Madonna Best Songs

For a female music artist that boarded the train to fame relatively late in her career, Michigander pop entertainer Madonna has nonetheless compiled a body of work which rivals that of any other woman in the history of show business.

Relocating to New York City after graduating high school in the late 1970s, Madonna formed bands with love interests for several years -- none of which met with any notable success -- before receiving her break and signing a minor deal with major recording label Sire in 1982. She parlayed the deal into an agreement for a debut album, which arrived in the summer of 1983. Madonna, on the strength of three teeny-boppish Go-Gos-styled Top Twenty hits ("Holiday", "Lucky Star" and "Borderline") served up the latest sexy blonde pop sensation to the wider world, but it could not guarantee staying power in industry built on "just another pretty face."

Possessing an uncommonly strong savvy for self-preservation in securing her newly-gained success, Madonna assembled both a strong vision and a strong supporting cast for the production of her sophomore record, the intentionally provocative Like A Virgin (1984). While the pop flavor still leaned on the sugary side, the subject matter had matured in a big hurry, and the diva succeeded in distancing herself from the all-too-common also-ran sexpot one-hit-wonder moniker. Formulaic dance hits "Dress You Up", "Angel" and "Into The Groove" echoed her first album, but "Material Girl" introduced a coy hussy bartering the bulge in every guy's pair of jeans in exchange for the good life, and the title track had the coy hussy reaching into those jeans -- figuratively over the radio, and literally through the medium of an unforgettably slutty live performance on an MTV Video Awards telecast. The strategy paid off in spades: Madonna became the Material Girl and catapulted into superstardom.

Following the breakthrough of Virgin, Madonna dominated the rest of the 1980s as few other pop artists have dominated their respective eras. The all-but-christened Material Girl, over the course of her next three albums (1986's True Blue, 1987's soundtrack Who's That Girl and 1989's Like A Prayer), perfected the musical recipe that would serve her so effectively for the remainder of her career. In addition to smash ballads ("Crazy For You", from the movie Vision Quest, and "Live To Tell"), Madonna produced an unending stream of danceable Top Five singles right up until the end of the decade: "True Blue", "La Isla Bonita", "Causing A Commotion", "Express Yourself" and "Cherish" simply framed off Number Ones "Papa Don't Preach", "Open Your Heart", "Who's That Girl" and "Like A Prayer." It was the most prolific procession of songs ever unleashed on America's singles charts.

By 1990, Madonna had settled into an image that traded considerably on the "golden era" of American pop culture. Not surprisingly so -- given that her physical presence and enormous pop culture icon status vould be likened to perhaps America's most famous female movie star of the century, Marilyn Monroe. The swirling, Euro-stylish "Vogue" sold over two million copies evoking said golden era. Following "Vogue", and two additional Number Ones between 1990 and 1992 ("Justify My Love" and A League Of Their Own's "This Used To Be My Playground"), Madonna attacked the mid-1990s like a freshly-divorced horny cougar, focusing her hormones on the highly-publicized 'Sex' book project and tailoring her ensuing album releases over the next few years around the book's subject. Both Erotica (1992) and Bedtime Stories (1994) heavily leaned on racy themes...

After starring in the 1996 movie production of the fabled Argentine leader Evita (whose cover of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" was also a hit), Madonna rolled out a pair of more mature discs, 1998's Ray Of Light and 2000's Music. "Frozen", "Ray Of Light", "Music" and "Don't Tell Me" all charted Top Five. Concurrently, the Material Girl contributed tunes to a number of movie releases, including "Beautiful Stranger" (for 1999's Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me), a cover of "American Pie" (for 2000's The Next Best Thing), and "Die Another Day" (for the 2002 James Bond series installment of the same name). Madonna remained front and center in the spotlight of mainstream pop culture throughout the world during this period, despite advancing in age into her forties.

Madonna spent much of the 2000s involved in obscure causes, to which she lent a substantive high-profile spotlight. Early in the decade, she embraced the Eastern philosophy known as Kabbalah and incorporated some of its messages in her recordings. Later in the decade, she supported a central African orphanage in the nation of Malawi, and adopted a child from the country. Musically, however, the Material Girl retained her fully relevant cultural form -- capably infusing the styles of the era's young titans into her act. Collaboration partners included Britney Spears ("Me Against The Music"), Justin Timberlake ("4 Minutes") and Lil Wayne ("Revolver").

On the stage in the new millenium, Madonna continued to exhibit the energy of a performer half her age on mammoth concert tours that routinely spanned the globe. Her Re-Invention World Tour of 2004 grossed well over nine figures, the Confessions Tour of 2006 narrowly missed grossing two hundred million dollars, and the Sticky & Sweet Tour of 2008-2009 grossed over four hundred million dollars. Unlike many aging musicians merely striving to milk a few dollars out of their back catalogs in their twilight years, Madonna's 2000s tours were innovative and energetic events that refused to deprive younger fans of the artist's hard-earned distinction as America's first lady of popular music. As a result, Madonna wound up being the highest-selling and most-played artist of the 2000s, in the US and UK, respectively.

Madonna shows little sign of slowing up in the 2010s. Her 2012 itinerary includes a Super Bowl halftime performance appearance, and the release of a new studio album, titled M.D.N.A. Fans can only speculate as to how many more personas the Material Girl will be inventing for herself in the years to come, before she elects to finally hang up her jewel-studded crown and corset.