Chapter 5 Madonna
'Life is short. My idea is that if I want to do something, I do it!
Madonna
Most pop stars know that they don't have a job for life. One or
two successful records may give them enough money to have a
good time for a few months. But the days of fast cars and long
hot days by the swimming pool don't last long. Most have
returned to ordinary life by the time they are thirty.
But Madonna isn't like that. She has been the world's top
female pop star since the middle of the 1980s. During that time
she has had many hit records, she has acted in several films, and
she has made millions and millions of dollars. She has won prizes
for her work, but she has also been strongly criticized by
politicians and religious leaders. She has married, separated and
married again. She has had two children and she has also shocked
a lot of people with her wild behaviour.
Some people say that she has been successful for such a long
time just because she is a wonderful singer and songwriter, but
most agree that it isn't as simple as that. Madonna has always
made sure that she is in control of her life. She has made careful
plans and has cleverly used the publicity that surrounds her. She
has also used her success to build a large international company
that makes big profits.
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But Madonna started right at the bottom. When nineteen-year-old
Madonna Ciccone arrived in New York City in 1978, she knew
that she wanted to be rich and she knew that she wanted to be a
star. But she came from an ordinary family in a town called
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Madonna
Pontiac in Michigan, and she had just $35 in her purse. New York
is no place for someone with no money, so her first years in the
city were very tough. She lived in rooms in some of the worst
areas, and she did all kinds of jobs to make money. Sometimes she
worked as an artist's model or a dancer. Sometimes she worked in
restaurants and bars. But there were also days when she was so
poor that she had to get her food from rubbish bags in the street.
During this difficult time, Madonna never forgot her dream of
becoming a star. When she wasn't earning money, she learnt to
sing and play musical instruments.. She also taught herself to write
music. Soon she was writing and recording her own songs. In
1982, someone at a record company listened to her song
'Everybody' and decided to offer her a recording contract. It
seemed that her dream had come true.
But Madonna quickly realized that she still had a long way to
go. 'Everybody' was a dance song and it was popular in the
nightclubs of New York, but most people in the US and the rest
of the world didn't notice it. This wasn't good enough for
Madonna. She wanted to find a way of getting everybody to buy
'Everybody'!
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In the days of Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones,
the music industry had been mainly about making music and
selling records. Pop stars were rarely seen on TV, so most people
listened to the radio to hear the latest songs from the pop world.
But in the early 1980s, that started to change. In 1981, an
American TV company called MTV (Music Television) started to
broadcast pop videos to teenagers and young people across the
US. Their first song was 'Video Killed The Radio Star' by the
British group, The Buggies. It was a perfect way to start, because
the song's words told the story of the future of the industry. Over
the next few months, across the US, more and more teenagers
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switched off their radios and turned on MTV. Soon MTV had
spread to a hundred countries around the world. The pop music
industry became more international than ever before. Record
companies realized that a good song needed a good video to
become a hit. Because of this, they started to look for singers
with their own style who could perform well on video.
Madonna knew that she could be this kind of star. She didn't
just have great songs and a great voice. She also had her own way
of dancing and her own way of dressing. She had had some
success in New York, but how could she now become a star on
the world stage?
She decided that she needed a manager to help her. Because
she was Madonna, an ordinary manager wasn't good enough; she
needed the best manager in the business. At that time, many
people thought that the best manager in the pop music industry
was Freddy Demann. He had worked with Michael Jackson for
several years and had helped him to produce some of the most
successful records of all time. Demann understood how to make
videos, and he knew how to work with MTV. So Madonna just
had to persuade him to work with her. But how?
In Madonna's position, most young singers sent a manager a
letter and a recording of their songs. But Madonna wanted to be
different. She found out Freddy Demann's address, walked
straight into his office and performed her songs in front of him.
Freddy was rather surprised, but he also liked what he heard and
what he saw.
'She had that special magic that very few stars have,' he said.
Freddy Demann was the right man for her. Her next song,
'Holiday', was also a dance song, but it wasn't just a hit in New
York. It was a hit on MTV; it was a hit across America; it was a hit
right around the world. Freddy also found an opportunity for her
to act in a Hollywood film. By the end of 1984, she wasn't just a
radio star; she wasn't just a video star; she was a film star as well!
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In the middle years of the 1980s, money and success seemed to
be the most important things in the world. The American
economy was doing very well and President Ronald Reagan had
reduced taxes, so people in business had a lot of money to spend.
In New York, young businesswomen wore big diamonds and
beautiful dresses from the world's top designers, and they loved to
drive to parties in expensive foreign cars. Intelligent people from
outside the business world were often asked,'If you're so clever,
why aren't you rich?' There was no answer to that.
During those years, Madonna's face was always in the
newspapers, her videos were always on MTV and her songs were
everywhere. She had one hit record after another. One of her
songs from 1985 seemed to explain the feeling of the time. 'We
are living in a material world,' she sang. 'And I am a material girl.'
Madonna had always wanted to be a public figure, but her
boyfriend in the middle years of the 1980s had very different
ideas. Sean Penn was a film star who had grown up in a famous
family and, perhaps because of that, he hated newspaper
photographers. This was a problem, because photographers
followed Madonna everywhere. At first, Sean tried to push them
away. But when they didn't stay away, he hit them. And when
they still didn't stay away, he tried to frighten them with his guns.
When Sean and Madonna got married in 1985, the newspapers
sent helicopters so they could photograph the wedding. This was
too much for Sean; he left the party and shot at them with his
gun from the ground. In the end, Sean's problems with the
newspapers caused too many problems and he was sent to prison.
Madonna separated from him after just a few years of marriage.
It was a hard lesson in the problems that come from too much
public attention. But Madonna was one of the most famous
women in the world and she loved the publicity. So when the
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