Madonna

Four decades after its release, Vanity Fair writer Chris Murphy looks back at Madonna’s self-titled, self-assured debut album and how it laid the foundation for a young woman from Michigan to one day become the queen of pop.

"Unlike the others, I’d do anything / I’m not the same, I have no shame,” a 24-year-old Madonna proclaimed on “Burning Up,” the second single from her eponymous debut album. At the time, the world didn’t know just how true that was about the woman who’d go from shilling her singles on the dance floor to becoming the biggest, most influential pop star of all time. Whether performing an intimate acoustic set or entertaining thousands, Madonna is not and has never been like “the others.” If anything, the others have been trying to emulate her since she burst on the scene with Madonna on July 27, 1983, forever changing pop music. Through a mix of moxie, talent, and sheer force of will, she ascended to the highest echelon of music history—inventing the idea of the modern pop star and becoming the best-selling female recording artist of all time. There was Elvis. There was Michael Jackson. And there’s still Madonna.

Cut to New York City in the early ’80s, when a 20-something Madonna, originally Madonna Louise Ciccone of Bay City, Michigan, was just a downtown girl with a dream. After trying her hand at modern dance and fronting two bands, Breakfast Club and Emmy, Madonna decided to strike out on her own. Legend has it that her big break came when she tried to get DJ Mark Kamins to play her demo, and then met Sire Records’ Michael Rosenblatt during a night out at Danceteria. Rosenblatt introduced her to Sire founder Seymour Stein, who signed her, and thus Madonna was born—well, almost.....