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The unyielding star of Madonna: How the queen of pop built her endless reign

Hospitalized with a severe bacterial infection last month, Madonna is reportedly recuperating at her New York home now.

July 07, 2023 / 12:54 IST
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Madonna in Paris on the Rebel Heart Tour in 2015. The original “Material Girl” created the template for following your creative vision that the greatest artists today, from Adele to Beyonce to Miley Cyrus, continue to follow. (Image by Chris Weger via Wikimedia Commons 2.0)

1984. New York Radio City Music Hall. The first-ever MTV Video Music Awards. Madonna, on stage, gave an unforgettable performance of her breakout hit “Like a Virgin”. Madonna, sheathed in a white wedding veil, lay on the stage. As thousands of balloons fell from the ceiling, Madonna brought the mic close to her mouth and whispered, “it feels so good inside”.

“Like a Virgin” polarized public opinion like little else at the time. Pre-pubescent girls danced to it playing on the radio, not knowing what it meant. Their mothers fretted about the “bad influence” of her songs, her actions, her visual imagery—which only got wilder with the years, with “Papa Don’t Preach” even getting whammied for supporting teenage pregnancy. Either way, it brought Madonna enough attention to firmly place her in the galaxy of rising pop stars of the time–indeed, she would go on to reign the charts, alongside Prince and Michael Jackson.

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But one woman’s “scandalous” is another’s “provocative”. And provoking is what Madonna, the original queen of pop, has done through her four-decade long career–and why she remains an unyielding icon at 64.