Like A Virgin, Madonna’s catchy song that encourages women around the world to embrace their sexuality, has turned 40.

Her first number one hit in the US, it would become her signature song and create a viral moment 20 years later. Britney Spears at the MTV VMAs.

As we mark this milestone, we take a look back at the Queen of Pop and her many reinventions over the years.

Who is That Girl?

Queen of Pop, Material Girl, gay icon, and self-proclaimed “warrior,” Madonna means many things to many people.

Rihanna, Britney Spears, katy perry And Lady Gaga Everyone noticed the impact the 66-year-old star had on their careers. Beyonce – a woman with more Grammy nominations than anyone else in the world – I salute him as a “masterpiece genius.”

He had more top 10 hits than Elvis, sang a Bond song, met Queen Elizabeth and performed at the Super Bowl halftime show. There’s even an entire academic discipline dedicated to it – madonna studies.

This year and last year – after recovery some time in intensive care – toured the world, selling more than a million tickets and grossing over $220 million (£170 million).

His impact on the world has transcended the music industry. A post-modern icon who played the game by his own rules, he became one of the most recognizable faces of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The best-selling female recording artist of all time, her illustrious four-decade career earned her many awards and an induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

A master of reinvention, those of a certain age who have followed him over the years have come under the influence of a multitude of musical styles as well as a number of colorful personalities.

Their hits range from early pop songs in Into The Groove and True Blue to electronic dance beats in Ray Of Light, country vibes in Don’t Tell Me and classic musical theater in Don’t Cry For Me Argentina. took it.

As for her physical transformations, the only 26-year-old has gone from the fingerless gloves and lace look of her first number one, Like A Virgin, to the much-imitated Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra and shaved head of her Blonde Ambition sixth world tour. years later.

Then there was the Earth goddess hippie look for her first Ray Of Light album as a mother, and then there was Farrah Fawcett’s curly hair and leotard look that heralded her 50s.

Each different phase is as different as the next, and while each signals a mini-comeback of sorts, his ability to keep himself in the headlines has meant that he has rarely been out of the public spotlight over the past 44 years.

Dominating the cultural conversation

Always aware of the selling power of controversy, many moments in his career have dominated the cultural conversation for decades.

The 1989 video for Like A Prayer scandalized many by featuring burning crosses, bleeding stamps, and a sexually active black saint. The Vatican condemned this and Pepsi canceled the sponsorship deal. The resulting response helped the single become a massive hit, becoming its seventh number one on the Hot 100.

After opening the MTV VMAs in 2003 with a performance of Like A Virgin, Kissing on stage with Britney Spears It went viral two years before YouTube came along.

And when a live-on-stage wardrobe malfunction pulled her backwards down the stairs during a 2015 performance, she picked herself up and carried on. He later denied that the fall that left him whiplash was a publicity stunt.

Singer, actress, writer and businesswoman

Of course he has another job; she is not only a singer but also an actress. Although many decry her acting abilities, she has appeared in more than 20 feature films, including the Oscar-winning 1996 drama Evita, as well as numerous TV shows and commercials.

Rosanna Arquette (Desperately Seeking Susan); Antonio Banderas (Evita) and Warren Beatty (Dick Tracy). He has also performed on Broadway and the West End.

There’s also literature—her 1992 coffee table book Sex, about softcore pornography and sadomasochism—stayed atop the New York Times bestseller list for three weeks, becoming the fastest-selling coffee table book ever, selling more than 150,000 copies on its first day. of all time.

Considered a bold post-feminist work and featuring a nude Madonna, it remains one of the most sought-after out-of-print publications of all time.

When it comes to managing her own destiny, Madonna has taken charge from the very beginning, writing and producing much of her own music since the beginning of her career, managing to shape and direct her career the way she wants.

A businesswoman as well as an artist, Forbes has named her the highest-earning female musician 11 times and estimates her fortune to be $580 million (£457 million) by 2023.

In 2013, she launched her own skin care line, MDNA Skin.

‘Control freak’

As a woman at the top of her game and in financial control of her art, her business acumen has led to the Grammy, Brit and Ivor Novello award-winning singer being labeled a “control freak”.

But Madonna insists she values ​​collaboration, saying in a 2012 interview: “I can’t work on my own… I always need to hear what people think.”

While she was reportedly trying to find her way in the industry years before the #MeToo movement Harvey Weinstein (whose then-company, Miramax, produced the 1991 documentary Truth or Dare) told him: “Stay away from me, you smell like an ashtray.”

Her recent criticisms of ageism and sexism in both the music industry and society have received widespread media coverage.

So where did it all start? She was born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Michigan in August 1958, the eldest daughter of a Catholic family of six children.

She was named after her mother, who died of breast cancer when she was only five years old. This early loss caused Madonna to reject the idea of ​​having children for years, saying it “associated motherhood with sacrifice, pain, and ultimately death.”

19-year-old Madonna, who dropped out of college and moved to New York in 1978 to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, was raped at knifepoint during her first days in the city.

He has since said he never reported the incident to police for fear of humiliation.

Refusing to let the attack take her by surprise, she found a series of jobs, including at Dunkin’ Donuts and as a cloakroom girl, before transitioning from backing singer and dancer to solo artist.

Numerous number one hits followed across 14 studio albums. In addition to singing, he also plays piano, guitar, ukulele and drums.

An early adopter of the hands-free headset microphone, the piece of kit has since been unofficially dubbed the “Madonna microphone” in her honour.

Philanthropist, wife and mother

A woman who clearly knew the power of fame, she used it for good on many occasions.

In 1998, he founded the Ray Of Light Foundation, named after his seventh studio album, which promotes peace, equal rights and education for all.

In 2006, she founded the non-profit organization Raising Malawi, which supports orphans and vulnerable children, many of whom are directly affected by HIV and AIDS.

He donated money to his hometown Detroit after the city declared bankruptcy in 2014, and in 2020 – as COVID spread around the world – he donated $1 million (£788,000) to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help find a vaccine.

As for his personal life, he has been married twice. First, her infamous marriage to actor Sean Penn ended in 1989.

He later became an honorary Englishman – he bought an estate in Wiltshire and a pub in London, and even adopted the British film director accent after the wedding. Guy Ritchie. The couple separated in 2008 after eight years of marriage.

He had many other well-documented relationships with stars – albeit some brief. michael jacksonTupac, Vanilla Ice and Dennis Rodman.

In addition to her performing career, she is also mother to six children, including her own children Lourdes, 26, Rocco, 22, and David, 17, Mercy, 16, and twins Estere and Stella, 10, all adopted from Malawi. .

Raised a Catholic, in the early 2000s her devotion to Kabbalah, a form of Eastern mysticism, led her to change her name to Esther, meaning “star”.

‘I never give up, I never give up’

The one constant in his career has been his relentless work ethic. An exercise enthusiast, she occasionally exercises for five hours a day and follows a strict macrobiotic diet. It’s a dedication that has allowed him to maintain peak fitness and enter his 60s.

He has completed 12 challenging concert tours so far; most of them sold out and two of them broke records.

The Sticky & Sweet tour, which ran from August 2008 to September 2009, and the 60-date Confessions tour in 2006 were the highest-grossing tours by a female artist ($194 million and $411 million, respectively).

However, his last few tours were plagued by illness, leaving him unable to satisfy his own relentless work ethic. Multiple dates of the 2019-2020 Madame

Last year’s Celebration tour was postponed due to a “serious bacterial infection.” The 80-date jaunt resumes in London in October 2023, before embarking on a European and North American tour and wrapping up the biggest concert of his career at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro.

Madonna has previously described canceling concerts as a “punishment” and told fans during the Madame Stop performing “to avoid causing further and irreversible damage to my body.”

Despite all the setbacks, her record as the highest-grossing female touring artist of all time was only broken last year when Taylor Swift embarked on The Eras tour.

Perhaps the final word should go to Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: “Madonna and the career she built for herself made it possible for nearly every female pop singer to follow… She certainly raised the standards for all of them… For female artists It redefined what the parameters were.”