magician David Blaine, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, actor Warren Beatty, politician John Kennedy jnr, basketballer Dennis Rodman and, most recently, 27-year-old Dutch dancer Timor Steffens. She's also reportedly dated two women: model Jenny Shimizu and nightclub owner Ingrid Casares - but these remain rumours. And she's also pashed Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and, more recently, Drake at Coachella in front of 70,000 people. But the less said about that, the better.

 

She stayed on top of the pop game

Let's forget about her most recent album, Rebel Heart, and remember the good times, because Madonna has had a lot of them. Her biggest asset is one that many a pop star has tried to mimic: yes, she has the ability to reinvent herself with every album, but she also aligns herself with emerging talent and producers on the rise. She worked with Nile Rodgers on her 1984 album Like A Virgin way before Daft Punk made him cool (again).

 

On 1998's Ray of Light she and dance music guru William Orbit crafted a synth-pop classic that earned four Grammy awards and sparked a resurgence in rave music.

 

And 2008's Hard Candy attracted a certified dream team that included The Neptunes, Timbaland, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West. They've all done pretty well since then. Just saying.

 

We bought lots of her records

She's sold an estimated 300 million albums worldwide and she's the biggest selling female artists of all time. Here, in the past 30 years she's had five New Zealand number one singles - Into The Groove (1985), Like a Prayer (1989), Vogue (1990),Music (2000). and Don't Tell Me (2001).

Posted Image

Those are just the ones which reached the top spot. Madonna holds the record - 53 - for entries into the New Zealand top 40 single charts. Her albums Like a Virgin(1984), True Blue (1986) and Ray of Light (1998) topped the NZ charts too.

 

She gets knocked down ...

Madonna's worst reviews have long been for her movie performances. She's had a couple of good films - her scene stealing turn in 1985's Desperately Seeking Susan set up the possibility she might have screen career too. But what did she do when no one liked her films? She kept making them, even directing and writing a few in recent years. No one went to see them either. Didn't seem to worry her.

 

And after 30 years of "wardrobe malfunctions" - "oh, darn, it appears my frock has fallen off and I appear to be singing in my pointy Gaultier underwear again. Deal with it" - she finally had a real one, falling backwards down stairs after tripping over her matador cape on stage at the Brit Awards this year.

 

She got up and kept singing. 'Cause she's tough. Matador? Well, she's been like a red rag to a bull for most of her career.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Madonna in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time
Rolling Stone compiled their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time – and 16 female artists are included, including Madonna at #56. Here is what they say about the Queen:
 
Before she was a star, Madonna was a songwriter with a sharp ear for a hook and a lyrical catchphrase, playing tracks like Lucky Star for record companies in the hope of scoring a contract. Her earliest hits honed the electro beats coming out of the New York club scene into universal radio gold. But songs like her greatest statement, Like a Prayer, can also summon an anthemic power to rival Springsteen or U2. Madonna has enlisted numerous collaborators en route to selling more than 300 million albums – she started working with longtime writing partner Patrick Leonard after he brought her Live to Tell in 1986, and from Shep Pettibone and William Orbit in the Nineties through Diplo, Avicii and Kanye West on 2015’s Rebel Heart, she’s worked successfully with producers across many genres. Through it all, her songs have been consistently stamped with her own sensibility and inflected with autobiographical detail. “She grew up on Joni Mitchell and Motown and. . . embodies the best of both worlds,†says Rick Nowells, who co-wrote with Madonna on 1998’s Ray of Light. “She is a wonderful confessional songwriter, as well as being a superb hit chorus pop writer.â€
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Madonna topped the Telegraph's Pop's 20 Greatest Female Music Artists list and was included in Rolling Stone's Greatest Songwriters of All Time list at number 56. Amazing.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why Madonna is a great role model for the awkward and insecure teenagers
 
See, Mom? Madonna Didn’t Turn Me Into A Brazen Slut!
I am the youngest of four kids and my mom’s only daughter. My mom was one of nine girls in her family, so you can imagine the tidal wave of estrogen that washed over me in the form of dresses, hair bows and dolls when I was born. They had such high girly hopes for me. But I grew up with three brothers, so you can imagine how I failed to meet their expectations. My mom wanted a girl who liked to do her hair, play dress up and be pretty. What she got instead was a little girl who rough-housed with her brothers and wanted a plastic Rambo knife for Christmas (the top part was also a compass!). My mom wanted me to like pink; I liked blue. My mom wanted me to act lady-like; I could burp the alphabet. My mom wanted me to like Debbie Gibson or Belinda Carlisle, but instead, I liked Madonna.
 
And not ’80s Madonna, mind you. I liked ’90s, vogue-ing, cone-bra-wearing, hitchhiking naked for Sex book Madonna. So I completely understood my mom’s concern that Madonna would encourage her child to be a brazen slut. But here I am in my late 30s, and I never once hitchhiked with my ass hanging out or owned a cone bra ever. (I do admit to having overdosed on vogue-ing a time or two, but it wasn’t a problem Bengay couldn’t take care of.) In actuality, my mom had nothing to worry about, because Madonna was a positive influence on me, both then and now.
 
Here are five things about Madonna that made her a great role model for the awkward and insecure teenager I used to be.
 
1. SHE’S A HARD WORKER
Madonna didn’t start off in the music business with the help of a manager dad or mom. The only support she was getting was from her own two feet. Madonna is a brand, yet she started with just $35 in her pocket and a part-time job at Dunkin’ Donuts. In the first couple years, Madonna was practically homeless, eating popcorn every day because it was all she could afford. She was robbed, she was raped, and her dreams of being a professional ballet dancer were eventually dashed (she was too short). No one would have been surprised if she gave it all up and went back to Michigan. But Madonna didn’t throw in the towel. Instead, she tweaked her brand vision and focused on making music instead, which she promoted without the help of YouTube or social media. Meaning, Madonna hit the pavement every night, passing out her cassette tapes to any DJ who would take it. And now, more than 30 years later, she’s still working hard as she prepares to embark on her new Rebel Heart world tour next month (which I’m going to in October!).
 
2. SHE SPEAKS HER MIND
We live in a world where celebrities have publicists who carefully craft the words they say so that they are safe for public consumption. They say the right thing, make no mistakes, leave feathers unruffled, and in return, we get uninteresting, one dimensional, Hollywood handcrafted celebrities. If you want to see true realness, check out Madonna’s 1990 Nightline interview, where she defends her video, “Justify My Love†(which was also the first video MTV banned) and challenges the media’s conservative views on nudity and sex. Madonna stumbles, mispronounces things and sometimes sounds like she wants to kick that smug look off the newscaster’s face. It’s not perfect, definitely unscripted, and yet, I remember being so impressed by her. This was Madonna going off in her own words, defending her passions and voicing her opinions.
 
3. SHE’S AN OVERLY CONFIDENT WOMAN
And she doesn’t apologize for it, which made a huge impression on me. I remember seeing Madonna’s interview on American Bandstand. When Dick Clark asked her what her plans for the future were, she responded, “To rule the world,†and not in a jokey manner, but more like she was making a prediction. She was proud of who she was and of her body, her mind and her sexuality. Simply put, she just oozed self confidence. If you want to see it up close and personal, watch Madonna’s “Vogue†performance for the MTV video music awards, and tell me those aren’t the look and movements of a woman who thinks she’s absolutely fabulous.
 
It might be off-putting and obnoxious for a lot of people, but for seventh-grade me, her over-the-top confidence was something I wanted to have for myself.
 
4. SHE’S A “BITCHâ€
Madonna once famously said, “I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.†In just once sentence, Madonna turned a demeaning insult into a compliment, and from that day on, I learned that the proper response to being called a bitch is a simple, “Thank you.â€
 
5. SHE DOESN’T CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK
Long before Taylor Swift started singing about shaking off other people’s negative opinions, Madonna was already a full-time professional at shaking things off. At the height of her popularity in the ’80s, the media found nude pictures Madonna had posed for before she got famous. The photos were plastered on every newspaper and magazine and shown on all of the news channels. They called her a slut, a tramp and everything else in between. But instead of hiring a team of publicists to issue an apology for the news or even write out an explanation, Madonna’s only response to her nude pictures was:
 
“So?â€
 
Even now, after racking up countless awards, number-one songs, albums and record-breaking tours, Madonna gets half the respect that her male counterparts do and is still the media’s favorite punching bag—attacking everything from her music, her looks, her behavior and now, her age. But Madonna thwarts the media’s attempts to make her feel bad about herself time and time again by just not giving one single fuck about what anyone says about her and by using her amazing success as a big middle finger to all the haters.
 
Happy Birthday, Madonna. Thank you for always being such a badass.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Unapologetically Madonna: Sex & Religion Through the Decades

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/carynriswold/2015/09/unapologetically-madonna-sex-religion-through-the-decades/

September 7, 2015 by Caryn Riswold

In the category of News of the Obvious, Madonna declared that her Rebel Hearttour, which kicks off in Canada on September 9, will focus on sexuality and religion:

“I’m very immersed in deconstructing the concept of sexuality and religion and how it’s not supposed to go together, but in my world it goes together.â€

 

When has Madonna ever NOT been deconstructing sexuality and religion?

 

She writhed onstage at the 1984 Video Music Awards in a white wedding gown.

 

She freaked out Catholics worldwide with Like a Prayer, its lyrics and video, and was written about by none other than author and priest Andrew Greeley.

 

She published a book called Sex.

 

Her first greatest hits compilation was called The Immaculate Collection.

 

Her 1992 album was called Erotica.

 

I don’t have to go on, do I?

 

Here’s the deal: I love Madonna. I don’t love everything she does, but I realized this summer that she is the only artist whose work I have bought, when it came out, in three generations of music format: first on cassette (Like a Virgin,Eroticaet.al.), then on CD (MusicRay of Lightet.al.), and now digitally (MDNA,Rebel Heart). She’s been with me a long time, in my first boom box in the mid-1980s alongside Rick Springfield and Michael Jackson, in my car’s CD player with Tori Amos and the Indigo Girls standing by, and now my iPhone 5s alongside Beyonce and Taylor Swift on my Top Ten playlist.

 

There have been books written on her, like Madonna and Me: Women Writers on the Queen of Pop edited by Laura Barcella and published in 2012. She’s been banned fromcountries for her political statements in support of other women artists, decried as ablasphemer by the Vatican, and embroiled in international adoption controversy as part of her personal life. And it’s always been about religion and sexuality.

 

Songs on Rebel Heart make obvious reference to religious ideas with titles like “Devil Pray,†“Holy Water,†“Messiah,†and “Joan of Arc.†Lyrics are explicit and then some, like “bitch get off my pole,†(with rumors of nuns and stripper poles on stage in the upcoming tour!) and “don’t it taste like holy water?†in reference to … another sacred liquid. Of course, with other songs titled “Bitch I’m Madonna,†(performed raucously on The Tonight Show earlier this year) and “Unapologetic Bitch,†the point should be pretty clear.

 

In an interview with an Italian radio station earlier this year, Madonna said of her songs:

“They are a bit to do with my relationship with God and/or sexuality or playing with the idea of God and religion or sexuality; these are all themes that are present in my songs – as you know. It’s also the reason I have been excommunicated by the Catholic Church not once, not twice but three times….â€

 

What I find compelling is that she’s still deeply shaped by Catholic ideas, images, and practices. The religion that imprinted on her youth continues to imprint her artistic expression in middle age. A lifetime of denouncing and scandalizing hasn’t exhausted the singer’s repertoire yet.

 

Because while Madonna says that sexuality and religion are “not supposed to go together,†it is clear that they have always gone together. Much of religion is and has always been about defining, explaining, and regulating sexuality. At its best it can be about providing a sacred framework of meaning for human life, including sex. At its worst, it has been about dehumanization and discrimination explicitly on the basis of sex. Which is why it will continue to provide fodder for artists who want to engage the paradox, push the boundaries, and call out the problems.

 

Unapologetically.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Write here...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use