Music Icon Analysis by David Manning

Madonna, born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958, is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV.

Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including:

- Like a Virgin

- Papa Don't Preach

- Like a Prayer

- Vogue

- Frozen

- Music

- Hung Up

- 4 Minutes

Madonna is best known in genre in music is dance, rock and pop.

Madonna has been praised by critics for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy.

Her career was further enhanced by film appearances that began in 1979, despite mixed commentary. She won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her role in Evita (1996), but has received harsh feedback for other film roles. Madonna's other ventures include being a fashion designer, children's book author, film director and producer, and owner of her own recording company Maverick corporation, as a joint venture with Time Warner. She has been acclaimed as a businesswoman, and in 2007, she signed an unprecedented US $120 million contract with Live Nation.

Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States, behind Barbra Streisand, with 64 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Considered to be one of the most influential figures in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry. She is recognized as an inspiration among numerous music artists.

In the early years it seemed that she was out to make a statement trying to push the boundaries of society throughout the world. We know this as “In the Grove” released on the 23rd of June 1985. The video contains some very revealing shots of her body, for example she has several scenes of her rolling around in a sexual way. With the symbol of the bed already being sexual then her lying around in a skin tight black outfit, black tights and a black leather jacket, all gives a sex icon. When it was first released this in 1985 this video would have been extremely revealing due to the audience hasn’t seen this manor of sex symbol before. This video would have pushed and perhaps broken some of the boundaries of what the audience thinks is ok for the audience to watch and prod cast. From the outset it was clear that Madonna was trying to change the music industry in mainly this sexual way.

Four years later in 1989 she brought out “Express Yourself” this was one of her most famous videos throughout her career. The reason for this was due to her character being played by her but in a male gender. This was shown by her wearing a suit, dancing like she was proving she had male genitors and showing she had power by the camera pointing up with her looking down stroking a cat, these are all male characteristics. This could have been very controversial at the time due to almost making a statement that women had won their companies against sexism. Which again adds to the whole concept of her trying to push the boundaries of the audience. This whole breaking the rules has really been shown as one of her main motifs throughout all of her media texts.

Madonna has a perfect body this being slim, tall and flexible. This is well known by the record company so they have put in all her videos close ups and extreme close ups for her body, either with tight clothing or skin. This is adding to the sex appeal and over all selling points as it appeals to all the audience both female and male; which results in her having a bigger fan bass which should produce more sales.

In “Express Yourself” great enigma is created through this is done with the hairstyle, costume, props and settings...

The hairstyle is bleach blond and short; this meets the characteristics of a bimbo. This is further shown by her costume were for some duration of the video she isn’t wearing any cloths and the rest of the time she is dancing in a flirtatious manor, a good example of this is when she pulls part of her suit open showing part of her bra, this is a strong point being made that she wants to give the impression that she wants to show her body. The most interesting prop in “Express Yourself” has to be the dog chain around her neck I the bedroom, with the ellipsis o the owner of the factory, this gives the point that she feels looked in bed like she can’t escape. The setting of a hot steamy factory with the muscular man all working showing off their bodies. A combination all of this really does give out the perfect ideologies of a bimbo, which is conveyed in so many ways to give her this star image that she wants.

All Madonna’s videos contain digetic and non digetic singing. This enables her to dance, create a story line and still show off her vocal ability.

Most of Madonna videos contain a story line within; this is helped by the code. The two videos that i have looked at both show a good change of editing skill and interesting camera angles. However this wasn’t pushing the boundaries as the techniques used and the edits have all been done before, it’s clear that what was in the frame was more important rather than how the frame is being created.

Madonna is an icon and will always be an icon for the music industry and for artist. Madonna has created moral panic in the mass media in all of her music ventures. This will continue to create debate as she will keep pushing the boundaries.