- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Madonna’s first album Madonna was released two years after MTV first went on the air; and no one, male or female, was a bigger star on MTV.
Madonna – Madonna (1983): Madonna’s first album Madonna was released two years after MTV first went on the air, almost to the day; and no one, male or female, was a bigger star on MTV or made better use of the music video medium. In her first television appearance in January 1984, on American Bandstand, Dick Clark asked Madonna about her ambitions, and she famously replied: “To rule the world”. You tell me; she certainly ruled the entertainment world in the 1980’s and has scarcely been nudged from her throne ever since. From the beginning, Madonna adroitly pushed the envelope on fashion, female empowerment, inclusiveness, nudity, and sexuality. As an example, one of the photographs on the sleeve for Madonna shows Madonna stretching her arms upward and exposing her navel; while not exactly taboo, women rarely bared their belly buttons in those days except at the beach.
Also, the music video for “Borderline” shows Madonna with a Latin-American boyfriend, one of the first images of interracial relationships on MTV – and just plain TV for that matter. Madonna includes Madonna’s first single “Everybody”, a dance club hit in 1982 that got her signed to Sire Records. Madonna wrote that song and another four songs on Madonna. Music videos were released for four songs on Madonna; besides “Everybody”, they are “Lucky Star”, “Burning Up”, and “Borderline”. Two other songs on the album were released as singles, “Holiday” and “Physical Attraction”, with “Holiday” becoming Madonna’s first hit single – reaching #16 on the Billboard Hot 100, and attaining the Top 10 in at least a half dozen countries. “Lucky Star” and “Borderline” were both Top 10 hits in the U.S. Nearly 40 years later, Madonna remains a force in popular music, with her 14th studio album, Madame X (2019) being her 9th album to reach #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. Also, Madonna holds the record, with 50, for the most Number One songs on one or another of the Billboard charts.