Madonna

Madonna relocated to New York in 1978. Five years later, her self-titled debut was out, with “Holiday,” “Borderline” and “Lucky Star” among the songs that established her on radio, MTV and dance floors. The early records were lean and club-minded; the ambition surrounding them was already much larger.

Like a Virgin arrived in November 1984 with Nile Rodgers producing. It spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and the title single held the Hot 100 summit for six weeks. By then a Madonna single came with an image people could identify instantly. The wedding dress at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards became as fixed in pop memory as the song itself.

On Like a Prayer in 1989, she worked with Patrick Leonard and placed the huge gospel-powered title track beside songs such as “Promise to Try” and “Oh Father.” The album reached No. 1 around the world; “Like a Prayer” topped the singles charts in the U.S. and U.K. A year later, “Vogue” arrived with David Fincher’s black-and-white video, another case where choreography, styling and camera language became inseparable from the recording.

Film remained part of the workload. Her performance as Eva Perón in Evita won the 1997 Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy. Then came Ray of Light in 1998, made with William Orbit: colder electronics, distorted guitars and a different vocal presence. The album earned six Grammy nominations, with Madonna winning Best Pop Album, Best Dance Recording and Best Short Form Music Video.

Confessions on a Dance Floor pulled the focus back toward club music in 2005 and later won the Grammy for Best Dance/Electronic Album. Nearly two decades after that record, the Celebration Tour turned her catalogue into a four-decade retrospective and finished with a free Copacabana Beach show in Rio on May 4, 2024. In 2026 she reunited with Stuart Price for Confessions II, released by Warner Records on July 3.