Madonna

Madonna reshaped the course of mainstream music soon after her initial Top Ten single, “Borderline,” reached listeners in 1984. Blending post-disco rhythms with buoyant pop, that track arrived sounding novel and vibrant, an approach she would refine into a personal hallmark. Across decades of recording, she channeled club-driven sounds toward wider audiences, focusing on the styles then emerging in dance venues. Arriving precisely as MTV took hold, she exploited the new video format to produce a run of provocative, visually polished clips that branded her a deliberate provocateur and helped cement the network’s status as the decade’s cultural arbiter. She supplied many of the era’s defining pop statements—“Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl,” “Live to Tell,” “Papa Don't Preach,” “Open Your Heart,” “Like a Prayer,” “Express Yourself”—and in doing so established the template for a contemporary pop figure whose music remained inseparable from its visual presentation and who refused to rest on earlier successes. Entering her second decade of visibility, she kept pursuing creative challenges, exploring modern R&B on the 1994 release Bedtime Stories and electronica on 1998’s Ray of Light. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s that same impulse persisted, allowing listeners to perceive the unifying threads running through her catalog—links as audible on 2019’s Madame X as on the 2022 retrospective Finally Enough Love, which surveyed her dance-floor successes.

She left Michigan for New York in 1977 intent on a ballet career, studying under choreographer Alvin Ailey while also working as a model. In 1979 she joined the Patrick Hernandez Revue, the disco ensemble responsible for the hit “Born to Be Alive.” Traveling with Hernandez to Paris, she encountered Dan Gilroy, who soon became her partner. Back in New York the couple assembled the Breakfast Club, a pop and dance ensemble; Madonna began on drums before assuming lead vocals. She departed in 1980 to form Emmy with former boyfriend and drummer Stephen Bray. The pair soon left that group to concentrate on dance and disco material. A resulting demo reached New York DJ and producer Mark Kamins, who forwarded it to Sire Records; the label signed her in 1982.

Kamins helmed her debut single, “Everybody,” a club favorite by year’s end; the follow-up, “Physical Attraction,” repeated that success in 1983. A third club hit arrived in June with the buoyant “Holiday,” produced by Jellybean Benitez. Her self-titled first album appeared that September, and “Holiday” became her initial Top 40 single the next month. “Borderline” climbed to the Top Ten in March 1984, inaugurating a streak of seventeen consecutive Top Ten entries. While “Lucky Star” advanced to number four, she began preparing for her first lead film role in Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan.

Her second album, Like a Virgin, produced by Nile Rodgers, arrived at the close of 1984. The title track reached number one in December and remained there for six weeks, launching an intense period of activity. Throughout 1985 she attained worldwide recognition, moving millions of records via her stylish videos and commanding presence. After “Material Girl” peaked at number two in March, she launched her first tour, with the Beastie Boys opening. “Crazy for You” became her second number-one single in May. Desperately Seeking Susan reached theaters in July and proved a commercial success, which in turn prompted the belated video release of the 1979 low-budget film A Certain Sacrifice. That project was not the only earlier work resurfacing that summer; both Playboy and Penthouse published nude images she had posed for in 1977. Her popularity nevertheless held steady, as countless teenage girls emulated her look and earned the label “Madonna wannabes.” She married actor Sean Penn in August.

At the start of 1986 she began working with Patrick Leonard, who would co-write many of her major 1980s hits, among them “Live to Tell,” which topped the chart in June. True Blue, issued the following month, proved more ambitious than its predecessors, achieving number one in both the United States and United Kingdom while selling more than five million copies domestically and drawing stronger critical notice. “Papa Don't Preach” became her fourth U.S. number one. Her film career, however, suffered a setback with the November release of Shanghai Surprise, the comedy co-starring Penn that drew poor reviews and weak box-office returns.

Early in 1987 “Open Your Heart” gave her a fifth number-one single, the third drawn from True Blue. The title track from the soundtrack of her third film, Who’s That Girl?, also reached the summit, though the movie itself failed commercially. The year 1988 proved quieter as she spent the first half performing in David Mamet’s Speed the Plow on Broadway; she also issued the remix collection You Can Dance. Having withdrawn divorce papers filed earlier in 1988, she finalized the divorce from Penn at the beginning of 1989.

Released in spring 1989, Like a Prayer stood as her most expansive work to date, merging pop, rock, and dance elements. Another number-one album, it yielded the chart-topping title track plus three further Top Ten singles: “Express Yourself,” “Cherish,” and “Keep It Together.” She commenced the extensive Blonde Ambition tour in April 1990. “Vogue” hit number one in May and preceded her appearance in Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy, her strongest screen role since Desperately Seeking Susan. At year’s end she issued the greatest-hits package The Immaculate Collection, which included two new recordings: the number-one single “Justify My Love,” whose video provoked further debate, and “Rescue Me,” which debuted at number fifteen, the highest entry then achieved by a female artist on the U.S. chart. The concert documentary Truth or Dare, covering the Blonde Ambition tour, opened to favorable reviews and solid attendance in spring 1991.

She returned to the top of the charts in summer 1992 with “This Used to Be My Playground,” featured in the film A League of Their Own, in which she had a supporting role. Later that year she published Sex, a costly, steel-bound volume of erotic photography that included images of herself alongside models and celebrities such as Isabella Rossellini, Big Daddy Kane, Naomi Campbell, and Vanilla Ice. Despite harsh criticism and widespread controversy, the companion album Erotica sold more than two million copies. Bedtime Stories, issued two years afterward, adopted a quieter tone. Though initial sales were modest and some observers questioned her continued relevance, the album produced her largest hit, “Take a Bow,” which held number one for seven weeks, along with the Björk-written “Bedtime Story,” her first single to miss the Top 40, and the similarly charting “Human Nature.” Bedtime Stories nevertheless became her seventh multi-platinum album.

Beginning in 1995 she pursued a measured reinvention while campaigning for the lead in the screen version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita. Distancing herself from the explicit themes of Erotica and Bedtime Stories, she presented a poised, sophisticated persona, and the ballad collection Something to Remember complemented that strategy. Issued in fall 1995 around the time she secured the part of Eva Perón, the album targeted a mature audience that would also be drawn to the film. As shooting wrapped, she announced her pregnancy; daughter Lourdes arrived late in 1996, coinciding with Evita’s release. The movie earned largely favorable notices, and her performance brought a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, though it did not yield an Academy Award nomination. The soundtrack achieved moderate success, with a dance remix of “Don't Cry for Me Argentina” and the new song “You Must Love Me” both charting.

In 1997 she collaborated with producer William Orbit on her first collection of original material since Bedtime Stories. The resulting Ray of Light, steeped in electronica, techno, and trip-hop, refreshed her dance-pop approach for the close of the decade. Released in March 1998, it garnered widespread acclaim and debuted at number two; within weeks it emerged as her strongest seller since Like a Prayer. Two years later she returned with Music, again working with Orbit and adding contributions from Mark “Spike” Stent and French electropop artist Mirwais, whose style recalled Daft Punk and Air.

Also in 2000 she gave birth to son Rocco, fathered by filmmaker Guy Ritchie, whom she married at year’s end. The couple’s 2002 remake of Swept Away, directed by Ritchie and starring Madonna, met with poor reviews and disappointing ticket sales. Her introspective 2003 album American Life entered the Billboard chart at number one yet produced no U.S. hits, though “Nothing Fails” and “Love Profusion” succeeded in the United Kingdom. That year also saw the publication of her children’s book The English Roses, the first of several novels to follow.

Confessions on a Dance Floor signaled a return to the club-oriented sound that had defined her rise. Issued in late 2005, it topped the Billboard 200 and supported a global tour in 2006, the same year the CD/DVD I’m Going to Tell You a Secret, recorded during the Re-Invention Tour, appeared. In 2007 she released another live package, The Confessions Tour.

She moved nearer to fulfilling her Warner Bros. contract with 2008’s Hard Candy, which included work with the Neptunes and Timbaland. Despite mixed reception, the album yielded the Top Five single “4 Minutes” and was promoted by the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which ended in September 2009—shortly before she filed for divorce from Ritchie—and generated a further CD/DVD set issued in 2010. That release closed her Warner tenure and preceded a long-term agreement with Live Nation.

Midway through 2011 she began recording her twelfth album, aiming for an early 2012 release. The resulting MDNA featured production from French electronic artist Martin Solveig and longtime associate Orbit. Its title, an abbreviation of her name, followed her 2012 Super Bowl performance. Led by the Top Ten single “Give Me All Your Luvin’” featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., MDNA debuted at number one in multiple territories, including the United States and United Kingdom. The MDNA Tour occupied the remainder of the year, spanning Europe, the Middle East, North America, and South America. She later issued a concert film and the live album MDNA World Tour in September 2013.

Early in 2014 she announced work on her thirteenth studio album. Documenting the process on social media, she disclosed sessions involving Avicii, Diplo, and Kanye West. Leaked excerpts prompted a digital teaser EP by year’s end. Rebel Heart arrived in full in March 2015, peaking at number two in both the U.S. and U.K. She toured from fall 2015 through spring 2016, completing more than seventy-five dates across North America, Europe, and Asia.

In April 2019 she began releasing singles ahead of the June arrival of her fourteenth album, Madame X, opening with “Medellín,” a collaboration with Colombian reggaeton artist Maluma. The project included co-production from Mirwais, Mike Dean, Diplo, and Jason Evigan, plus appearances by Brazilian singer Anitta and rappers Swae Lee and Quavo.

Upon its June 14, 2019 release, Madame X entered at number one in the United States and number two in the United Kingdom, generating four number-one Billboard Dance Club hits: “Medellín,” “Crave,” “I Rise,” and “I Don't Search I Find.” Her sustained dominance on the Dance Club chart across four decades was documented on Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones, the 2022 compilation collecting nearly all of those chart-topping singles. The set inaugurated a Warner reissue series launched that year to mark her fortieth anniversary as a recording artist. The catalog project coincided with her development of a career-spanning biopic she intended to direct. In June 2023 she joined the Weeknd and Playboi Carti on the song “Popular,” part of the soundtrack for the Netflix series The Idol. A month later she launched The Celebration Tour, her first retrospective-themed concert production.