kul-deepak: Madonna

Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone; August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes". Critics have praised Madonna for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy.

Life and career

1958–81: Early life and career beginnings

Madonna Louise Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan on August 16, 1958. Her mother, Madonna Louise (née Fortin), was of French Canadian descent,^[1] and her father, Silvio Anthony Ciccone, is a first-generation Italian American.^[2] The Ciccone family originated from Pacentro, Italy; her father later worked as a design engineer for Chrysler and General Motors. Madonna was nicknamed "Little Nonni" to distinguish her from her mother.^[3]^[4] The third of six children from the same two parents, her full-blood siblings are: Martin, Anthony, Paula, Christopher, and Melanie.^[5] Madonna was raised in the Detroit suburbs of Pontiac and Avon Township (now part of Rochester Hills).

1982–85: Madonna, Like a Virgin and marriage to Sean Penn

Madonna signed a singles deal with Sire, a label belonging to Warner Bros. Records.^[21] Her debut single, "Everybody", was released on October 6, 1982, and became a dance hit.^[22] She started developing her debut album Madonna, which was primarily produced by Reggie Lucas, a Warner Bros. producer. However, she was not happy with the completed tracks and disagreed with Lucas' production techniques, so decided to seek additional help. Madonna moved in with boyfriend John "Jellybean" Benitez, asking his help for finishing the album's production. Benitez remixed most of the tracks and produced "Holiday", which was her third single. The overall sound of Madonna is dissonant, and is in the form of upbeat synthetic disco, utilizing some of the new technology of the time, like the usage of Linn drum machine, Moog bass and the OB-X synthesizer.^[19]^[23] The album peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200, and yielded the hit singles "Holiday", "Borderline" and "Lucky Star".^[24]^[25]

1986–91: True Blue, Like a Prayer and the Blond Ambition Tour

Madonna during the Blond Ambition World Tour

"In Like a Prayer I've been dealing with more specific issues that mean a lot to me. They're about an assimilation of experiences I've had in my life and in relationships. They're about my mother, my father and my bonds with my family about the pain of dying, or growing up and letting go. [The album] was a real coming-of-age record for me emotionally. [...] I had to do a lot of soul-searching and I think it is a reflection of that."

—Madonna talking about the inspiration behind Like a Prayer.^[54]^[55]

1992–96: Maverick, Sex, Erotica, Bedtime Stories and Evita

1997–2002: Ray of Light, Music and Drowned World Tour

2003–06: American Life and Confessions on a Dance Floor

Madonna performing at the Live 8 benefit concert

2007–09: Live Nation, Hard Candy and the Sticky & Sweet Tour

2010–present: W.E. and other projects

Influences

According to Taraborrelli, "Almost certainly, the defining moment of Madonna's childhood—the one that would have the most influence in shaping her into the woman she would become—was the tragic and untimely death of her beloved mother."^[6] Psychiatrist Keith Ablow suggests that her mother's death would have had an immeasurable impact on the young Madonna at a time when her personality was still forming. According to Ablow, the younger a child is at the time of a serious loss, the more profound the influence and the longer lasting the impact. He concludes that "some people never reconcile themselves to such a loss at an early age, Madonna is not different than them."^[6] Conversely, author Lucy O'Brien feels that the impact of the rape is, in fact, the motivating factor behind everything Madonna has done, more important even than the death of her mother: "It's not so much grief at her mother's death that drives her, as the sense of abandonment that left her unprotected. She encountered her own worst possible scenario, becoming a victim of male violence, and thereafter turned that full-tilt into her work, reversing the equation at every opportunity."^[219]

Music videos and performances

In The Madonna Companion, biographers Allen Metz and Carol Benson noted that more than any other recent pop artist, Madonna had used MTV and music videos to establish her popularity and enhance her recorded work.^[235] According to them, many of her songs have the imagery of the music video in strong context, while referring to the music. The media and public reaction towards her most-discussed songs such as "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer" or "Justify My Love" had to do with the music videos created to promote the song and their impact, rather than the song itself.^[235] Morton felt that "artistically, Madonna's songwriting is often overshadowed by her striking pop videos."^[236] Madonna's initial music videos reflected her American and Hispanic mixed street style combined with a flamboyant glamor.^[235] She was able to transmit her avant-garde downtown New York fashion sense to the American audience.^[237] The imagery and incorporation of Hispanic culture and Catholic symbolism continued with the music videos from the True Blue era.^[238] Author Douglas Kellner noted, "such 'multiculturalism' and her culturally transgressive moves turned out to be highly successful moves that endeared her to large and varied youth audiences".^[239] Madonna's Spanish look in the videos became the fashion trend of that time, in the form of boleros and layered skirts, accessorizing with rosary beads and a crucifix as in the video of "La Isla Bonita".^[240]^[241] Academics noted that with her videos, Madonna was subtly reversing the usual role of male as the dominant sex.^[242] This symbolism and imagery was probably the most prevalent in the music video for "Like a Prayer". The video included scenes of an African-American church choir, Madonna attracted to a statue of a black saint, and singing in front of burning crosses. This mix of the sacred and the profane upset the Vatican and resulted in the Pepsi commercial withdrawal.^[243] Madonna has been honored with record-breaking 20 MTV Video Music Awards, including the lifetime achievement "Video Vanguard Award" in 1986 for her contributions to the world of music video.^[244]

Madonna's emergence occurred during the advent of MTV, and, according to Chris Nelson from The New York Times, "with its almost exclusively lip-synced videos, ushered in an era in which average music fans might happily spend hours a day, every day, watching singers just mouth the words."^[245] The symbiotic relationship between the music video and lip-syncing led to a desire for the spectacle and imagery of the music video to be transferred to live stage shows. Chris Nelson of The New York Times reported, "Artists like Madonna and Janet Jackson set new standards for showmanship, with concerts that included not only elaborate costumes and precision-timed pyrotechnics but also highly athletic dancing. These effects came at the expense of live singing."^[245] Thor Christensen of the Dallas Morning News commented that while Madonna earned a reputation for lip-syncing during her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, she has subsequently reorganized her performances by "stay[ing] mostly still during her toughest singing parts and [leaves] the dance routines to her backup troupe ... [r]ather than try to croon and dance up a storm at the same time."^[246] To allow for greater movement while dancing and singing, she was one of the earliest adopters of hands-free radio-frequency headset microphones, with the headset fastened over the ears or the top of the head, and the microphone capsule on a boom arm that extended to the mouth. Because of her prominent usage, the microphone design came to be known as the "Madonna mic".^[247]^[248]