Madonna

Singer, songwriter, record company executive

For the Record…

An Ambitious Streak

Continued to Provoke Controversy

Multimedia Mogul

Selected writings

Selected discography

Sources

The career of pop music superstar Madonna has lasted longer than most of her detractors ever predicted. She has become a kind of modern-day, multimedia ueber-celebrity who dabbles in film, theater projects, and the occasional publishing venture in addition to her recording endeavors. But Madonna’s most impressive feat may be her ability to sell millions of records around the world regardless of what the music press says about her. Rock critic Robert Christgau summed up Madonna’s magic touch in Vogue, calling the singer-songwriter “a trailblazer in a raceless dance music with discernible roots in postpunk and Eurodisco, who is also on flirting terms with such white-bread subgenres as Vegas schlock, show tune, and housewife ballad.” Christgau further described the accomplished performer’s million-selling efforts as rife with “corny cool, postfeminist confidence, [and] pleasure-centered electronic pulse.”

Off stage, Madonna demonstrates considerable business acumen as chief executive of her own company and record label. Her skills in guiding her career and the “Madonna” persona have, in the space of a decade, made her one of the world’s wealthiest women.

Madonna was born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Bay City, Michigan, in 1958. The “Veronica” that is commonly cited as one of her birth names is really her confirmation name, chosen for the religious ceremony when she was in her early teens. Her family—Madonna is the third of eight children—was living in Pontiac, Michigan, at the time of her birth, but they were visiting relatives in Bay City when her then-very-pregnant mother went into labor. Tragically, Mrs. Ciccone died of cancer when Madonna and her siblings were quite young. The children lived for a while with various relatives until her father settled down in Rochester Hills, a suburb of Detroit, and reunited the family.

Madonna’s father, an engineer by profession, eventually married the family’s housekeeper. Being the eldest daughter of a large brood meant that a greater share of household and emotional responsibilities fell on Madonna’s young shoulders. “Sometimes growing up I felt like the unhired help,” she admitted to Time writer Carl Wayne Arrington. Of her strict, Italian American, Roman Catholic upbringing, she recalled, “My family life at home was very repressive, very Catholic, and I was very unhappy. I was considered the sissy of the family because I relied on feminine wiles to get my way. I wasn’t quiet at all. I remember always being told to shut up.”

Interested in dance from an early age, Madonna studied with local instructors as a teenager. In high school, she was an honor roll student and a cheerleader. She

For the Record…

Born Madonna Louise Ciccone (pronounced “Chick-one”), August 16, 1958, in Bay City, MI; daughter of Silvio (an engineer) and Madonna (Fortin) Ciccone; married Sean Penn (an actor), August 16, 1985 (divorced, January 1989). Education: Attended University of Michigan for two years; studied dance in New York City with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and with Pearl Lang.

Singer, songwriter, record company executive, and actress. Backup singer and drummer for the Breakfast Club (a dance band), 1980; backup singer for disco star Patrick Hernandez, 1980-81; singer in a number of New York-based dance bands, including the Millionaires, Modern Dance, and Emmy, 1981-83; solo performer, 1983—; signed with Sire Records (a division of Warner Bros.), 1983; released first album, Madonna, 1983; had first Top Ten hit, “Borderline,” 1984; signed with Time-Warner, 1991; head of own record label (Maverick), 1992—. Actress in feature films, including Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985, Shanghai Surprise, 1986, Who’s That Girl?, 1987, Dick Tracy, 1990, A League of Their Own, 1992, Shadows and Fog, 1992, Body of Evidence, 1993, Dangerous Game, 1993, Blue in the Face, 1995, Four Rooms, 1996, Girl 6, 1996; Evita, slated for release in 1996; also the subject of a documentary titled Truth or Dare, 1991. Has made several world tours in conjunction with album releases.

Selected Awards: Grammy Award nomination for best female pop performance, 1986, for “Crazy for You.”

Addresses: Home —New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA; and Miami, FL. Record company —Maverick Records, 8000 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048.

graduated early and attended the University of Michigan for two years, continuing her dance training, then dropped out and moved to New York City in the late 1970s. There she attempted to get her foot in the show business door. While working in a series of low-wage jobs—including a stint as an artist’s model—she took more dance classes and eventually won a spot in the third company of Alvin Ailey’s American Dance Theater.

Next, Madonna hooked up with disco performer Patrick Hernandez. She moved with him to Paris for a short time but then returned to New York City and became a part of burgeoning music scene that was combining postpunk-rock shock with the quick-tempoed beats left over from the disco era. She played drums and sang for a number of New York-based ensembles, including Emmy, the Millionaires, and the Breakfast Club.

An Ambitious Streak

Around 1981 Madonna teamed up with boyfriend Steve Bray to form her own band, simply called Madonna. It was also around this time that she first picked up a guitar and started writing songs herself. Playing in New York City clubs, Madonna soon garnered attention with her new act. She found herself a respected manager and began leaning toward a more funky, rhythm-and-blues-tinged sound, which went over well in the dance clubs she played. New York club disc jockey Mark Kamins, who had extensive contacts in themusic business, helped win her a recording contract with Warner Bros, in 1982. “I was very impressed with how determined she was,” remembered recording executive Seymour Stein in an interview with Vogue writer David Handelman. “I don’t want to use the word ruthless; at the time, I said, ‘She’s somebody who would take a shortcut through a cemetery at night to get somewhere.’ You could tell it in her eyes.”

The contract with Warner Bros, led to the release of Madonna’s self-titled debut album in 1983; cuts from Madonna slowly became underground dance club hits. When the first single, “Holiday,” got extensive airplay, many listeners were surprised to find that the voice belonged to a white woman. Stardom quickly followed when the singles “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” began climbing the charts. By early 1985 Madonna had become a household name, but her second album, Like a Virgin, did even more for her budding career. The record quickly went platinum, buoyed by the hits “Material Girl,” “Into the Groove,” and the title track.

At one point, two singles from Like a Virgin were in the Top Five at the same time, and it seemed Madonna was now turning up everywhere in the media. She launched her first tour in the spring of 1985, initially in small venues, but as the shows began selling out in less than an hour, the dates were switched into larger arenas—with the Beastie Boys opening for her on some nights. That spring also saw the releaseof Desperately Seeking Susan, a movie she had made in 1984 when she was still relatively unknown. The low-budget film, directed by Susan Seidelman, became a commercial hit.

The showy “Like a Virgin” tour catapulted Madonna into a very public eye, and it was also during this period that she started to become a sort of icon for fans of her pop music. Teenaged—and even younger—girls began adopting the mid-’80s Madonna look of messy, badlydyed hair, neon rubber bracelets, black lace bras, white lace gloves, a “Boy Toy” belt buckle, and other sartorial signifiers. The cult of Madonna even spawned the term “wannabe” —as in youngsters who “wanted to be” like the star.

Early in her career, Madonna was already becoming an accomplished songwriter— Like a Virgin included five cuts that she wrote herself. Her next effort, the 1986 release True Blue, was another success, best remembered for the “Papa Don’t Preach” dilemma-of-teen-pregnancy track. Shortly thereafter, in 1987, Madonna landed another major film role in Who’s That Girl?, a light comedy that was panned by critics. An uneven soundtrack album accompanied the film, followed the next year by You Can Dance, a series of remixes of her best-known hits.

By this time, Madonna’s personal life was attracting about the same amount of attention as her music and film performances. Her homes had become bastions of high-tech security measures designed to keep an increasingly frenzied fan base and similarly persistent paparazzi out of her hair. In 1985 she had married actor Sean Penn to much media hoopla, and the ups and downs of their marriage were well-chronicled by the press. By early 1989 the marriage was on the rocks, divorce papers had been filed, and her next full-length studio album, Like a Prayer, was released.

Continued to Provoke Controversy

Like a Prayer was especially notable for the racy videos to both the title cut and another track titled “Express Yourself.” Prior to its release, Madonna had inked a $5 million deal with Pepsi for some commercials and sponsorship of an upcoming tour, but the religious symbolism in the “Like a Prayer” video made the cola giant wary; the company canceled the deal, although the increasingly savvy businesswoman kept the money.

During the late 1980s, Madonna took intermittent breaks from her music to work in film and theater. Her role opposite Warren Beatty in 1990’s Dick Tracy garnered major media attention as much for her performance as for her off-camera relationship with the film’s star. The Trouser Press Record Guide panned I’m Breathless, the album that was released in conjunction with the movie, calling its best-known single, “Vogue,” “just an empty shell of a song, style sans substance.”

Yet the “Vogue” single was another example of Madonna’s ability to capitalize on a still-underground pop culture phenomenon. “Vogueing” had been a flourishing dance trend on the New York gay discotheque scene for a number of years, where men—sometimes dressed as women—posed and strutted to a high-energy beat. Madonna’s video carried this trend into living rooms from Iowa to Omaha. Her next album, The Immaculate Collection, was also released in 1990, but it was mainly an assemblage of her biggest hits to date, including “Vogue.”

Late in 1990 Madonna became embroiled in yet another controversy, this time surrounding the video to “Justify My Love,” the only new track on The Immaculate Collection. The steamy images of slightly sadomasochistic situations and multiple partnerships, shot with Madonna’s then-boyfriend Tony Ward, provoked MTV to initially ban it from airplay. The furor only boosted sales and prompted Time reporter Jay Cocks to point out that the flap made “MTV look an organization of aging church elders, and [Madonna] a champion of feminism and free expression in the process.”

Madonna blended her interest in film and music in the concert documentary Truth or Dare. Shot during her 1990 “Blond Ambition” tour by video director Alex Keshishian, the work had a cinemaverite, “you-are-there” feel to it as it chronicled pre-show backstage prayer sessions with her dancers and followed the performer around both her L.A. abode and Manhattan apartment. Time reviewer Richard Corliss called it “raw, raunchy and epically entertaining … pure, unadulterated Madonna.” In another issue of Time, Carl Wayne Arrington described it as “a panoramic, emetic, beauty-marks-and-all” work that “draws its substance from the dark well of Madonna’s life.”

That dark well of Madonna—especially the out-there sexuality that seemed to unnerve most of her critics—was further explored in her first book, a hefty volume titled Sex. The 1992 tome contains racy images shot by fashion photographer Steven Meisel, along with intermittent text of Madonna’s musings on sex and love written under the name of her alter ego, Dita Parlo. The $50 book was released to much fanfare, especially when some of the photographs appeared in the media prior to publication—leaked or perhaps sold by insiders. The metal-jacketed Sex came tightly wrapped in Mylar to guard against bookstore peekers and was roundly condemned by more conservative elements in the media. The photographs—among them, one of Madonna hitchhiking nude and several others involving other people and bondage gear—seemed to be calculatingly titillating. Once again, Madonna was at the forefront of a new trend, opined News wee/cwriter John Leland, who wrote: “Call it the new voyeurism: the middlebrow embrace, in the age of AIDS, of explicit erotic material for its own sake.” The book was a sell-out across the country.

Multimedia Mogul

Madonna reportedly received an advance of $5.5 million for the Sex book from media giant Time-Warner, and the conglomerate also engineered an almost-unheard-of contract with the singer in 1991. (A year earlier, Madonna had appeared on the cover of the staid financial magazine Forbes under the banner “America’s Smartest Business Woman?”) The seven-year multimedia contract with Time-Warner, reportedly worth $60 million, gave her almost complete artistic control over her music—including her own label, Maverick—and supposedly included $5 million advances for each forthcoming album. Included in the package were deals for cable-TV specials and any film projects she wished to develop.

The Sex book coincided with the release of Madonna’s 1992 album Erotica. Again, a steamy video accompanied the title track, but this time the video easily made it onto MTV playlists—albeit in the wee hours of the night. Much of the material, as in the Like a Prayer effort, was written by Madonna with the help of producers Shep Pettibone and Andre Betts. First, they developed the rhythm section for each song, which Madonna would listen to while paging through a journal she keeps for songwriting purposes. The early vocal takes she recorded usually wound up on the final mix, a quirk explained by Pettibone in the Vogue interview: “As soon as she comes up with a melodic idea, we record it, because it has that feeling, which usually gets watered down the more you sing it.” In addition to Erótica’s bestselling title song, the record also contains “In This Life,” a track about people close to the singer who have died of AIDS, as well as “Goodbye to Innocence,” a wistful look at the nature of celebrity.

The Erotica album was followed by another film release, a mediocre murder mystery titled Body of Evidence, in which Madonna starred opposite Willem Dafoe. She also embarked on yet another world tour, this one entitled “The Girlie Show.” It featured topless women and more racy vignettes set to her music—and helped earn her condemnation from the Roman Catholic church authority in Rome.

After a short hiatus, Madonna made a splash in the spring of 1994 when she appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. The show was memorable for the antagonism between the host and guest and the audience’s apparent willingness to see Letterman skewer her mercilessly. It was a battle of wits, with Madonna using a certain banned word 13 different times—a stunt that drew her severe media criticism the next day. Entertainment Weekly writer Ken Tucker saw it as an attention-getting ploy, “a way to keep her name in the papers in lieu of actually producing some sort of creative work,” and noted that by 1994, “as a feminist culture hero,” she was fading from the spotlight.

But Madonna showed another side of her complex persona with the late 1994 release of Bedtime Stories. The record featured quieter, more soul-tinged numbers, and reaction was favorable, although sales were not as brisk as for her previous records. “The eroticism she hints at on Bedtime Stories is actually sexier than that of her more wanton songs and videos,” observed Time reviewer Christopher John Farley. The critic added that as “One of the pop-music giants of the 1980s … she has risked becoming an artifact of that era,” but pointed out that her collaborative efforts with some groundbreaking performers of the 1990s—songs either written or performed with the likes of Me’Shell Ndege-Ocello, Björk, and producer Kenneth “Babyface” Nelson—were quite impressive.

In addition to her work with Nelson, Madonna teamed with a trio of other producers specializing in the contemporary black sounds of R&B. When Rolling Stone writer Zehme asked Madonna if she ever felt black, she replied “Oh, yes, all the time…. When I was a little girl, I wished I was black. All my girlfriends were black. I was living in Pontiac, Michigan, and I was definitely the minority in the neighborhood…. I used to make corn-rows and everything…. If being black is synonymous with having soul, then, yes, I feel that I am.”

By the mid-1990s, Madonna had become an active chief executive of the Maverick label. Maverick’s roster includes Me’Shell Ndege Ocello—who performed on Bedtime Stories— heavy grunge rockers Candlebox, and Bad Brains. There is also a separate film production company, not attached to Time-Warner, that allows Madonna to develop film projects, among them Farewell My Concubine and Dangerous Game.

With a contract with Time-Warner that stretches into the very end of the twentieth century, Madonna’s musical career—and celebrity status—shows no signs of abating. Yet the unwanted attention brought on by her fame may be the most difficult part of her life. Newsweek reporter David Ansen once queried, “Do you ever get sick of being Madonna?,” and she replied, “Yes, I do. I do. Sometimes, I just want to go to a movie and not have someone pull on my shirt, you know what I mean? I mean, I can’t go grocery shopping, and a lot of times, my secretaries don’t get me what I want. And I think,‘God, if I could just go myself, I’d get the right kind of cereal.’”

In a 1995 interview with ABC news correspondent Forest Sawyer for Prime Time, Madonna showed a softer side, ruminating over the loss of her mother, its impact on her life, and her desire to settle down and start a family. Still, she exhibits a philosophical and balanced attitude about her image, her career, and her future. “I see what has happened to me as a blessing because I am able to express myself in many ways that I never would have if I hadn’t had this kind of career,” she told Arrington in the Time interview. “I am lucky to be in the position of power that I am in and to be intelligent. Most people in my position say,’Listen, you don’t have to do any of that. Just kick back, man. Just enjoy your riches. Go get a house in Tahiti. Why do you keep getting yourself into trouble?’ It’s not my nature to just kick back. I am not going to be anybody’s patsy. I am not going to be anybody’s good girl. I will always be this way.”

Selected writings

Sex, edited by Glenn O’Brien, photographs by Steven Meisel, Warner Books, 1992.

Selected discography

Madonna, Sire, 1983.

Like a Virgin, Sire, 1985.

True Blue, Sire, 1986.

Who’s That Girl?, Sire, 1987.

You Can Dance, Sire, 1988.

Like a Prayer, Sire, 1989.

I’m Breathless: Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy, Sire, 1990.

The Immaculate Collection, Sire, 1990.

Erotica, Maverick, 1992.

Bedtime Stories, Maverick, 1994.

Something to Remember, Maverick, 1995.

Also contributed cuts to the soundtracks for the films Vision Quest, 1985, and Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985.

Sources

Books

The Trouser Press Record Guide, 4th edition, edited by Ira Robbins, Collier Books, 1991.

Periodicals

Entertainment Weekly, April 15, 1994.

Esquire, August 1994.

Nation, June 8, 1992.

Newsweek, November 2, 1992.

Rolling Stone, March 23, 1989; October 15, 1992; November 11, 1993; December 15, 1994.

Stereo Review, February 1995.

Time, May 27, 1985; December 17, 19904; May 8, 1991; May 20, 1991; November 7, 1994.

Vogue, October 1992.

Additional information for this profile was obtained from a Prime Time interview with Forest Sawyer broadcast on December 6, 1995, on ABC-TV.

—Carol Brennan

Madonna

Pop singer, songwriter; actress

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

The reigning queen of pop music is Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, a sultry singer-dancer born in Bay City, Michigan. Madonna has dominated the concert scene, the pop charts, and the music-video airwaves since 1985, with nary a rival able to nip at her heels. Her engaging blends of hip dance music and suggestive, campy lyrics have found audiences on every continent and have made her one of the wealthiest active performers in the world. Vanity Fair correspondent James Wolcott writes that Madonna “could be the American star who fulfills the [ultimate] erotic promise…. Madonna clearly has the nerve to confront a sexual equal on his own turf, redefine the boundaries of desire, then walk away from the bed unscathed.”

Madonna’s music videos and live concert performances have indeed featured some of the most erotic dancing and posing ever seen in the music industry. Feminists have been quick to complain that the singer perpetuates the “woman as sexual plaything” stereotype, with her lingerie costumes and “boy toy” belt buckles. Madonna herself couldn’t disagree more. She told Rolling Stone: “People have this idea that if you’re sexual and beautiful and provocative, then there’s nothing else you could possibly offer. People have always had that image about women. And while it might have seemed like I was behaving in a stereotypical way, at the same time, I was also masterminding it. I was in control of everything I was doing, and I think that when people realized that, it confused them…. You can be sexy and strong at the same time.”

Madonna was born August 16, 1958, and was named after her mother, who was also Madonna Ciccone. The singer had a very abbreviated childhood—when she was five, her mother died of cancer after a long and painful illness. At first Madonna and her five siblings were shuttled among relatives, then they were placed under the care of a housekeeper who eventually married their father. Remembering her days at home with a new parent, Madonna told People: “I felt like Cinderella with a wicked stepmother. I couldn’t wait to escape.” Madonna was tapped for child care and babysitting chores to such an extent that she had little time to be a child herself. She also attended Catholic school, where she earned top grades despite a tendency to decorate her dull uniforms and cavort in class.

In junior high Madonna discovered the world of drama and dance. She began taking private ballet lessons with Christopher Flynn, a teacher who encouraged her to dream of fame. During her high-school years at Rochester Adams High in suburban Detroit, Madonna was able to make the honor roll and be a cheerleader while still pursuing dance with great seriousness. Even then she had the determination to succeed, an attitude

For the Record…

Full name Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (pronounced Chick-onee); born August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Mich.; daughter of Silvio (an engineer) and Madonna Ciccone; married Sean Penn (an actor), August 16, 1985 (divorced). Education: Attended University of Michigan for two years; studied dance in New York City with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and with Pearl Lang.

Pop singer, songwriter, and actress, 1980—. Backup singer and drummer for the Breakfast Club (dance band), 1980; backup singer and dancer for Patrick Hernandez (disco star), 1980-81; singer in a number of New York-based dance bands, including the Millionaires, Modern Dance, and Emmy, 1981-83. Solo performer, 1983—; signed with Sire Records (a division of Warner Brothers), 1983, released first album, Madonna, 1983; had first top ten hit, “Borderline,” 1984. Actress in feature films, 1984—, including Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985, Shanghai Surprise, 1986, Who’s That Girl, 1987, and Dick Tracy, 1990. Has made several world tours in conjunction with album releases.

Awards: Grammy award nomination for best female pop performance, for “Crazy for You,” 1986.

Addresses: Other— 22271 Carbon Mesa Rd., Malibu, Calif. 90265.

that she took no pains to hide. She graduated early and won a full scholarship to the University of Michigan.

After only two years at Michigan, Madonna left for New York City with the clothes on her back and less than one hundred dollars in pocket money. She worked for some months as an artist’s model and even posed for some nude pictures while waiting for a break into the entertainment business. Her first professional work came with the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, where she earned a spot in the third company. She left that troupe and studied briefly with Pearl Lang, but she soon became convinced that dancing alone would not provide her an avenue to fame.

Madonna gravitated to music, especially the new wave sounds of the Pretenders and the Police. Between 1979 and 1982—with a brief hiatus in Paris as a backup singer to disco star Patrick Hernandez—she performed with a number of post-punk groups, including the Breakfast Club, Emmy, and the Millionaires. She soon tired of a backup role, and with a former Michigan boyfriend, Steve Bray, she formed a band with herself in the lead. This group, simply called Madonna, caught the eye of Camille Barbone, who became Madonna’s manager in 1981.

From new wave Madonna moved to funky, rap-influenced dance music, which she performed in New York’s thriving dance clubs with great success. This shift from rock to funk alienated her first manager, but it won her the attention of Mark Kamins, a deejay with wide contacts in the industry. Through Kamins, Madonna signed with Sire Records, a division of Warner Brothers. She cut her first album, Madonna, early in 1983 and engaged the services of Freddie DeMann, Michael Jackson’s manager.

Sales of Madonna’s debut album were hardly brisk at first, but she found powerful allies in the dance clubs. Eventually the exposure led to more radio coverage of her first singles, “Holiday,” “Lucky Star,” and “Borderline.” The latter two songs finally began to inch up the pop charts until both made it into the top twenty in 1984. While stuffy critics predicted that she would be just another flash-in-the-pan, the energetic performer set out to win the world—and she did just that in 1985.

Like a Virgin, Madonna’s second album, was released early in 1985 and quickly went platinum in sales. Madonna had the rare treat of seeing two of her singles, “Material Girl” and “Crazy for You,” in the top five simultaneously, while her funky tune “Into the Groove” became the rage in the dance clubs. Her fame was sealed, however, by the music videos she released with Like a Virgin —and with the white-hot performance she delivered in the film Desperately Seeking Susan. The “Like a Virgin” video featured the singer flirting from beneath a lace wedding gown, and the even campier “Material Girl” offered a tongue-in-cheek imitation of a famous Marilyn Monroe dance number. The “Like a Virgin” tour began in three thousand-seat halls, but quickly moved to the largest arenas as shows sold out in a matter of hours.

International fame brought with it the usual troubles. Critics accused Madonna of releasing only the simplest of pop schlock. The news media hounded the star, making a mockery of her short marriage to actor Sean Penn. Still, Madonna conducted herself with dignity, eventually winning over some of the hardest-to-please rock writers. Her album True Blue was the first to earn critical acclaim for its message song “Papa Don’t Preach,” about unwanted pregnancy, and its lovely ballad “Live To Tell.” As she confronted her own marital difficulties and disappointments, the so-called “Material Girl” began to write and sing about deeper subjects—much to the dismay of those who accused her of pandering to mediocrity.

In 1989 Madonna released Like a Prayer, an album containing brutally frank music about her childhood, her marriage, and her Catholic upbringing. As usual, the music video of the title track caused the biggest sensation, with its sly mixture of religious and sexual symbolism. Behind the sensationalism, though, was some serious music, as J. D. Considine notes in his Rolling Stone review. The songs on Like a Prayer, Considine writes, are “stunning in their breadth and achievement…. as close to art as pop music gets.” The critic adds: “Like a Prayer is proof not only that Madonna should be taken seriously as an artist but that hers is one of the most compelling voices of [the times.]”

Madonna’s 1990 album, I’m Breathless, marks a return to the funky dance-and-flirt style that made the performer famous. Having put her marriage behind her without answering the sensational press reports, the singer seems ready to have fun again. Still in her early thirties, Madonna is head of a multimillion-dollar corporation—Madonna, Inc.—that employs hundreds of people. The beautiful star shows little sign of flagging in either her ambition or her vitality; in fact, her 1990 tour was tagged the “Blond Ambition” tour.

All the hype surrounding her career notwithstanding, Madonna does have enormous talents upon which to draw. She is an able songwriter who has contributed original material to every album she has released, she is a fine dancer who can set trends, and she covers a somewhat thin voice with sophisticated but never dominating instrumentation. It is not surprising, then, that she complained to Rolling Stone: “There are still those people who, no matter what I do, will always think of me as a little disco tart.” The singer is not about to tamper with her image, however—she is content to fulfill audiences’ need for a sultry, campy vamp, at least until she ages some more and moves permanently into film work. Rolling Stone contributor Mikal Gilmore concludes that Madonna need offer no apologies for her hard-won fame. “Madonna will still have her detractors,” the critic writes, “but somehow little girls across the world seem to recognize a genuine hero when they see one.”

Selected discography

Madonna, Sire, 1983.

Like a Virgin, Sire, 1985.

True Blue, Warner Brothers, 1986.

You Can Dance, Sire, 1988.

Like a Prayer, Sire, 1989.

I’m Breathless, Sire, 1990.

Also contributed cuts to the film soundtracks of VisionQuest, 1985, and Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985.

Sources

Mademoiselle, December 1983.

New Republic, August 26, 1985.

Newsweek, March 4, 1985.

New Yorker, April 22, 1985.

New York Times, April 14, 1985.

People, March 11, 1985; September 2, 1985; December 23, 1985; December 14, 1987.

Playboy, September 1985.

Record, March 1985.

Rolling Stone, November 22, 1984; May 9, 1985; May 23, 1985; December 19, 1985; June 5, 1986; September 10, 1987.

Spin, May 1985.

Time, March 4, 1985; May 27, 1985; April 6, 1989.

Vanity Fair, August 1985.

Village Voice, June 18, 1985.

Vogue, May 1989.

Washington Post, May 26, 1985; November 25, 1985.

—Anne Janette Johnson

Madonna

Singer, songwriter, record company executive

For the Record…

Released Debut Album

Remained Embroiled in Controversy

Showed Other Side to Persona

New Role as Maverick Records Executive

Released Introspective Ray of Light

New Marriage, New Life

Selected discography

Sources

The career of pop music superstar Madonna has lasted longer than most of her detractors ever predicted. She has become a kind of modern-day, multimedia ueber-celebrity who dabbles in film, theater projects, and the occasional publishing venture in addition to her recording endeavors. But Madonna’s most impressive feat may be her ability to sell millions of records around the world regardless of what the music press says about her.

Madonna was born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958, in Bay City, Michigan. The “Veronica” that is commonly cited as one of her birth names is really her confirmation name, chosen for the religious ceremony when she was in her early teens. Her family—Madonna is the third of eight children—was living in Pontiac, Michigan, at the time of her birth, but they were visiting relatives in Bay City when her then-very-pregnant mother went into labor. Tragically, Mrs. Ciccone died of cancer when Madonna and her siblings were quite young. The children lived for a while with various relatives until her father settled down in Rochester Hills, a suburb of Detroit, and reunited the family. Madonna’s father, an engineer by profession, eventually married the family’s housekeeper.

Interested in dance from an early age, Madonna studied with local instructors as a teenager. In high school, she was an honor roll student and a cheerleader. She graduated early and attended the University of Michigan for two years, continuing her dance training, then dropped out and moved to New York City in the late 1970s. There she attempted to get her foot in the show business door. While working in a series of low-wage jobs—including a stint as an artist’s model—she took more dance classes and eventually won a spot in the third company of Alvin Alley’s American Dance Theater. Next, Madonna hooked up with disco performer Patrick Hernandez. She moved with him to Paris for a short time but then returned to New York City and became a part of the burgeoning music scene that was combining post-punk-rock shock with the quick-tempoed beats left over from the disco era. She played drums and sang for a number of New York-based ensembles, including Emmy, the Millionaires, and the Breakfast Club.

Around 1981 Madonna teamed up with boyfriend Steve Bray to form her own band, simply called Madonna. It was also around this time that she first picked up a guitar and started writing songs herself. Playing in New York City clubs, Madonna soon garnered attention with her new act. She found herself a respected Manáger and began leaning toward a more funky, R&B-tinged sound, which went over well in the dance clubs she played. New York club disc jockey Mark Kamins, who had extensive contacts in the music business, helped win her a recording contract with Warner Bros, in 1982.

For the Record…

Born Madonna Louise Ciccone (pronounced “Chick-one”) on August 16, 1958, in Bay City, MI; daughter of Silvio (an engineer) and Madonna (Fortin) Ciccone; married Sean Penn (an actor), 1985; divorced, 1989; married Guy Ritchie (a film director), 2000; children: (with Carlos Leon) Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, (with Guy Ritchie) Rocco Ritchie. Education: Attended University of Michigan for two years; studied dance in New York City with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and with Pearl Lang.

Backup singer and drummer for the Breakfast Club (a dance band), 1980; backup singer for disco star Patrick Hernandez, 1980-81; singer in a number of New York-based dance bands, including the Millionaires, Modern Dance, and Emmy, 1981-83; solo performer, 1983-; signed with Sire Records (a division of Warner Bros.), 1983; released first album, Madonna, 1983; had first top-ten hit, “Borderline,” 1984; signed with Time Warner, 1991; head of own record label (Maverick), 1992-. Actress in feature films, including Desperately Seeking Susan, 1985, Shanghai Surprise, 1986, Who’s That Girl?, 1987, Dick Tracy, 1990, A League of Their Own, 1992, Body of Evidence, 1993, Dangerous Game, 1993, Four Rooms, 1996, Girl 6, 1996, Evita, 1996, The Next Best Thing, 2000; also the subject of a documentary titled Truth or Dare, 1991.

Awards: People’s Choice Award, Favorite Female Musical Performer (tied with Whitney Houston), 1987; People’s Choice Award, International Rock Award, 1991; Grammy Award, Best Music Video, Long Form for Madonna: Blonde Ambition World Tour Live (shared), 1992; Golden Globe Award, Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy) for Evita, 1996; Billboard Music Artist Achievement Award, 1996; Grammy Awards, Best Dance Recording for “Ray of Light,” Best Pop Vocal Album for Ray of Light (shared), and Best Music Video, Short Form for “Ray of Light” (shared), 1998; Grammy Award, Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television for “Beautiful Stranger” (shared), 1999.

Addresses: Record company —Maverick Records, 8000 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048, website: http://www.maverickrecords.com. Website —Madonna Official Website: http://www.madonna.com.

Released Debut Album

The contract with Warner Bros, led to the release of Madonna’s self-titled debut album in 1983; cuts from Madonna slowly became underground dance club hits. When the first single, “Holiday,” got extensive airplay, many listeners were surprised to find that the voice belonged to a white woman. Stardom quickly followed when the singles “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” began climbing the charts. By early 1985 Madonna had become a household name, but her second album, Like a Virgin, did even more for her budding career. The record quickly went platinum, buoyed by the hits “Material Girl,” “Into the Groove,” and the title track. At one point, two singles from Like a Virgin were in the top five at the same time, and it seemed Madonna was now turning up everywhere in the media. She launched her first tour in the spring of 1985, initially in small venues, but as the shows began selling out in less than an hour, the dates were switched into larger arenas. That spring also saw the release of Desperately Seeking Susan, a movie she made in 1984 when she was still relatively unknown. The low-budget film, directed by Susan Seidelman, became a commercial hit.

Early in her career, Madonna was already becoming an accomplished songwriter; Like a Virgin included five cuts that she wrote herself. Her next effort, the 1986 release True Blue, was another success, best remembered for the “Papa Don’t Preach” dilemma-of-teen-pregnancy track. Shortly thereafter, in 1987, Madonna landed another major film role in Who’s That Girl?, a light comedy that was panned by critics. An uneven soundtrack album accompanied the film, followed the next year by You Can Dance, a series of remixes of her best-known hits.

By this time, Madonna’s personal life was attracting about the same amount of attention as her music and film performances. In 1985 she married actor Sean Penn to much media hoopla, and the ups and downs of their marriage were well-chronicled by the press. By early 1989 the marriage was on the rocks, divorce papers had been filed, and her next full-length studio album, Like a Prayer, was released. Like a Prayer was especially notable for the racy videos to both the title cut and another track titled “Express Yourself.” Prior to its release, Madonna inked a $5 million deal with Pepsi for some commercials and sponsorship of an upcoming tour, but the religious symbolism in the “Like a Prayer” video made the cola giant wary; the company canceled the deal, although the increasingly savvy businesswoman kept the money.

During the late 1980s, Madonna took intermittent breaks from her music to work in film and theater. Her role opposite Warren Beatty in 1990’s Dick Tracy garnered major media attention as much for her performance as for her off-camera relationship with the film’s star. The Trouser Press Record Guide panned I’m Breathless, the album that was released in conjunction with the movie, calling its best-known single, “Vogue,” “just an empty shell of a song, style sans substance.”

Remained Embroiled in Controversy

Yet the “Vogue” single was another example of Madonna’s ability to capitalize on a still-underground pop culture phenomenon. “Vogueing” had been a flourishing dance trend on the New York gay discotheque scene for a number of years, where men—sometimes dressed as women—posed and strutted to a high-energy beat. Her next album, The Immaculate Collection, was also released in 1990, but it was mainly an assemblage of her biggest hits to date, including “Vogue.” Late in 1990 Madonna became embroiled in yet another controversy, this time surrounding the video to “Justify My Love,” the only new track on The Immaculate Collection. The steamy images of slightly sado-masochistic situations and multiple partnerships, shot with Madonna’s then-boyfriend Tony Ward, provoked MTV to initially ban it from airplay. Madonna also blended her interest in film and music in the concert documentary Truth or Dare, which was shot during her Blonde Ambition tour in 1990.

Madonna’s out-there sexuality, which seemed to unnerve most of her critics, was further explored in her first book, a hefty volume titled Sex. The 1992 tome contains racy images shot by fashion photographer Steven Meisel, along with intermittent text of Madonna’s musings on sex and love written under the name of her alter ego, Dita Parlo. The $50 book was released to much fanfare, especially when some of the photographs appeared in the media prior to publication—leaked or perhaps sold by insiders.

Madonna reportedly received an advance of $5.5 million for the Sex book from media giant Time Warner, and the conglomerate also engineered an almost-unheard-of contract with the singer in 1991. (A year earlier, Madonna had appeared on the cover of the staid financial magazine Forbes under the banner “America’s Smartest Business Woman?”) The seven-year multimedia contract with Time Warner, reportedly worth $60 million, gave her almost complete artistic control over her music—including her own label, Maverick—and supposedly included $5 million in advances for each forthcoming album. Included in the package were deals for cable television specials and any film projects she wished to develop.

The Sex book coincided with the release of Madonna’s 1992 album Erotica. Again, a steamy video accompanied the title track, but this time the video easily made it onto MTV playlists—albeit in the wee hours of the night. Much of the material, as in the Like a Prayer effort, was written by Madonna with the help of producers Shep Pettibone and André Betts. In addition to Erotica’s bestselling title song, the record also contains “In This Life,” a track about people close to the singer who have died of AIDS, as well as “Goodbye to Innocence,” a wistful look at the nature of celebrity.

The Erotica album was followed by another film release, a mediocre murder mystery titled Body of Evidence, in which Madonna starred opposite Willem Da-foe. She also embarked on yet another world tour, this one entitled The Girlie Show. It featured topless women and more racy vignettes set to her music, and helped earn her condemnation from the Roman Catholic church authority in Rome.

Showed Other Side to Persona

Madonna showed another side of her complex persona with the late 1994 release of Bedtime Stories. The record featured quieter, more soul-tinged numbers, and reaction was favorable, although sales were not as brisk as for her previous records. “The eroticism she hints at on Bedtime Stories is actually sexier than that of her more wanton songs and videos,” observed Time reviewer Christopher John Farley. The critic added that as “one of the pop-music giants of the 1980s… she has risked becoming an artifact of that era,” but pointed out that her collaborative efforts with some groundbreaking performers of the 1990s—songs either written or performed with the likes of Me’Shell NdegéOcello, Björk, and producer Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds—were quite impressive.

In addition to her work with Edmonds, Madonna teamed with a trio of other producers specializing in the contemporary African American sounds of R&B. When Rolling Stone writer Zehme asked Madonna if she ever felt African American, she replied “Oh, yes, all the time.… When I was a little girl, I wished I was black. All my girlfriends were black. I was living in Pontiac, Michigan, and I was definitely the minority in the neighborhood.… I used to make cornrows and everything.… If being black is synonymous with having soul, then, yes, I feel that I am.”

New Role as Maverick Records Executive

By the mid-1990s, Madonna had become an active chief executive of the Maverick label. Maverick’s roster has included female artists Me’Shell NdegeOcello—who performed on Bedtime Stories —and Alanis Moris-sette, as well as heavy grunge rockers Candlebox, Bad Brains, and Prodigy. There is also a separate film production company, not attached to Time Warner, that allows Madonna to develop film projects, among them Farewell My Concubine and Dangerous Game.

Madonna’s determination to play the starring role in Evita paid off. While the film and her performance received mixed reviews, no one could take away her dedication, hard work, or box office success. In 1997, Madonna won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for the role. Later that year, the song “You Must Love Me” from Evita won an Academy Award for Best Song. The film’s premiere in late 1995 was upstaged in October when Madonna gave birth to a baby girl named Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon (Lola for short). The child was her daughter with Carlos Leon, a personal trainer. Madonna described the event to People magazine as, “the greatest miracle of my life.” She even traded in her pink Hollywood mansion for a home in a low-key suburb of Los Angeles.

Released Introspective Ray of Light

In 1998, Madonna released Ray of Light. For the album, she collaborated with producer William Orbit for many of the tracks. It was filled with somber songs of deep introspection and was a blend of techno and pop. The album reflected her study of the kabbalah (an ancient Jewish doctrine) and interest in Far East Indian culture. It received rave reviews and was one of her best-selling records. The album won Grammy Awards for Best Dance Recording, Best Pop Vocal Album, and Best Music Video, Short Form. The following year, Madonna contributed the single “Beautiful Stranger” to the Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me soundtrack. The single won a Grammy Award for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television (shared with Orbit) in 1999.

Madonna costarred in the film The Next Best Thing with her real-life friend, Rupert Everett, in 2000. While the film did not get fantastic reviews, the soundtrack did moderately well. Containing two new Madonna songs, “American Pie” (a remake of the Don McLean classic) and “Time Stood Still,” the album also featured tracks by artists such as Moby, Beth Orton, Christina Aguilera, and Groove Armada. It was Madonna’s first record in which she was the executive producer.

New Marriage, New Life

On August 11, 2000, Madonna gave birth to a baby boy named Rocco. The child was her son with British film director Guy Ritchie. Shortly after that event, Madonna released Music on September 19, 2000. Working with a handful of producers, mainly the French producer Mirwais Ahmadzai (who worked on six of the ten tracks), but also Orbit, Guy Sigsworth, and Mark “Spike” Stent, the album carried on the electronica element she introduced in Ray of Light. Receiving mostly good reviews, the album was “filled with vocoders, stylish neo-electro beats, dalliances with trip-hop, and, occasionally, eerie synthesized atmospherics,” according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide.

On December 21, 2000, Madonna and Richie had their son baptized in a thirteenth-century cathedral in Dornoch, Scotland. The next day, Madonna and Ritchie were married at Scotland’s ninteenth-century Skibo Castle. The nine-part wedding ceremony featured vows the couple had helped write. Madonna’s daughter, Lourdes, was the flower girl, and their four-month-old son sat nearby in the arms of a nanny. Guests at the wedding included Everett, actress Gwyenth Paltrow, musician Sting, and designer Donatella Versace.

Madonna collected her family and embarked on the 48-stop Drowned World tour throughout much of 2001, playing to sellout audiences and grossing an estimated $2 million per performance. She starred in Up for Grabs, a stage play which opened at London’s Wyn-dam Theatre on May 23, 2002, and was to make a cameo appearance in the James Bond film Die Another Day, set for release in the fall of 2002.

Selected discography

Madonna, Sire, 1983.

Like a Virgin, Sire, 1985.

(Contributor) Vision Quest (soundtrack), Geffen, 1985.

True Blue, Sire, 1986.

Who’s That Girl?, Sire, 1987.

You Can Dance, Sire, 1988.

Like a Prayer, Sire, 1989.

I’m Breathless: Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy, Sire, 1990.

The Immaculate Collection, Sire, 1990.

Erotica, Maverick, 1992.

(Contributor) Desperately Seeking Susan (soundtrack), Varese, 1985.

Bedtime Stories, Maverick, 1994.

Something to Remember, Maverick, 1995.

Evita (soundtrack), Warner Bros., 1996.

Ray of Light, Warner Bros., 1998.

Music, Warner Bros., 2000.

Sources

Books

Robins, Ira, editor, The Trouser Press Record Guide, 4th edition, Collier Books, 1991.

Periodicals

Entertainment Weekly, April 15, 1994.

Esquire, August 1994.

Nation, June 8, 1992.

Newsweek, November 2, 1992.

People, August 27, 2001.

Rolling Stone, March 23, 1989; October 15, 1992; November 11, 1993; December 15, 1994.

Stereo Review, February 1995.

Time, May 27, 1985; December 17, 1994; May 8, 1991; May 20, 1991; November 7, 1994.

Vogue, October 1992.

Online

“Madonna,” All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (July 18, 2002).

Madonna Official Website, http://www.madonna.com (July 18, 2002).

—Carol Brennan

Madonna

Singer and dancer Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, born 1958) was a master marketer and sensational self-promoter who propelled herself to stardom, dominating pop charts, concert halls, film, and music video. She has been called "an outrageous blend of Little Orphan Annie, Margaret Thatcher, and Mae West," and "narcissistic, brazen, comi…. the Goddess of the Nineties."

Born in August 1958, Madonna Ciccone was the third child of six in a Catholic family living in Bay City, Michigan. Her father, Tony, a design engineer for Chrysler/General Dynamics, was a conservative, devout Roman Catholic and a first-generation Italian American. Madonna's mother and namesake was of French-Canadian descent. She died of breast cancer when Madonna was five years old.

Tony Ciccone moved the family to Pontiac, Michigan, and married one of the women hired to care for the Ciccone household. The adjustment was difficult for Madonna as the eldest daughter. She had considered herself the "lady of the house" and had received much of her father's affection and attention.

In her younger school years Madonna acted in school plays. As she entered adolescence, Madonna discovered her love and talent for dancing, an activity she pursued under the direction and leadership of Christopher Flynn, her private ballet instructor. Dedicated and disciplined, Madonna worked hard, but played hard as well, something Flynn made easy by introducing her to the disco nightlife of downtown Detroit.

Despite the glamour and sophistication she developed with Flynn, who was more than 20 years older than she, neither Madonna's extracurricular activities nor her father's disapproval kept her from caring for her younger siblings and working hard in school. She graduated early from high school with mostly "A's" and was awarded a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan. She stayed two years before going to New York City in 1978 with $37 and a wealth of determination and ambition.

An apartment in an East Village tenement building surrounded by crime and drugs was the place from which she began her steady and focused climb to superstardom. Her first jobs included figure modeling for artists and acting in low budget movies. She danced briefly with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, studied for a time with Pearl Lang of the Martha Graham Dance group, and went to Paris as a short-lived singer/dancer with French disco artist Patrick Hernandez.

Talent, Determination, and Unbridled Ambition

Before she left for Paris, Madonna had developed a fascination with the music field. It started with rock and roll, playing drums and singing backup in several small bands. When she returned to New York she spent a lot of time writing songs, making demonstration tapes, and hanging out in such popular lower-Manhattan nightclubs as the Roxy and Danceteria. It was a simple, four-track demo called "Everybody" that earned Madonna a recording contract with Sire Records in October 1982.

The album Madonna sold few copies when it was first released in July 1983. However, repeated club performances and radio air-play of several cuts from the album eventually earned her three huge hits with "Holiday," "Lucky Star," and "Borderline." A flurry of chart-busting hits, videos, concert tours, and films followed. She seemed to have a Midas-like quality with most everything she did. Even a brief singing performance in a largely forgettable film, Vision Quest, resulted in the top-five love ballad "Crazy for You."

Her second album, Like a Virgin, released in late 1984, produced two number one hits—the title track and "Material Girl." Madonna was becoming an accomplished songwriter; she had written five of the songs herself. During the spring of 1985 she embarked on her first concert tour, which was so successful that she had to switch to larger venues as the tour progressed. On the heels of Like a Virgin came the detective/comedy film Desperately Seeking Susan in 1985 (directed by Susan Seidelman and co-starring Madonna and Rosanna Arquette), which spawned another popular single and video, "In the Groove."

The tour had thousands of teenage girls all over the country tying lace bows on top of their heads, wearing underwear as outerwear, and walking the halls of schools and shopping malls as "Madonna wannabees." Madonna had become an icon as much as a singer to her fans.

Controversial Behavior Shared Center Stage

Madonna was married briefly to actor Sean Penn from August 1985 to early 1989; it was a marriage with many well chronicled ups and downs. In 1986 she released her third album, True Blue, from which three singles topped the charts: "Papa Don't Preach," about a pregnant teen who wants to keep her child; the title track, a light "girl loves boy" tune; and "Live to Tell," a soulful ballad from the soundtrack of At Close Range starring Sean Penn. In 1987 a movie starring Madonna called Who's That Girl was largely ignored, unlike the accompanying soundtrack and concert tour.

The release of Like A Prayer coincided with the breakup of her marriage, and included a fare-thee-well written by Madonna entitled "Till Death Do Us Part." However, it was the video of the title song portraying Madonna's confession to a priest followed by engaging in sexually suggestive behavior with him that caused a stir in the Catholic Church. The controversy resulted in a disagreement over a $5 million endorsement contract with the Pepsi company. Controversy again surrounded Madonna in 1990 when she was banned from M-TV before 11 p.m. with the sexually explicit video "Justify My Love."

Other films featuring Madonna include Shanghai Surprise (1986), in which she co-starred with then-husband Sean Penn; Dick Tracy (1989), the film that launched her short-lived affair with Warren Beatty and also was accompanied by a Madonna-sung soundtrack; and Truth or Dare, her own feature-length video/documentary compiled of footage from her Blonde Ambition Tour of 1990-1991. Madonna also appeared in Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own (1992); and she co-starred with Willem Dafoe in Body of Evidence (1993). Each work contained some form of "out-there" sexuality that titillated her fans, and kept the press and critics focused on her.

Created and Cashed In on Era of Voyeurism

By 1992 Madonna had established herself as a worldwide entertainer and a sharp, confident business woman. In April of that year she signed a $60 million contract with Time-Warner, which included a multi-media package with her own record company (under the Maverick label), HBO specials, videos, films, books, merchandise, and more than six albums.

The announcement of the seven-year deal was timed with the combined release of the album Erotica, an extended video, and a coffee table picture book called Sex. The book can only be purchased by adults and comes in a Mylar, vacuum-sealed cover. It has scores of black and white photographs by fashion photographer Steven Meisel. Madonna appears mostly without clothes in compromising positions with everything from men and women (in all combinations, positions, and numbers) to chairs, dogs, and slices of pizza. She was even shown hitch-hiking in Miami wearing nothing but high heels. The book was a sellout across the country.

A perfect example of the paradox represented by the serious and the playful Madonna all in one, Sex was published at the same time as The Madonna Connection, a series of scholarly essays by academics who had been tracking the phenomenon of the Material Girl for several years.

Madonna's career evolved with phases and images distinct and carefully planned. There was her lacy underwear, big hair, and black jewelry phase (her self-described "chubby" phase, as she referred to it in an M-TV anniversary program); then the 1940s and 1950s sultry, sleek glamour phase reminiscent of Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe; the lean dancer; the businesswoman; and the unashamed, uninhibited sex goddess. Each phase seemed to be accompanied by a different lover, including Chicago Bulls' bad boy Dennis Rodman in the spring of 1994.

Madonna Reincarnated

Part of Madonna's genius was to recognize when the mood of her audience changed. In the late 1994 release of Bedtime Stories, written primarily by Madonna, a new image emerged projecting a softer eroticism and more soulful sound. By the mid-1990s she seemed more intent on establishing herself as a serious artist than making headlines with yet another boyfriend. She set her sights on playing the leading role in Andrew Lloyd Webber's movie musical Evita, and after repeated auditions convinced producers that she would bring a unique understanding to the portrayal of Eva Peron. Like Eva Peron, Madonna was a strong, willful woman who mesmerized her followers and also felt misunderstood by her critics.

Madonna was in the midst of personal as well as professional change. In her personal life, she settled into a relationship with Carlos Leon, her personal trainer. Meanwhile, in 1995, she accepted an industry award for Most Fashionable Artist as well as VH1's Viewer's Choice award for Most Fashionable Artist, and in December of 1996, Billboard magazine's Artist Achievement Award.

A New Propriety

Her determination to play the staring role in Evita paid off. While the film—and her performance—received mixed reviews, no one could take away her dedication, hard work, or box office success. In January 1997 Madonna was nominated for and won the Best Actress Award at the 54th Annual Golden Globe Award Ceremony. Later that spring, the song "You Must Love Me" from Evita won the Academy Award for Best Song. The film's premier in late 1995 was upstaged in October when Madonna gave birth to a girl named Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon. Madonna described the event to People magazine as, "the greatest miracle of my life." She even traded in her pink Hollywood mansion for a home in a low key suburb of Los Angeles.

The Material Girl turned serious actress, singer, song writer and mom appeared to have it all in the late 1990s. She accepted it all—including the stress of living a fish-bowl existence—with characteristic calm, as if she were planning the next phase. She told Time magazine, "I never wish I had a different life. I am lucky to be in the position of power that I am in and to be intelligent…. It's not my nature to just kick back."

Further Reading

Most of the published information on Madonna is found in newspapers and magazines. See New York Daily News (May 31, 1985); People (May 13, 1985); The Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul (1989); USA Today (April 21, 1992); New Yorker (October 26, 1992); New York Times Book Review (October 25, 1992); Newsweek (November 2, 1992); Nation (December 14, 1992); Entertainment Weekly (April 15, 1994; September 22, 1995); Esquire (August, 1994); People (April 29, 1996; October 28, 1996; December 30, 1996); Billboard (November 16, 1996; December 16, 1995); New York Times (March 24, 1997); and Forbes (September 23, 1996). □

MADONNA

Born: Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone; Rochester, Michigan, 16 August 1958

Genre: Rock, Pop

Best-selling album since 1990: Ray of Light (1999)

Hit songs since 1990: "Justify My Love," "Vogue," "Beautiful Stranger"

In the 1990s Madonna consolidated her skills as a performer, producer, and songwriter, and emerged as the most commercially successful female pop artist of all time. Her position in the pop industry owes much to her ability to continually reinvent not only her image but also her musical style, thus remaining fresh and innovative.

At high school and the colleges she briefly attended in Michigan and North Carolina, Madonna did very well in subjects such as drama and dance. The start of her career stretches back to 1977, when she moved from Michigan to New York with aspirations of becoming a professional dancer. While studying with the choreographer Alvin Ailey, she also took up modeling to support herself. By 1979 she had become part of the Patrick Hernandez Revue, which she joined on a tour to Paris. There she met Dan Gilroy, with whom she formed the pop-dance group the Breakfast Club. In 1980 she formed the group Emmy with another former boyfriend and drummer, Stephen Bray. They soon started working on more dance-oriented material and sent a demo tape to the New York DJ/producer Mark Kamins, who forwarded the tape to Sire Records, which signed Madonna in 1982. Her first single, "Everybody," was released at the end of 1982 and became an instant club hit. This single launched what has been a phenomenal career, lasting well over twenty years.

Access into the Music Industry

Madonna's rise to fame is connected to the popularity of new dance trends, and it was by grasping these new
technologies of production that her role as singer and producer provided her access into the music industry. Debbie Harry, the lead singer of the group Blondie, had a profound influence on Madonna at the beginning of her career. With a peroxide-blonde, trashy image, Harry marketed pop with a thrift-store appeal that was arty and sophisticated.

At the end of 1984, Madonna's second album, Like a Virgin, was released, and the title hit single became an international success. This record was marketed around a sexy Boy Toy image that catapulted Madonna into global stardom. The music consisted of dance styles of the day set to catchy melodies and glossy production work by Nile Rodgers. In 1986 she started working with Patrick Leonard, a collaboration that led to numerous number one hits. Selling over 5 million records in the United States alone, her third album, True Blue, sustained her commercial momentum.

The same cannot be said for her attempts at dramatic acting. Although she did score a critical success in the title role of a charming independent film directed by Susan Seidelman, Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), which featured her single "Into the Groove," the commercial movie comedy that followed, Shanghai Surprise (1986), co-starring her husband actor Sean Penn, was a disaster. It received nothing but poor reviews. On stage on Broadway in 1988 in Speed the Plow by David Mamet she appeared uncomfortable opposite veteran theater actors.

Superstardom

In 1989 one of her most successful albums, Like a Prayer, appeared with several number one hits: "Cherish," "Like a Prayer," and "Keep It Together." In all these hits Madonna delivers a playful, sexy, and polished performance in well-crafted songs. At the end of the year, she released a greatest hits album, The Immaculate Collection, which consisted of a few new songs, including the raunchy hit "Justify My Love," which ignited many debates about her sexually explicit representation in the promo/video. This controversy was compounded in 1992, when she published her book Sex, a glossy, platinum-bound production that featured soft-core pornographic photographs of herself with celebrities like Isabella Rossellini, Naomi Campbell, Big Daddy Kane, and Vanilla Ice.

Although the book was slammed by the critics, it did not detract from her success as a pop star. Her next album, Erotica, was stylish and outrageous in its sexual innuendo, with beautifully written songs such as the two big hits, "Deeper and Deeper" and "Rain." In a more elegant vein, the album Bedtime Stories, released in 1994, perpetuated Madonna's preoccupation with sex in a collection of songs that feature grinding rhythms and groove-based riffs. The production work on this album stands out as a breakthrough in Madonna's musical development, the fruit of her collaboration with a string of established musical producers and artists, such as the Icelandic icon Björk, who co-wrote the hit single "Bedtime Stories."

In 1996 Madonna's ambition to make it in the film industry was realized when her role as Evita Peron in Evita won her the Golden Globe for Best Actress. Before this she released another album, Something to Remember, which was her second greatest hits collection. It mainly features ballads intended to target the same type of audience as Evita. Her performance on all the songs results in a truly mature and professional vocal style with arrangements that are superbly put together. A track that stands out is "I Want You," a cover of Marvin Gaye's song, recorded together in trip-hop style with Massive Attack. In 1998 her album, Ray of Light, produced with William Orbit, was hailed by many music critics as her best album or at least on a par with her top album from the 1980s, Like a Prayer. Ray of Light stands out as another landmark in Madonna's ability to experiment with contemporary styles.

Madonna's keen interest in techno and electronic pop continued into her next album, Music (2000), which involved co-production work with Orbit, Mirwais, and Mark "Spike" Stent. Music is as innovative as Ray of Light, with Madonna turning to the vocoder on the title track. The song relies heavily on an electro-beat funk groove, underpinned by a simple organ and bass riff, all of which transport Madonna's vocal line amid a flurry of synthesized atmospherics. The track winds toward a conclusion that is intense and humorous with Madonna asking the listener, "Would you like to?" over and over again. Co-written with the French producer Mirwais, "Music" brings the entire album alive with its sparkle and freewheeling sensuality.

Spot Light: Madonna's Videos

The power of Madonna's image in her videos has unquestionably contributed to her success. Two of her most famous monochrome videos, "Vogue" and "Justify My Love," both released in 1990, exemplify Madonna's venturesome sensibility and all the playful gestures that accompany it. Rich in its spectacle, the "Vogue" video positions her in line with other iconic female stars such as Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, and Rita Hayworth. In a form of masquerade known as vogueing, Madonna confronts and parodies the artificiality of gender constructions and the showbiz world.

In "Justify My Love," directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Madonna's sexuality is on display at its most explicit. Filmed in black and white, this video explores a range of sexualities and panders to the voyeur. Madonna's seductive look plays on notions of exhibitionism as she lures the viewer into her world of erotic fantasy. Sexual pleasuring is inextricably tied up into the musical sound. The brilliant balancing between sight and sound in this video pushes forward the notions of desire as autoeroticism becomes a political goal. Rhythmically, the groove of this song transports the main musical impulse, while the sparse harmonies in parallel fifths enhance the tension of sensuality. Breathy sounds are mixed into this track as Madonna plays around with various sex scenes through imaginative camera angles.

Throughout her career Madonna's live acts and music videos have been characterized by camped-up, ironic performances. Yet her controversial, ever-shifting image has often overshadowed her music. Only in the late 1990s did the media begin to afford more recognition to her musical output. Madonna's sound draws on a wealth of styles that include disco, hip-hop, house, acid jazz, rock, synth pop, and soul. Spanning more than two decades, her musical expression is traceable through dance trends as much as through the development of digitized musical instruments. In the album American Life (2003), there is further evidence of Madonna's passion for dance-based tracks in the techno-driven, state-of-the-art mixes and song arrangements. Notably, the music video for the title track was withdrawn by Madonna just prior to its release on the grounds that it could have been construed as politically insensitive. In the video Madonna appears in military uniform ironically mugging as a superhero.

With a career that has spanned three decades and that has produced more than fifty Top 10 hits, Madonna stands as the most commercially successful female artist in the history of pop music. Through her videos, songs, PR stunts, and commercials, Madonna has become a controversial political figure while filling the role of the greatest pop diva of all time.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Madonna (Sire, 1983); Like a Virgin (Sire, 1984); True Blue (Sire, 1986); Who's That Girl (Sire, 1987); You Can Dance (Sire, 1987); Like a Prayer (Sire, 1989); Erotica (Sire, 1992); Bedtime Stories (Maverick, 1994); Something to Remember (Maverick, 1995); Ray of Light (Maverick, 1998); Music (Warner Bros., 2000).

SELECTIVE FILMOGRAPHY:

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985); Shanghai Surprise (1986); Dick Tracy (1990); Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991); A League of Their Own (1992); Evita (1996); The Next Best Thing (2000).

stan hawkins