20 challenging questions on Madonna — albums, tours, films, controversies and her four-decade reign over pop music.
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Madonna isn't just a pop star — she's the architect of modern pop itself. Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Bay City, Michigan on August 16, 1958, she moved to New York at 19 with 35 dollars and a dream of dancing. By 1983 she had a self-titled debut on Sire Records; by 1984 she was straddling a wedding cake at the MTV VMAs singing Like a Virgin; by the end of the decade she'd already invented the template every pop diva would follow.
Across forty years, Madonna has reinvented herself more times than any other artist in popular music — from the pearl-and-lace 'Boy Toy' of the early 80s to the steel-corseted provocateur of the Blond Ambition era, the spiritual electronica priestess of Ray of Light (1998), the cowboy-hatted disco queen of Music (2000), the Kabbalah scholar, the Madame X alter ego. She's sold over 300 million records, charted 38 US top-10 singles (more than any other artist), starred in Evita, won a Golden Globe, headlined Super Bowl XLVI and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.
She has feuded with the Vatican, scandalised Pepsi, married Sean Penn and Guy Ritchie, raised six children, fought ageism, broken touring records (Sticky & Sweet, MDNA, ) and — at 65 — drew people to in for the largest concert by a solo artist ever. Love her or loathe her, every era of pop since 1983 has been written in Madonna's handwriting.