What did Madonna do? I always hear about people saying how "Madonna shaped music", "broke boundaries" etc, but I'm only 16 and don't know what these things were that she did - can someone please enlighten me?

Lately I have grown very interested by Madonna & loving her greatest hits CD, and I want to know more about the woman behind the amazing music. Thanks!

Well, she was the first female artist to do what she did by breaking down barriers held in place against women in mainstream popular culture. She took things which were undergroud and made them popular not by emulating them but by taking inspiration and making them into a Madonna production. Her music started out as pure bubblegum but very quickly she learnt how to play the game and make the music personal and full of meaning. When you have songs like Vogue, Like a Prayer, Music, Ray of Light, Justify my Love, Hung up etc under your belt...youve earner your place in history

Basically - and people will argue this - without Madonna, we wouldnt have the same female artists that we have thesedays. Gaga, Christina, Beyonce, Britney...they all owe to Madonna and they all admit to that.

Madonna is an easy target and she cuts right to the point which is caused her to be public enemy number one for quite a long time. Still, shes always going to be hugely successful and the only true Superstar left in the world.

Check out her bio on wikipedia for more info too.

She came onto the scene and made her debut on top of the pops at the same time as cyndi lauper in 1984. Madonna was always compared to cyndi as critics believed cyndis career would last, whereas madonnas would fail. However they were wrong and it was madonna who became the huge success.

Here earlier hits failed, but when she returned she managed to pick it up and learnt to be controversial. She is a cleaver business woman and knew what she had to do to sell records. She always played the media, more-so in the early 90's when she was becomming an established artists.

To this day, she still does controversial things to get everyone talking about her. I think that is why she is so successful and such a superstar.

good for you, she is one of my idols

Madonna started her days in New York (circa 1978-1981) in two indie bands called Emmy and the Breakfast Club, she worked with Stephen Bray a lot for her own recordings and attempted to get into the music industry for her love of the arts (also she was a professional dancer!). She got a record deal with Sire records as her songs were so different to what was on radio stations in a very post-disco world and surrounded by the new romantics phase in 80's electronic music, Madonna was a breath of fresh air and also it was rare to have such an extreme solo Female artist (i mean you had Kate Bush prior to this, but mainly they were found in bands and groups) and the pop scene was dominated by Jackson at the time.
Her debut album also set the world alight with her songs Lucky Star,Borderline and Holiday which are still today big anthemic tunes.

in 1984 she had sold 9 million copies of her debut and started to record her blockbuster album follow up with Nile Rogers and Stephen Bray which would then be known as Like A Virgin, the video caused a stir as it was the first to ever talk about female sexuality or sexuality in general and also a song where the lyrics were so open to many suggestions or implications of the song (the famous opening to Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs!) also she brought forward the use of the music video in the newly launched MTV, her performance of Like A Virgin on the main stage was also very outlandish in set (a gigantic wedding cake) and her performance was so raw and genuine and nobody had seen an artist be so into her song and be so extreme in the choreography and sexuality on the stage, it is a raw performance and garnered much acclaim the next day, i mean only Male rockers dared do such a peerformance so it was this that was legendary! then of course she had the famous video for Material Girl which was very filmlike and payed homage to Marylin Monroe and the 50's cinema. then she released Dress you Up,Into The Groove,Angel,Love Dont live Here Anymore (in 1995) and Crazy For You, each had so much success and brought the album to shipping 26 million worldwide and was a chart topper of an album in most of the leading music markets. it also garnered much acclaim for the rock influence as well as the Motown vibe.

True Blue followed in 1986 which was a personal record for Madonna, her video Papa Dont Preach was controversial due to her message of anti-abortion,Open Your Heart was also iconic, True Blue,Live To Tell and La Isle Bonita. each massive tunes! and got the album to top the charts in all leading music countries across the globe and stands at approx. 30 million album sales worldwide. during this time she starred in various movies and scored a few soundtracks and the first successful remix album.

Like A Prayer in 1989 showed that pop music could also be seen as art, each song is a big statement and a confession and the lead self titled single became a much talked about video and song due to the big sounds of the song and the lyrical implications as well as the controverial religious themes of the video. Express Yourself was entirely filmlike and (until MJ's Scream) was the most expensive video of all time! Cherish,Oh Father and Dear Jessie followed and the album has shipped more than 20 million worldwide!
The immaculate Collection is the most successful compelation ever recorded! and came after her Blonde Ambition Tour shaped the way the music tour could be seen (without it we wouldnt have most of the performances we see today! it was a MASSIVE tour) combining art,theartrical productions and expensive sets (and also the iconic coned corset) it more than ceritified her status as the Queen Of Pop as in a decade she sold more than 100 million records across the globe.

the 90's saw her experiment in sounds and imagery, most notable is the underappreciated Erotica album (worth getting it's amazing!) which had Jazz inspired tunes as well as various experimental dance recordings and House beats reminiscent of the early 90's! it shipped less than 8 million wordwide but it's a masterpiece album.Bedtime Stoies also showed a different raw energy in her R&B productions.
1998's Ray Of Light garnered much acclaim and Grammy awards, 2000's Music followed and each record sold 21 and 14 million respectively.
American Life combined acoustic with electronica, a massive experiment and possibly her most daring record of all time due to it's production!
and then of course the phenomenal Confessions On A Dance Floor which rejuvinated the pop scene and became one of the most successful pop albums of the last decade. all the songs segued together and the video's garnered acclaim and she brought many european producers into the limelight, it has since sold 16 million records (a figure not seen today!) then most recently we have seen her Hard Candy and Sticky and Sweet Tour which is the most successful by a solo artist ever!!

that is it all in a nutshell, but by all mean by her records, by the Celebration dvd to see her songs!! search You Tube for performances!! without her most of the acts you see today wouldnt be here! it's rather surprising.
and i prefer her to Michael Jackson actually in terms of a groundbreaking star! she has that edge to her and plus she doesnt take herself too seriously either!! she is an amazing woman! so please buy her albums (Like A Virgin,True Blue,Like A Prayer,Erotica,Bedtime Stories,Ray Of Light,Music,American Life and Confessions On A Dance Floor to get a full flavour and appreciation for the woman!) also her song list is the biggest in the industry, she left so many off her 2CD Celebration album! an amazing and iconic woman!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfhfD...eature=related

I think this video demonstrates how she broke down a lot of barriers, for better or worse. Basically, Madonna was intelligent and perceptive enough to realise which way the future was heading at a time where a lot of artists were burying their heads in the sand.

I would totally agree that Madonna has been hugely influential on all those artists you name - but some much more than others ...

Beyonce owes WAY more to Diana Ross than to Madonna and I'd say that, in their early days, Christina and Britney owed as much to Janet Jackson (Control/Rhythm Nation/janet eras) as to Madonna.

However, what Madonna did was carve a unique way through mainstream pop whilst maintaining control of her career in a way her predecessors never did. She very cannily allied herself with a mixture of upcoming producers (Jellybean, Nellee Hooper, Stuart Price) and established talent (David Foster, Nile Rodgers, Dallas Austin, Timbaland), always moving on and adapting her sound.

She also embraced sexuality and made it part of her public image and persona in an extremely upfront way that generated as much kudos as it did criticism.

As brilliant as she is sometimes, I can't help wishing Madonna might offer a little public gratitude to those who made it possible for her: Dusty Springfield, Kate Bush - and, most of all, Teena Marie, whose late 70s/early 80s work with Rick James foreshadows some of what Madonna did musically ... a white female performer making dance/R&B pop records. Madonna's achievements are legend indeed - but she had a little help along the way.

Agree to all posts. Madonna and Cyndi Lauper were "rivals" (kind of made in the press) akin to Britney and Christina were in 1999. I think Cyndi has the better voice and musical talent, but Madonna was a master of the image change and was constantly producing new stuff whereas Cyndi took three-year breaks between albums which kind of dented her commercial success a bit.

Madonna had some key influences - Marilyn Monroe, Debbie Harry - but also made those influences into something new. Without Madonna, there simply would be no Britney, Christina, or GaGa as we know them. That's not to say they wouldn't have been in the music business, but Madonna really gave the women (and men, I guess) that followed a "map" of sorts. She was the first really successful international female solo pop star.

The fact she is still selling millions of records, getting No.1 hits, and setting new records as far as touring revenue goes - 27 years after her first album came out - is pretty incredible and unprecedented for a female artist.

Thanks for all your info, it's been great. One thing I'm wondering, you all say that there would be no Britney, Gaga etc without her...but why? Why, just because of Madonna, is Lady Gaga doing what she's doing? That's what I'm confused at!?

More than any other artist namechecked in this thread, Lady Gaga is massively indebted to Madonna.

Musically, there is small amount of crossover - but the individuality, the controversial videos, the outrageous costumes (some of which owe more to Grace Jones than to Madonna), the gay-friendly appeal, the outspokenness ... Gaga has clearly studied how Madonna did things.

The difference between them lies in Gaga's history as a songwriter - something Madonna never really had from the off and instead developed as she grew as an artist.

And yes, Debbie Harry obviously helped Madonna to her throne - I can't believe I didn't mention her too!

because she blurred those boundaries, there is no your have to be like this, or you HAVE to wear that or perfrorm a song like this etc.etc that's what makes it so extreme and what opened the industry up to artists like them the past decade.

M is God basically!

I'd disagree with that. Over half of the songs on Madonna were written by her.


Christina Aguilera's I'm Not Myself Tonight has been criticised for "copying" Lady Gaga, but it borrows much more from Madonna. The monacle wearing and some of the sets from Express Yourself (although that itself was inspired by the German film from the 1930s Metropolis), some of the styling from Human Nature and the dancing in the church from Like a Prayer.

Just watched the Madonna interview with Jonathan Ross from the American Life era, was great!

Does she have any other great interviews?

The point being made is that Gaga was a classically trained musician who learnt composition from a prestigious music school while Madonna was a dancer and who learnt to write music while in her bands and you'll notice how there is marked improvement between her first and second album in song writing abilities. As someone said above, much of her first album was quite bubblegum pop but by the second one, she seemed to have developed her abilities to write songs that had more depth and were more varied and generally better!

This is her infamous interview with David Letterman, where she keeps swearing and asks him to smell her underwear:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRSP5ZUmxP8

I think you may have missed the point I was making.

You are quite right in what you say - but Madonna didn't have a track record of writing songs for other artists as Lady Gaga did.

Oh, sorry. I understand what you meant now.

New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls...what a track record of credible songwriting

And Britney.

Oh yes, lets not forget ol Britters.

Quicksand was a cool song written by Gaga, but there were better songs she kept for the Circus record, also Gaga has done better on The Fame too! so yeah, none og Gaga's records except from new Kids appeared on physical albums though :/

and i also agree that Madonna's interview on Wossy in 2003 to promote American Life was a brilliant one, i hope she goes back on his show in the future for a similar set up! i love his chat show!

there was a small one she did with Dermot O'Leary for her Confessions album where she was very open about her life i think it was for Channel 4. also her 2005 interview with David Letterman is really open and then they go horse riding to finish in New York!!
http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...interview&aq=f

those are some gooduns! also i love this MTV performance which was a taster for what was to be the Like A Prayer Tour, then was developed into the historic Blonde Ambition Tour in 1990!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgg2m...os=IcRaCTApHYk

Hear The Crowd!! it's just so fabulous that she has millions and millions still cheering and singing back tour by tour by tour! i mean she's never going to lose it now her next decade i think is going to be another really big one now she's with Live Nation! i can see her at least carrying on until her mid 60's!
and although many found the cover for Hard Candy a bit distasteful i did and still really enjoy the album (compare it to a lot of other drivel! plus it was a great success!) and it spawned Sticky & Sweet, and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You,She's Not Me and Beat Goes On are personal favourites that weren't released from the album.

ENJOY!! she's just so fantastic to look back on too and look forward to!