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Exploiting her good taste

Madonna enlisted Nile Rodgers to work with her on Like a Virgin. "I am always amazed by Madonna's incredible judgement when it comes to making pop records,” he later said. “I've never seen anyone do it better, and that's the truth.” Since then, Madonna has displayed a canny sense of the zeitgeist, enlisting of-the-moment talents who spur each new phase of her career

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Harnessing the power of the music video

Music television and Madonna emerged around the same time, and she pioneered the use of music videos as a powerful tool for stating her vision while also provoking controversy. In 2003, MTV named Madonna “The Greatest Music Video Star” ever

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Creating canny synergy between movies and music

In 1985, Madonna played the title role in Desperately Seeking Susan (pictured), which propelled her song “Into the Groove” to chart success. She would tie in movies and music for the next few decades, to great commercial success.

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Inspiring a host of copycats

Madonna’s 1985 The Virgin Tour inspired a trend of Madonna wannabes, also referred to as Madonnabes. Macy’s department store even opened up a boutique called ‘Madonnaland’, selling clothes in the singer’s signature style.

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Refusing to be shamed

In 1985, Penthouse and Playboy released nude photos of the singer, taken in 1978 before she was famous. Madonna refused to express any shame or remorse despite the media frenzy, becoming a template for the famous women whose nude pictures are still leaked and sold today.

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Settling down without selling out

Madonna married actor Sean Penn in 1985, and she dedicated her third album True Blue to him. Still, she continued to push the barriers of what was permissible, with “Papa Don't Preach” taking on teenage pregnancy, and starring as a stripper in the video for “Open Your Heart.”

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Provoking the Pope

After she dedicated the song “Papa Don't Preach” to Pope Jean Paul II, the Pope asked Italian fans to boycott her Who’s That Girl World Tour in 1987. The tour would still end up grossing an impressive $25 million. (A massive accomplishement in 1987)

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Tackling racism—and religion

Madonna released her fourth album, Like a Prayer, in 1989. The lead single, also called “Like a Prayer,” used Catholic imagery to tell the story of a black man falsely accused of murder, and featured Madonna kissing a black saint. It once again drew the Vatican’s ire. Rolling Stone said the album was "as close to art as pop music gets."

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…Even if it costs her sponsors money

While the “Like a Prayer” video was being filmed, Pepsi announced they had paid $5 million to feature the song in an advert. But after the full video was released, protests caused Pepsi to pull the ad.

Controversy:




Pepsi Commercial:


Like A Prayer:

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Those conical bras

Madonna’s numerous on-stage outfits mimicked her desire for rapid-fire transformation, and featured everything from velvet corsets to kitsch gowns. Jean-Paul Gaultier’s conical bra was debuted on her 1990 Blond Ambition tour, and became instantly iconic.

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Pushing the boundaries of on-stage performance

The intimacy of a live performance allowed her to push her vision further than she could in music videos. During her 1990 Blond Ambition tour, Madonna simulated masturbation during her performance of “Like a Virgin,” causing officials in Toronto to threaten to arrest her unless she stopped.

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Popularising the ‘Madonna mic’

Singing was always secondary to Madonna's live performances, but it still was necessary. To allow her more freedom of movement, she was one of the early adopters of the hands-free headset microphone. She used it so much, it became known as the Madonna mic.

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Reviving Old Hollywood…

Madonna drew from Hollywood iconography from the start of her career, variously sporting Marilyn Monroe hairstyles and Greta Garbo outfits. For her 1990 single “Vogue,” she famously namechecked Old Hollywood stars.

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...Even in her personal life

In 1990, Madonna began a relationship with the 53-year-old actor Warren Beatty, who had shot to fame in the 1960s, when the two starred in the film Dick Tracy.

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Bringing gay culture into the spotlight
For her “Vogue” video, Madonna combined Old Hollywood iconography with dancers performing the vogue dance routine, which originated in the Harlem ballroom gay scene in the late 1980s. She has since enjoyed lifelong status as a gay icon.

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Making sadomasochism mainstream

Long before 50 Shades of Grey, Madonna’s 1990 video for “Justify My Love” featured sadomasochism, voyeurism and bisexuality. It proved to be too much for MTV, who refused to play it. It didn't hurt the song, which spent two weeks at number one.



Madonna defends her video on Nightline:

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Re-defining the documentary

Madonna’s first documentary, Madonna: Truth or Dare, was released in 1991 and became the highest-grossing documentary ever at that time. It followed Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour, and was praised for its supportive depiction of her LGBTQ backing dancers.

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Releasing a book about sex

Madonna released her coffee table book Sex in 1992, topping the New York Times bestseller list. The book received negative reviews at the time, but later was re-assessed as a bold, post-feminist statement. Rapper Vanilla Ice, who despite appearing naked in the book, later said it ruined their relationship. Today the Sex book is out of Print but one of the most sought after books in the world.

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Scholars study her cultural influence

The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Subcultural Identities, and Cultural Theory was published in 1992, and called “laughable” by the New York Times. The same year, Rolling Stone reported that “Madonna Studies” were being taught at Harvard, Princeton and UCLA.

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Breaking the taboo around AIDS

Her fifth studio album, Erotica, was a concept album about sex, and featured her alter ego Mistress Dita. The song “In This Life” is an elegy to the friends she lost to AIDS, an illness which, at the time, was still shrouded in taboo.

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Popularising new jack swing

New jack swing, a fusion genre and staple of the late 80s New York club scene, was adopted for Erotica and follow-up album Bedtime Stories. Entertainment Weekly wrote that: “She could actually be viewed as new jack swing’s godmother. Her early work presaged new jack’s central belief—that there’s nothing separating raw sex from true romance.”

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Entering the world of musicals

Madonna starred in 1996 film Evita as Eva Perón, Argentina's First Lady. Her soundtrack to the film was a foray away from pop and into musical theatre, requiring Madonna to train her voice in a new style and register. Along with the birth of her first child Lourdes the same year, Evita marked a shift away from her disco sex-queen image.

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Flirting with spirituality...
The once “Material Girl” became involved with the esoteric spiritual discipline Kabbalah in 1996, arguably spawning today’s celebrity spiritualists such as Gwyneth Paltrow.

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...And putting it in her music
Ever the cultural magpie, Madonna drew on her newfound spirituality as well as electronic dance music for her smash hit 1998 album Ray of Light. The album contains a track called "Shanti/Ashtangi," reflecting Madonna’s love of yoga.



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For better or worse, she popularised cultural appropriation

Not all of Madonna’s stunts look quite so cool in the light of 2018. The Ray of Light music videos feature Japanese-style visuals and South Asian hand painting seemingly without much reason other than invoking a sense of “mysticism”.