Madonna

• 1. Introduction

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  Madonna Louise Ciccone arrived in New York City in 1978 with thirty-five dollars in her pocket. It was the first time she had ever flown on a plane or ridden in a taxi. She would later call leaving college the bravest thing she had ever done. She took classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, worked as a hatcheck girl at the Russian Tea Room, and slept in a cramped corner of the city while chasing a dance career. From that beginning came a performer dubbed the Queen of Pop, the best-selling female music artist of all time. So how does a dancer with no money become the first female performer to earn a billion dollars from concerts? What did she do to break gender barriers in popular music, and why did her work draw both praise and outrage? This is the story of a woman who turned reinvention into a way of working, and made controversy part of the act.

• 2. A Lonely Girl In Michigan

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  Bay City, Michigan, was where Madonna was born on the 16th of August 1958. Her father, Silvio "Tony" Ciccone, worked as an optical and military engineer, a physicist for Chrysler Defense and later General Dynamics Land Systems. Her mother, also named Madonna Louise, was an X-ray technician of French-Canadian descent. Because mother and daughter shared a name, the family called the girl "Little Nonnie".

  When Madonna was five, her mother died of breast cancer on the 1st of December 1963. The household changed soon after, when Tony married the family housekeeper, Joan Gustafson, and the family grew with more siblings. Madonna was raised in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Avon Township alongside two older brothers, Anthony and Martin, and three younger siblings, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.

  School revealed an unusual mix of discipline and mischief. Madonna earned high grades, and her father gave her a quarter for every A. She also did cartwheels and handstands in the hallways, hung upside down from the monkey bars, and lifted her skirt in class to amuse the boys. Looking back, she described herself as "a lonely girl who was searching for something", adding that she cared about being good at something and wanted to be somebody.

  Dance gave that searching a direction. Her father first enrolled her in classical piano, but she persuaded him to let her study ballet instead. Her ballet teacher, Christopher Flynn, inspired her to pursue dance as a career. At Rochester Adams High School she was a straight-A student and a cheerleader, and after graduating in January 1976 she won a dance scholarship to the University of Michigan.

• 3. Bands Before The Spotlight

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  Breakfast Club rehearsed in an abandoned synagogue in Corona, Queens, where Madonna and her then-boyfriend Dan Gilroy slept in the basement and recorded music. In that band she sang and played drums and guitar. Before then, in 1979, she had auditioned successfully as a backup singer and dancer in Paris for the French disco artist Patrick Hernandez, traveling with his troupe to Tunisia and across Europe.

  Drummer Stephen Bray, whom she had dated back in Michigan, became her next partner in music when they formed the band Emmy in 1980. They lived and rehearsed at the Music Building in Manhattan and recorded a four-track demo tape. Camille Barbone, who ran Gotham Records in that same building, signed her in March 1981 and managed her until February 1982.

  Nightclubs turned out to be the real audition rooms. In 1982 Madonna visited clubs to persuade disc jockeys to play her demo. Mark Kamins at Danceteria took an interest and arranged a meeting with Seymour Stein, president of Sire Records, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Records. She signed a two-single deal, and Kamins produced her debut single, "Everybody", released in October 1982.

  Her first album carried its own struggle for control. Warner hired Reggie Lucas to produce the record, but Madonna was dissatisfied with many tracks and brought in DJ John "Jellybean" Benitez to help finish it. Benitez produced "Holiday", her breakthrough song. The album Madonna was released on the 27th of July 1983 and reached number eight on the Billboard 200, yielding the top-ten singles "Borderline" and "Lucky Star".

• 4. Controversy As Strategy

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  A wedding gown and white gloves turned a 1984 awards performance into legend. Madonna sang "Like a Virgin" at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, appearing atop a large wedding cake before moving provocatively across the stage. MTV News later called it one of the most iconic performances in pop music history. Conservative organizations complained that the song promoted premarital sex, and moralists sought to have it banned.

  Religious imagery brought the next firestorm. In 1989 she signed an endorsement deal with Pepsi and premiered "Like a Prayer" in a commercial. The accompanying music video featured stigmata, burning crosses, and a dream sequence with a saint, prompting condemnation from the Vatican. Religious groups called for a boycott, and Pepsi withdrew the commercial and ended the sponsorship.

  A coffee table book pushed the limits even further. Madonna published Sex one day after releasing her album Erotica in October 1992. The book featured explicit images photographed by Steven Meisel and drew strong negative reactions, yet initial interest carried it to the top of the bestseller list. The backlash overshadowed Erotica, which became her lowest-selling album at the time.

  Her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour drew religious protest for a version of "Like a Virgin" in which she simulated masturbation while two male dancers caressed her. She defended the show as intended for open minds. The live recording earned her the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video, and the tour was chronicled in her documentary Truth or Dare, released in May 1991.

• 5. Records And Reinventions

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  Eighteen multi-platinum albums mark a career built on constant change. Like a Virgin, released on the 12th of November 1984, became the first album by a woman to sell over five million copies, and its title track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for six consecutive weeks. True Blue followed in 1986, topping the charts in 28 countries and selling 25 million copies globally.

  Reinvention defined the records that followed. Like a Prayer, released on the 21st of March 1989, spent six weeks atop the Billboard 200, the longest of any of her albums. With Ray of Light in 1998, made with electronic producer William Orbit, critics credited her with bringing electronica into mainstream pop, and it is widely regarded as her magnum opus. At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards she won four awards, including Best Pop Album.

  Dance music carried her into the new century. Confessions on a Dance Floor, made with Stuart Price and released on the 15th of November 2005, topped the charts in a record 40 countries. Its lead single "Hung Up" reached number one in 41 countries and sampled ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!", which the band rarely permitted. ABBA songwriter Bjorn Ulvaeus called it "a wonderful track, 100 per cent solid pop music".

  Her chart records read like a ledger of firsts. Madonna has twelve number-one singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 and holds the record for the most chart-toppers on a single Billboard chart. With "4 Minutes" in 2008 she surpassed Elvis Presley's record for the most top-ten songs in the US. Her greatest-hits set The Immaculate Collection has sold 30 million copies, making it the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist.

• 6. A Difficult Second Career

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  Evita brought Madonna the prize that eluded her elsewhere. She had long aspired to play the Argentine political leader Eva Peron, writing to director Alan Parker to express her interest. After being cast, she undertook vocal training and studied Argentina's history. Released in December 1996, the film earned her the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.

  Her earlier films met a kinder fate than most that followed. Desperately Seeking Susan in 1985 was named one of the ten best films of the year by Vincent Canby of The New York Times, and she played a free-spirited drifter whose path crosses a bored housewife. In Dick Tracy in 1990 she portrayed Breathless Mahoney opposite Warren Beatty, and the film topped the US box office for two weeks.

  Many other roles drew harsh reviews. Shanghai Surprise in 1986 earned her the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress. After the critical and commercial failure of Swept Away in 2002, directed by her then-husband Guy Ritchie, she vowed never to act in another film. A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that the role required a surrender of emotional control she seemed unable to achieve.

  Her voice trained alongside her acting. While filming Evita she worked with a vocal coach and said she realized there was "a whole piece of my voice I wasn't using". She possesses a mezzo-soprano range, and early on she abandoned a bright, girlish timbre after critics compared her voice to "Minnie Mouse on helium".

• 7. Maverick And Money

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  Sixty million dollars and a twenty percent royalty rate, the highest in the industry at the time, launched Madonna's entertainment company Maverick in April 1992. The partnership with Time Warner spanned a record label, a film production unit, and divisions for music publishing, television, book publishing, and merchandising. Maverick Records signed successful acts including Alanis Morissette and Michelle Branch.

  The arrangement eventually ended in court. In March 2004 Madonna and Maverick sued Warner Music Group and Time Warner, alleging financial mismanagement, and Warner countersued. The dispute settled when Warner acquired the shares held by Madonna and Ronnie Dashev, making Maverick a wholly owned subsidiary while Madonna stayed signed to Warner.

  Live performance became her largest source of wealth. In July 2007 she left Warner Bros. Records and signed a ten-year, $120 million deal with Live Nation. Her Sticky and Sweet Tour, launched in August 2008, grossed over $408 million and became the highest-grossing tour by a solo artist at the time. She is the first female performer to accumulate one billion dollars from her concerts.

  Her business reach extended well past music. She launched the global fitness chain Hard Candy Fitness in October 2010, the Material Girl clothing line with her daughter Lourdes, and the Truth or Dare lifestyle brand in November 2011, offering footwear, fragrances, lingerie, and accessories. She was the world's highest-paid female musician for a record eleven years across four decades.

• 8. Family Causes And Late Career

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  Lourdes "Lola" Maria Ciccone Leon was born on the 14th of October 1996 to Madonna and fitness trainer Carlos Leon. According to biographer Mary Cross, Madonna had feared her pregnancy might jeopardize Evita, yet she triumphed on screen and had a child in the same year. Her son Rocco John Ritchie was born in Los Angeles on the 11th of August 2000, with complications due to placenta praevia.

  Malawi became the center of her charitable work. She founded Raising Malawi in 2006 and adopted a boy named David Banda that year, a decision that provoked debate because Malawian law required a year of residence she did not meet. She later adopted Chifundo "Mercy" James after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court denial, and in 2017 adopted twin sisters Estere and Stella. By 2013 Raising Malawi had built ten schools educating 4,000 children.

  A brush with death came as she planned a tour celebrating her past. In June 2023, a month before the Celebration Tour was to begin, she was found unresponsive at her New York residence with a serious bacterial infection. She spent five days in intensive care and was placed in a medically induced coma for 48 hours. The tour then began in October 2023 in London.

  The Celebration Tour ended where few performers ever reach. It concluded in May 2024 with a free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro that drew 1.6 million people, the largest standalone concert in history and the highest attendance ever for a female artist. The tour made Madonna the first woman to surpass $100 million in earnings from six separate concert tours, and she is set to perform at the halftime show of the 2026 FIFA World Cup final on the 19th of July.