Madonna magic
WITH A NEW STUDIO ALBUM OUT, MADONNA IS STILL AT THE TOP OF THE MUSIC SCENE. MIKE ATKINSON TRACES THE MATERIAL GIRL’S RISE FROM MANHATTAN CLUB KID TO QUEEN OF POP
Thirty years after Like A Virgin turned her into a global star, Madonna is still setting tongues wagging, flashbulbs popping and cash tills ringing, and yet seven years since her last internationally chart-topping hit, her place at the top of pop’s ladder looks a good deal less secure.
This spring, with the release of her thirteenth studio album Rebel Heart, the 56-year-old is once again gearing up to claim centre stage as a relevant pop artist, whose glory days are far from over. It’s a game which almost all of her contemporaries have long since given up, and yet Madonna’s determination seems as fierce as ever. It’s a determination which has fuelled one of the most remarkable success stories of modern times.
In contrast to the remote, quasi-regal position she now holds, safely sequestered behind superstardom’s velvet ropes, Madonna’s roots were grounded in club culture. Emerging from the cutting-edge Manhattan scene of the early 80s, she scaled the dance charts before setting her sights on the Top 40, using her club-savvy instincts to shape her sound and style.
It was a smart opening move, but this limited world was never going to contain Madonna for long. Doubtless mindful of the short shelf-life of most club-based acts, she wasted no time in trading dance chart credibility for mass pop appeal. Chic’s Nile Rodgers might have been her new producer, but Like A Virgin stepped firmly away from funkiness, shedding the egalitarianism of the dancefloor in favour of the nakedly ambitious individualism of the Reagan-Thatcher era. Madonna now wanted to be a star. She didn’t care who knew it, and she knew exactly how to get there. Material Girl, the album’s second hit, said it all: ironic and arch on one level, disarmingly sincere on another.
By the time of her third album, the staggeringly successful True Blue, any lingering traces of subversion had been snuffed out. The dream had been fulfilled. She was the stadiumfilling darling of suburban Middle America, whose songs had ceased to say anything much beyond “where’s the party?” Granted, Papa Don’t Preach tackled the controversial subject of an