Madonna has been in the music industry and the public eye since 1982 when she signed a record deal with Sire, a major label that belonged to Warner Bros' Records.
She has released 11 studeo albums aswell as Greatest Hits CD's like the recent 'Celebration'. And has realeased around 75 singles, 12 of which were US number ones and 13 Uk number ones. Madonna has a grand total of 59 UK top ten hits.
Being in the music industry for 4 decades has made Madonna an icon whos musical and fashion style is constantly changing.
80's music and fashion
When Madonna first came out in 1982 she immidiately fit in with the style of music that was around at the time. Some would say this is 'cheesy pop'
80's pop is still very popular today and so is the fashion.
80's fashion is things like, leg warmers, rara skirts, studded belts, fingerless gloves, laced gloves, leggins/footless tights, bangles, beads, crosses and head scarf's with black nail varnish and black lipstick - all these things are back in fashion now!!
You can watch any film, TV or music video's set in or from the 80's these are the types of things people wear, Madonna started this trend off.
The best video to show this fashion is 'Like A Virgin' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgkOCJ9PGkk
The song 'Open Your Heart' was the song that brought the famous pointy bra into the scene, and is probably Madonna's most memorable outfit which is popular with fancy dress and other celebrities. Madonna has warn on 'the pointy' on her biggest world tour 'Blonde Ambition' which made the pointy bra most famous.
New pop stars like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry have been inpired to used this in their video's -
Madonna is known for using her sexuality in order to grab people's attention and sell records. The pointy bra is a sexual image that's supposed to be a turn on because it gives the image of nipples. The videos to 'Erotica' and 'Justify My Love' are known to be two of the sexiest video's ever...
When Madonna released 'Like A Prayer', although it reached number one in 7 countries, the video caused a lot of controversy because it features a black Jesus which is seen as blasphemy to a lot of people. (it also contains flaming crucifixes and she kisses Jesus' feet which disrespected a lot of people)
This video was actually banned when it was first released.
Vogue
'Vogue' is one of Madonna's most popular songs ever, it topped the charts in over 30 countries and has won awards for both the song and video.
Madonna was inspired by vogue dancers Jose and Luis Xtravaganza who are famous vogue dancers. 'Voguing' was a new thing in the 90's that is simply just adding movement to poses, so Madonna saw this as an opportunity and made voguing the new, popular thing to do.
Film soundtracks
Madonna has done a number of songs for films, her most popular one is most likely to be 'Die Another Day' for the James Bond film.
But she also did 'Beautiful Stranger' for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, which is a kind of parody of secret agent films like James Bond. Because Austin Powers is set in the 60's the musical sound of this song changed slightly to go with the film.
Sampled music
Madonna had a come-back in 2005 with the song 'Hung Up' which went straight to number 1 in 9 countries after a few years with some flopped singles.
I think the song was so successful because it uses a sample of music from ABBA's 'Gimme Gimme Gimme' which is a really, really popular song.
An American rap group called Young Black Teenagers used a sample from Madonna's song 'Justify My Love' to make the song 'To My Donna'
Lady Gaga Madonna copycat?
Ever since Lady Gaga came onto the music scene, people have debated whether she is just a rip off of Madonna by wearing extravagant outfit's etc.
The tune to the chorus of Lady Gaga's song 'Born This Way' is very, very, very similar to Madonna's 'Express Yourself' so Lady Gaga might be trying to be like 'the modern day Madonna'
Even though I like them both, I do think Gaga is a complete rip off of Madonna! especially with this song!
Country
Madonna briefly changed her sound to a slightly more country than pop. She did this when she did a cover of Don McLean's classic 'American Pie' to recount 'the day the music died' when the plane that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper crashed.
During this period, Madonna released the album 'Music' that contained a lot of more country sounding songs, like 'Don't Tell Me'
Different styles
Throughout her career, Madonna has had loads of memorable styles, and on the Madonna special of Glee there is a point in the song Finn and Rachel sing where if you look in the background you see people wearing outfits from different era's of Madonna's music.
Celebration
Madonna's most recent greatest hits album is in the style of the most famous Andy Warhol painting the Marylin Monroe one.
Madonna had already used Marylin Monroe as a reference in her video for 'Material Girl' where she references the film 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes' and the part of it when Marylin Monroe sings 'Diamonds are a girls best friend'
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