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Madonna
AMERICAN SINGER AND ACTRESS
Written by Lucy M. O’Brien for Encyclopedia Britannica
Biography
Madonna, original name Madonna Louise Ciccone, (born August 16, 1958, Bay City, Michigan, U.S.), American singer, songwriter, actress, and entrepreneur whose immense popularity in the 1980s and ’90s allowed her to achieve levels of power and control that were nearly unprecedented for a woman in the entertainment industry.
Born into a large Italian American family, Madonna studied dance at the University of Michigan and with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City in the late 1970s before relocating briefly to Paris as a member of Patrick Hernandez’s disco revue. Returning to New York City, she performed with a number of rock groups before signing with Sire Records. Her first hit, “Holiday,” in 1983, provided the blueprint for her later material—an upbeat dance club sound with sharp production and an immediate appeal. Madonna’s melodic pop incorporated catchy choruses, and her lyrics concerned love, sex, and relationships—ranging from the breezy innocence of “True Blue” (1986) to the erotic fantasies of “Justify My Love” (1990) to the spirituality of later songs such as “Ray of Light” (1998). Criticized by some as being limited in range, her sweet girlish voice nonetheless was well suited to pop music.
Madonna was the first female artist to exploit fully the potential of the music video. She collaborated with top designers (Jean-Paul Gaultier), photographers (Steven Meisel and Herb Ritts), and directors (Mary Lambert and David Fincher), drawing inspiration from underground club culture or the avant-garde to create distinctive sexual and satirical images—from the knowing ingenue of “Like a Virgin” (1984) to the controversial red-dressed “sinner” who kisses a black saint in “Like a Prayer” (1989). By 1991 she had scored 21 top ten hits in the United States and sold some 70 million albums internationally, generating $1.2 billion in sales. Committed to controlling her image and career herself, Madonna became the head of Maverick, a subsidiary of Time Warner created by the entertainment giant as part of a $60 million deal with the performer. Her success signaled a clear message of financial control to other women in the industry, but in terms of image she was a more ambivalent role model.
In 1992 Madonna took her role as a sexual siren to its full extent when she published Sex, a soft-core pornographic coffee-table book featuring her in a variety of “erotic” poses. She was criticized for being exploitative and overcalculating, and writer Norman Mailer said she had become “secretary to herself.” Soon afterward Madonna temporarily withdrew from pop music to concentrate on a film career that had begun with a strong performance in Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), faltered with the flimsy Shanghai Surprise (1986) and Dick Tracy (1990), and recovered with Truth or Dare (1991, also known as In Bed with Madonna), a documentary of one of her tours, and A League of Their Own (1992). She scored massive success in 1996 with the starring role in the film musical Evita. That year she also gave birth to a daughter.
In 1998 Madonna released her first album of new material in four years, Ray of Light. A fusion of technomusic and self-conscious lyrics, it was a commercial and critical success, earning the singer her first musical Grammy Awards, among them the award for best pop album (her previous win had been for a video). She won another Grammy the following year, for the song “Beautiful Stranger,” which she cowrote and performed for the movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999). Her experimentation in electronica continued with Music (2000). In 2005 she returned to her roots with Confessions on a Dance Floor, which took the Grammy for best electronic/dance album.
Despite a marriage in the 1980s to actor Sean Penn and another to English director Guy Ritchie (married 2000; divorced 2008), with whom she had a son, Madonna remained resolutely independent. (She also later adopted four children from Malawi.) That independent streak, however, did not prevent her from enlisting the biggest names in music to assist on specific projects. This fact was clear on Hard Candy (2008), a hip-hop-infused effort with writing and vocal and production work by Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, and Pharrell Williams of the hit-making duo the Neptunes. With MDNA (2012), which featured cameos from women rappers M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, she continued to prove herself a shrewd assimilator of cutting-edge musical styles. Rebel Heart (2015), featuring production work by Diplo and Kanye West and guest appearances from Minaj and Chance the Rapper, was an ode to her career. Madonna was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
In addition to acting in movies—she also starred in the romantic comedy The Next Best Thing (2000) and in Ritchie’s Swept Away (2002)—Madonna pursued work behind the camera. She cowrote and directed Filth and Wisdom (2008), a comedy about a trio of mismatched flatmates in London, as well as the drama W.E. (2011), which juxtaposed the historical romance between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII with the fictional story of a woman in the 1990s researching Simpson’s life.
In January 2018, Madonna revealed that she had started working on her 14th studio album. She later clarified the album would be infused with Portuguese fado music, with its release scheduled in 2019. Four months later, she appeared at the Met Gala and performed a new song called “Beautiful Game”, along with “Like a Prayer” and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. At the MTV Video Music Awards, Madonna paid tribute to singer Aretha Franklin, who had died the previous week. In October, she contributed guest vocals to the track “Champagne Rosé” on American rapper Quavo’s debut album, Quavo Huncho. Her other projects include directing the MGM film, Taking Flight, based on ballet dancer Michaela DePrince’s memoir, as well as adapting Andrew Sean Greer’s novel, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells, into a film. On April 14, 2019, Madonna revealed that Madame X would be the title of her upcoming fourteenth studio album. The first single, a collaboration with Colombian singer Maluma called “Medellín”, was released on April 17. Madonna also features on the track Soltera on Maluma’s 2019 album “11:11”. She also announced the Madame X Tour, focused on small venues in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. In May, Madonna performed as the interval act at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest with musician Quavo. Madame X was released on June 14 and debuted number one on Billboard 200.
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