What can you tell me about Madonna

A.� In a world where the cult of 'celebrity' has taken over, Madonna harks back to a bygone age, when being a 'star' actually meant something. For example, someone like PJ Proby would only ever be a 'celebrity', John Lennon was always going to be a 'star'. These days, Gerri Halliwell is a celebrity; Madonna is most definitely, a star.

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Q.� �So how does Madonna manage to be so famous < xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

A.� A combination of talent and ambition, but mostly it is pure talent, in a variety of arenas.

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Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born on 16 August 1958 in Rochester Michigan, hardly the rock-and-roll capital of the world, but she had plans in that direction from an early age.

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At 19, Madonna moved to New York with plans to make a career as a ballet dancer. She studied for two years, subsidising her dance classes with a modelling career, experience that was to prove valuable in her later life.

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In 1979, she joined the Patrick Hernandez Revue, as a drummer, and the band enjoyed a hit single Born To Be Alive. Madonna moved to Paris with the band, then back to New York where she joined The Breakfast Club, initially as drummer, but soon as lead singer.

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After splitting from the band, Madonna recorded some dance-oriented demos, which were picked up by Mark Kamins, a New York DJ / producer. Kamins sent the tapes to Seymour Stein, founder and chief of the legendary Sire Records label. Not for nothing was Stein a legend�- he recognised talent when he heard it, and he signed Madonna. Kamins produced two dance hits for the new Sire artist�- Everybody and Physical Attraction.

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In June 1983, she recoded Holiday written by top dance producer Jellybean Benitez. The song made the Top 40, followed by an eponymous debut album, and Borderline, her first Top Ten single. The Madonna legend was off and running.

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Q.� Plenty of singers have managed a couple of hits, but hardly anyone has managed a career as successful and long-lived as Madonna's, how has she achieved such longevity

A.� Part of Madonna's skill has been to maintain a chameleon quality�- she has never kept the same look, or sound for very long, constantly changing and updating her image and style in a manner that has become text-book for any pop star who wants to stay the course. If you check out the careers of any female artists who have lasted beyond a couple of hits, they have done the same- see�Kylie Minogue who has metamorphosised from Pop Poppet through Dance Diva back to Pop Princess with adaptations of her image and style that are a carbon copy of the Madonna method. She's even managed to become known by just her first name, a feat few achieve�- even Janet Jackson has only just got round to dropping her famous surname to promote her new album.

Q.� When did Madonna's acting career begin

A.� It was around the time Lucky Star became the next in an endless line of hits Madonna signed to play the comedy drama Desperately Seeking Susan. The film was a success, and Madonna's acting was judged as adequate, if not groundbreaking. It's a significant fact that celluloid is the one area of superstardom in which Madonna has conspicuously failed to shine, although her recording career has more than overshadowed any misplaced ideas she had about being the next Monroe or Garbo.

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Q.� So her music continued to sell

A.� Not only did Madonna's music sell, her entire image began to take off in what was to become a familiar blitz of image and style. As Material Girl charted, Madonna toured for the first time as a solo artist, supported by The Beastie Boys. Even though Playboy and Penthouse published nude shots she had posed for seven years previously, Madonna's popularity, especially among American teenage girls, reached massive proportions. For the first time the phrase 'wannabe' was coined for her fans that copied her dress and style sense as she adapted and changed it to move her career forwards.

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Q.� What about other aspects of her life and career

A.� As huge a success Madonna was as a recording artist, other aspects of her life did not run as smoothly. The True Blue album was producing hit after hit in a manner that suggested that as a pop artist, Madonna could not fail. As an actress, and a wife�- she married actor Sean Penn in 1985, Madonna was less than a success. As Papa Don't Preach became Madonna's fourth American Number One, her film collaboration with Penn�- Shanghai Surprise�- was released to a hail of negative publicity. On the set, the pair had developed the odious nickname the 'poison Penns' thanks to their constant tantrums and arguments, and almost as an omen, the film opened to savage reviews and disastrous takings.

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In 1987, the tandem career of pop superstar and failed movie star continued.�Open Your Heart became the third hit single from the True Blue album, and the film Who's That Girl opened, again as a cinematic disaster.�Even a hit with the film's title song couldn't save Madonna's movie career, although she enjoyed some success acting on Broadway in a play called Speed The Plough.

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Q.� Wasn't it time to give up on acting

A.� Madonna was and always has been a shrewd judge of what makes her popular�- she rapidly moved her pop career into pole position. By 1989 she had divorced Sean Penn, created another huge wave of controversy with the video for her Like A Prayer single, and embarked on the year long Blonde Ambition tour. Even as her career as a singer continued to move platinum-selling records as a matter of course, Madonna still hankered after recognition as an actress, and managed to acquit herself reasonably well in the baseball movie A League Of Their Own, which gave her yet another hit single with This Used To Be My Playground.���

Q.� Controversy forgotten then

A.� Hardly! Madonna has never been an artist who likes to take the easy path, and she proved her wilfulness and willingness to go further than her contemporaries by releasing the metal-bound photographic collection Sex which caused outrage, and a similar reaction to her earlier film roles. The accompanying Erotica album bucked the negative trend and proved again that Madonna retains a sure touch when piloting her musical course. Two million copies later, she followed that with the Bedtime Stories album, which sold less than others, but still gave Madonna her biggest hit single to date with Take A Bow.

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Q.� Finally then, Madonna is doing what she's good at, making hit records, and leaving the acting to people who know what they are doing!

A.� Not entirely. In 1995, Madonna asked for, and received, the blessing of Andrew Lloyd Webber to appear in the title role of the film of the smash hit stage musical Evita. British fans of the stage show star Elaine Page were horrified, but Madonna performed well enough, receiving a Golden Globe award for her performance, but missing out on the Oscar that would have set the seal on her movie career.

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Q.� Does that bring us up to date

A.� Almost. In 1997, Madonna made yet another of the image changes that have ensured her fans never have chance to become bored with her look, or her sound. Her album Ray Of Light produced by dance guru William Orbit saw her move into the electro and trance aspects of dance culture, a brave, but successful venture for her. As the millennium approached, its biggest musical star released her Music album, and married film producer Guy Ritchie, father of her second child Rocco.

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Q.� So what's next

A.� The thread that runs through Madonna's career is that no one can begin to predict the direction her career, or her image, will take. As she�enjoys married life and motherhood, you can be sure that she is already planning her next musical manoeuvre, and like all the others, it will be worth waiting for.

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If you have a musical question, find an answer here.

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