Original subtitles

(AUDIENCE SCREAMS AND CHEERS)

Queen of pop.

She brought her liveness, she brought her identity,

she brought energy, she brought her style.

Mistress of reinvention.

She just loves to shock. She lives to shock.

With over 300 million record sales,

Madonna's been at the top of her game for over four decades.

But how did she get there?

And what were the secrets behind the songs that made her a superstar?

# Holiday... #

From the innocent...

MAN: Holiday is a fun, frothy pop song.

It's light as air, and you just can't resist how wonderful it is.

..to the provocative.

# Like a virgin... #

Like A Virgin? Like...like a WHAT?

Excuse me, lady?

..to the track that defined an entire era.

If there was ever a song that captured an attitude of the time,

that was a moment.

# 'Cause we are living in a material world... #

We speak to those who helped propel her to success -

from the musicians...

We decided maybe there's something between this song,

and this artist, might be something magical.

(ROBOTICALLY) # Living in a material world. #

..and those who sang on her big hits...

We finished Material Girl and it was just like,

"Oh, God, this is ridiculous.

"People are gonna love this!"

..to the writers.

MAN: We did get the response

that no-one would ever sing a song titled 'Like A Virgin',

but fortunately it was perfect for one singer,

and her name was Madonna.

# Like a virgin... #

We reveal the ruthless ambition

that took a struggling clubland hopeful...

What are your dreams? What's left?

To rule the world.

..to the pinnacle of global stardom.

This is Madonna,

and the story of the three songs that defined her career.

Madonna Louise Ciccone -

a dance school dropout from Michigan who went on to conquer the world,

and enjoy a 40-year career of unparalleled success.

It's just bigger than anything I could ever imagine.

From New York street chic

to Blonde Ambition,

from leather-clad

to Ray Of Light earth mother

to Evita,

over and over again

Madonna reinvented her music and look

to become the ultimate pop star survivor.

MAN: Was it 16 consecutive top five hits?

Oh, I don't know. Something like that.

Madonna has one of the most groundbreaking careers in pop music.

The first female pop star to have complete control over her career.

From William Orbit to Demolition Crew,

she's collaborated with the world's best producers

to create the world's biggest hits.

She is a vocalist who can bring her identity to everything she sings.

And she's still going strong today.

She was so...heat-seeking-missile focused on success.

I want longevity as a human being.

I want it to last forever.

She was like that from the beginning

and she's still like that now.

But if you want to understand why Madonna took the world by storm,

you need to explore just three huge songs -

her first three megahits...

# Holiday

# Like a virgin

# And I am a material girl

..to find the answer.

MAN: We have entered ignition. Three, two, one.

We have lift-off.

It's 1982, and the Columbia space shuttle's taking off

on its third mission into space.

Jimmy Connors is bringing bad boy of tennis John McEnroe

back down to earth.

And the sky's the limit for Michael Jackson,

as his Thriller album breaks all sales records.

Meanwhile, a young Madonna Ciccone

has risen from dance student in Michigan

to be on the verge of releasing her first single.

But it had been four tough years getting there.

When Madonna was 20,

she did what she now says is the bravest thing she ever done -

she dropped out of dance college and she went to New York.

She said it was the first time she'd been on a plane,

first time she'd been in a taxi.

She only had $35 in her pocket,

but she had a dream and she had a belief,

and it was for her the beginning of everything.

Madonna worked at a Dunkin Donuts to make money.

She lived in really cruddy, broken-down buildings

and rough parts of town.

To be a young woman on your own in Manhattan at the time,

you had to be made out of pretty stern stuff.

MADONNA: A lot of it has to do with imagination

and the great desire and need

to get out of that small town kind of feeling,

go somewhere and be somebody,

because you feel like you're missing something.

As well as being edgy, the city was a hotbed of artistic invention.

In and around the club scene,

the ambitious Madonna soaked up all the influences on offer.

So, the underground scene in New York in the early '80s,

when Madonna was running around, was wild.

Hiii!

It was filled with a lot of people who didn't have a lot of money

but who had a lot of creativity.

I would say there was just an incredible rhythmic surge

in New York City during that time.

The city was raw, the city was accessible.

You could come from anywhere, and absolutely reinvent yourself,

and that's what Madonna did.

There was a buzz going on with Madonna,

because Madonna had so much charisma.

She was really a new upcoming phenomena, you know, in New York.

Everybody knew about her in town.

Although New York had been at the centre of earlier music trends,

styles were heading in new directions.

By that time, the big crest of disco had really come and then receded.

People still wanted to dance, but it had to change a little bit,

and Madonna's music really... early music really reflects that.

She'd do her act at clubs, probably with pre-recorded music,

doing, like, dance stuff at clubs.

It was about the music, the presentation, the visual image.

You can see that she's very influenced by people like Debbie Harry,

who had that kind of glamour and grit.

MADONNA: I was inspired by Debbie Harry,

because she seemed very in charge of what she was doing,

and she also had a sort of wittiness about her, and street smarts.

I liked her. She was a role model.

Grace Jones is also the apotheosis of it.

# Pull up to the bumper, baby

# In your long black limousine

You don't just get music on its own.

What you get is the music matches the attitude

which matches the visuals which matches the videos.

After months on the music circuit fringe,

Madonna signed her first record deal,

and in October 1982,

her label released her debut single, Everybody.

# Everybody

# Come on, dance and sing

# Everybody

# Get up and do your thing

We had heard her sing Everybody, the song.

# Everybody. # You know?

Which is sort of like a singalong,

so we were very impressed with it,

and I liked it a lot when I first heard it.

MATTHEW RETTENMUND: Everybody is like an anthem,

but it's a very low-key anthem.

It's a post disco sound.

So, it's kinda like you can imagine being in the afterhours club,

as opposed to frenetically dancing on the dance floor.

The song may have been low-key, but the singer had high-powered friends,

and in her determination to be a success,

she was prepared to call on them.

Madonna had been dating the DJ at Danceteria, Mark Kamins,

and she decided that she was going to impress upon Mark

that he needed to play this music.

Now, this is his beautiful girlfriend,

and it's a song that he liked,

but he was afraid because he thought, "What if everybody stops dancing?"

But he took the risk. He played it.

And nobody stopped dancing. Everybody continued dancing.

They loved it.

Loved it and bought it.

Not only did the song become a clubland favourite,

it reached the top five in the US dance charts.

DAVID GRANT: It's the world superstar in embryo.

You can't yet tell she's going to be a superstar,

but what you can tell is she has an identity,

she has an attitude, and she has a presence,

and it's all there.

# But you don't even know I'm alive

# And this pounding in my heart just won't die

# I'm burning up

Keen to cash in on her early success,

Madonna's label rushed out a follow-up dance single, Burning Up.

# I'm burning up, burning up for your love

# I'm burning up

# Burning up for your love

I really enjoyed Madonna's first singles, Burning Up and Everybody.

They were so melodic, poppy and dancy all at the same time,

and then I saw a photograph of her.

I thought, "OK, she's sort of a contender here."

Because she was combining this street look

with this very accessible pop sound.

# Now tell me what you want me to do

# I'm not blind and I know

# That you want to want me but you can't let go

# Come on, let go!

It wasn't a hit, but that almost doesn't matter,

because every journey starts with a step,

and Burning Up is a very small but significant step.

A much bigger step came six months later.

Madonna released a feel-good pop anthem

that would take her out of the dance charts and into the mainstream.

# Holiday

# Celebrate

Holiday is a fun, frothy pop song. The meaning isn't super deep.

It's just a song about partying and having a little bit of fun.

# If we took a holiday

The upbeat lyrics were no accident.

They were written as an antidote to the depressing events

that dominated the early '80s news cycle.

# It would be

# It would be so nice

I was inspired by watching the television news at the time.

It was troubling to see so much turmoil and just confusion.

So, it came to me like, if we just had one day

that we can just stop everywhere all over the world,

that would be, like, a really great thing.

So the lyrics came - "If we took a holiday,

"took some time to celebrate,

"just one day out of life, it would be so nice."

Sometimes when people are going through very difficult situations,

simplicity sticks the landing better than sophistication.

Something that just lifts your spirits because it's light as air,

and you just can't resist how wonderful it is.

The melody went like this.

(PLAYS MAIN MELODY TO 'HOLIDAY')

# If we took a holiday

# Took some time to celebrate

By the time Curtis offered Holiday to Madonna,

two other artists had already turned the song down.

But her recording would deliver the stardom she'd always craved.

# Everybody spread the word

DAVID: Holiday was like a wrecking ball

that smashed the wall that Madonna had been facing.

It was her pop breakthrough.

And it was the start of her becoming

one of the biggest stars on the planet.

(APPLAUSE, CHEERING)

It's 1983 and Madonna has risen from dance school drop-out

to dance chart star.

This is the story behind the three songs

that launched her into global superstardom.

# Holiday

With the first, Holiday, just about to be released,

it was her first mainstream pop song,

and would go on to be a hit across the globe.

# Celebrate

But while the song had worldwide appeal,

it was rooted in New York's disco-influenced R&B scene.

CURTIS HUDSON: I was in a band called Pure Energy.

It consisted of myself, Raymond Hudson - my brother,

and Lisa Stevens, the lead singer.

Lisa had these chords. # Da, ba, ba, ba. #

I wrote everything else in the song -

the melody, the lyrics, the arrangement,

everything else was my ideas.

As soon as we got to the point that we heard the intro part of Holiday,

the... (SINGS INTRO MELODY)

(INTRO TO 'HOLIDAY' PLAYS)

When Curtis created that part,

we knew the song had a certain...energy, I would say.

It was a positive energy.

And we was like, "We gotta do something with this song."

Holiday had all the elements a catchy pop anthem needed.

But if Pure Energy thought it would make THEM famous, they were wrong.

CURTIS: When we finished recording the demo,

I let tons of people hear it,

and when...every time Holiday would come on,

everyone would say, "That's a hit."

"Stop, play that again. That song is a hit."

And we were hoping that it would be the song that launched us,

but our record label, they turned it down,

and that's when we decided we were going to shop the song to other artists.

Two of those artists turned the song down

but, remaining convinced of its potential,

Curtis and his bandmates turned to their New York disco contacts.

We had a relationship with Jellybean John Benitez.

Jellybean was a very influential DJ, and he wasn't just in one club -

he was in about sort of six clubs, including Studio 54.

RAYMOND: There was 3,000, 4,000 people in his club,

and if he spin your song and your song catch on,

nine times out of ten, your song was probably going to be a hit.

But it was Jellybean's romantic rather than clubland connections

that landed the perfect artist.

JOE LYNCH: Madonna and he hooked up,

and I think it was very fortuitous

that they happened to come together that time.

They were dating for a while.

I mean, I don't know how serious,

but we know that they were very close, very close.

That's how we ended up meeting Madonna,

because what we did was we went to this club called the Funhouse

where Jellybean was a big DJ, and he invited Madonna there.

After we met with her, she told us she loved the song,

and, you know, pretty much asked us could she do the song.

And as a whole, we decided

that maybe there's something between this song and this artist.

Might be something magical.

With the agreement struck, Madonna turned up at the studio

ready to record Pure Energy's song.

But right from the start, she made it clear it was now HER song.

Madonna comes in the door singing Holiday.

# Holiday, celebrate. #

She was, like, really happy about it.

So, we knew that Holiday gonna be good for Madonna.

She was watching everything that happened in the studio.

She wanted make sure that nothing did mess the song up

or hurt the song.

(HUMS MELODY)

I remember when I was doing the guitar parts

and I was playing it a certain way,

and she stopped and said, "Do you have to do that?

"You can hear the bounce on the strings."

So, when you put the two of those together, it's a very funky track.

That's what they call the funk, you know?

It's the guitar pick hitting up against the strings

that give it a funky, you know, rhythmic feel.

She was like, "But can you do that without...

"..play it without doing it?"

I said, "Yes, but I don't wanna do that."

And so we kinda, like, had a little, debate about it,

and I think Jellybean shut it down, you know,

sort of like, "He's the guitarist, let him play it."

How many artists even pay attention to that, you know?

So I was annoyed a little bit,

but I was kinda impressed at the same time.

The thing about many artists,

you see their personalities change with, you know, the attention,

the money and the publicity.

Madonna was always the same.

So, when she hadn't sold a record,

she was as difficult as when she'd sold 50 million records,

because she knew her own mind,

and she was generally always right.

# If we took a holiday

Madonna may have been difficult over the instrumentals,

but when it came to laying down her vocals, she was downright demanding.

Other than the producer, she order everyone out,

including original vocalist Lisa Stevens.

Jellybean informed us, "Well, Madonna don't want anybody to be in the studio."

So we was like, "OK," you know?

I mean, I kinda felt bad, 'cause Raymond and myself,

we were there in the session for the rhythm track,

we was participating in that,

and Lisa was like...I guess she was saying, "OK, vocals next,"

and Madonna had a different idea.

Even at this young age, she would take no bull from anybody.

She would believe what she believed and she trusted her own instinct.

And time after time she proved to be right.

RAYMOND: She brought a sort of innocence

that's gonna to appeal to a lot of young people,

and she brought her liveness, she brought her identity,

she brought energy, she brought her style.

We wasn't in the studio at all.

That's why we were surprised when we did hear her final vocals.

It was, like, "Wow, OK, they sound good."

DAVID: Madonna at this stage was a great vocalist,

because she had something that you'd not get on a lot of club records -

her diction was really clear.

And she sounded like she was riding the rhythm,

and just kind of almost speak-singing the words.

# If we took a holiday. # No riffs, empty the space.

# If we took a holiday

# Just one time to celebrate. #

Empty the space.

# Took some time to celebrate

# Just one day out of life

# It would be

# It would be so nice

Madonna was all about rhythm and attitude and vibe,

and Holiday had all of those imprints.

Holiday was the first showcase for a vocal style

that would soon become instantly recognisable all over the world,

and was an important step towards the global phenomenon

that Madonna would soon become.

It quickly became a mainstream American radio favourite,

and reached number 16 on the all-important US Billboard chart.

Madonna was a mere disco artist no more.

Holiday took her to the next level.

I mean, that was really getting radio play,

and people were aware of Madonna.

She was a force to contend with.

Holiday was her pop breakthrough. It was irritatingly unforgettable.

It kind of works its way into you.

# Celebrate

# Holiday

All those involved in the recording of Holiday

believed it would be a hit,

but surprisingly, record company Warner Brothers

hadn't even bothered to produce a promotional video.

# Took some time to celebrate

JOE LYNCH: There are a couple of performances Madonna gave

for a little LipSync promotion spot,

and those sort of ended up being what was used as the video

in people's minds.

The video is absolutely charming, because she's so free in it.

The dancing is kind of goofy.

It's a little bit like doing the sailor's Hornpipe.

DAVID: It's great - she's got this kind of skipping little dance that she does,

but it's the same dance that she did every time she performed this.

The kind of swaying from side to side.

She knows exactly where the cameras are. She looks fantastic.

Those looks caught the public's attention as much as the music.

The first of many Madonna styles was born.

Madonna's image, when she first burst upon to the scene in 1983,

it was very New York thrift bohemian,

with the fishnets and the distressed denim and leather.

We have the scarf in the tousled hair.

We've got the really acutely defined lips,

loose top, the layers, the skirts, the little dancer leggings.

She looks like a cute broke New York dancer on her day off.

It kind of took America by storm.

You know, the mall was just a sea of teenage girls

trying to dress up like her.

It was an iconic look that was endlessly copied,

not just amongst her fans but amongst other pop stars too.

The street style may have looked thrown together,

but every aspect was carefully thought through,

as photographer Richard Corman found out

during one of her first professional shoots.

RICHARD: I had never met anybody like Madonna.

From her dark roots in her hair to her red lips

to the makeup on her eyes

to the way she was dressed - the torn jeans, the jewellery.

She was living art.

I knew I was in the throes of something remarkable.

Her sexuality was a part of every photograph we took,

whether it was through her humour,

whether it was the way she looked into the camera...

She made an ordinary stove sexy and funny and playful,

and charismatic and three-dimensional

unlike anybody could have.

Working with Madonna, it was jaw-dropping for me

because I had never seen somebody

that was so comfortable in her own skin.

And if she wasn't, you know, I was totally fooled.

With mounting record sales and magazine front covers,

it was time for the next step in Madonna's transformation

into a key cultural figure.

It came with an appearance on America's premier TV music show.

American Bandstand is a pop music institution on US television.

The fact that Madonna was on such an iconic show

was really important.

To those who'd worked with her,

Madonna's ruthless ambition was an open secret.

Now she was about to share it with everyone.

What are your dreams? What's next?

To rule the world.

And you just think, "Whoa. What hubris."

But, my God, she was right.

There's plenty of talented people out there -

more talented, much more talented, than Madonna.

But they do not have that drive.

It had taken barely a year

for Madonna to move from an obscure dance artist to mainstream star,

and she would always have this song to thank.

# Let's celebrate

DAVID: Holiday was like a wrecking ball

that smashed the wall that Madonna had been facing.

It was her pop breakthrough, and it was the start of her becoming

one of the biggest stars on the planet.

Holiday was a great entry level song for future Madonna fans.

It was just the fun Madonna, the escapist Madonna.

# You're so fine

# And you're mine

But there was a series of other Madonnas already in the pipeline

and as the styles kept changing, the hits kept coming.

# Make everything alright

By 1984, Madonna was an established pop act,

following up her breakthrough hit, Holiday,

with the equally catchy Lucky Star.

# You must be my lucky star

Her sound and image had inspired other female artists...

..and soon rivals, like Cyndi Lauper, were vying to take her place.

# Girls, they wanna have fun

Madonna knew she had to hit back.

Her next release, Borderline, hit the top ten.

# Borderline

But behind the scenes, she was working on something much bigger.

ROB DICKINS: With Madonna, all of the hit singles were building blocks.

We were building a success route,

and it got bigger and bigger and bigger

to make her into the huge star she became.

The key to that stardom arrives later that year,

with a track that was to smash away convention, confront controversy,

and put Madonna in an unassailable position in global pop.

Hi, we're in New York,

and here's a song from my new album, entitled Like A Virgin.

# Like a virgin

# Touched for the very first time

# Like a virgin

Like A Virgin broke Madonna on a worldwide stage.

Holiday had been her breakthrough, but this was her golden ticket.

Like A Virgin was Madonna's first number one hit.

It's really one of the more fascinating songs in pop history.

MATTHEW: Hearing Like A Virgin for the first time was a shock,

because the word 'virgin' wasn't really used on the radio.

Like A Virgin? Like a what?

Excuse me, lady? Like A Virgin?

You know, those days are gone for you.

(ETERNAL FLAME BY THE BANGLES PLAYS)

Like a Virgin came from the pens of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly,

the celebrated duo behind a string of top ten hits

for other artists across the '80s.

# Say my name

Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly co-wrote so many great '80s pop songs.

I'm thinking about I Drove All Night.

True Colors was another one.

Such deft songwriting.

# True colors are shining through

Steinberg and Kelly had never worked with Madonna before,

and they didn't compose the track with her in mind.

The song tells the story about how I extricated myself

from a very difficult relationship

and found myself in a new, joyous relationship,

which made me feel shiny and new.

# Yeah, you made me feel shiny and new

Like a virgin.

# Hey Like a virgin

KATIE: I was really surprised to find out

that it was written by a man

reflecting on a time in his life

when he'd come out of a bad relationship

and was sort of finding his mojo again.

I did feel when I came up with the title

that I had something special and something a bit irreverent,

and something that would tickle people's imaginations,

and sense of the word 'virgin'.

I kind of got that, that it would be provocative.

With the risque chorus completed,

Billy and songwriting partner Tom Kelly

began working on the rest of the track.

We didn't find the right direction for the music immediately,

and then he started to play a bass line

that resembled I Can't Help Myself by The Four Tops.

He was playing that baseline, I propped the lyrics on the piano,

and he started singing falsetto "I made it through the wilderness",

"Somehow I made it through".

TOM KELLY: (SINGS FALSETTO) # I made it through the wilderness

# Somehow I made it through

# Didn't know how lost I was until I found you

I said, "That's it," and then the song quickly wrote itself.

It may only have been a demo version, but Tom Kelly's falsetto

became the blueprint for Madonna's final vocal.

An interesting part of it is the fade at the end of the demo,

because you can really hear how she copied all Tom's ad libs

as our demo was fading out.

# And you hold me

# And you love me

# Oh, oh, ohh

Madonna just basically lifted the whole performance.

Like, she just copied it from beginning to end,

including all of the little sighs and oohs and aahs,

and even just some things that are said on the outro of the record.

I mean, that's how perfectly conceived it was,

from songwriting to demo.

Brilliantly conceived but tough to sell.

When Steinberg and Kelly completed their track,

almost no-one would touch it.

We started to play the song for various A&R people

at different record companies, and we did get the response

that no-one would ever sing a song titled Like A Virgin.

But fortunately, it was perfect for one singer,

and her name was Madonna.

# Like a virgin

Madonna has so many talents,

and one of them is to know when a song is right for her,

and somebody from the record company

presented Like A Virgin to her in the demo form, and she went crazy.

Everything about it was right for Madonna.

It feels like there is no other singer in the world

that could have sung that song.

# Oh, freak out!

With Like A Virgin chosen by an excited Madonna as her next track,

Chic's legendary guitarist Nile Rodgers was brought in to produce.

But initially he had his doubts about the track.

Nile Rodgers, he wasn't sure.

He was like, "It's kinda a weird hook to sing 'like a virgin', and I'm not really..."

She was like, "No, this is... Trust me, this is absolutely it."

And she was right.

Once Rodgers overcame his doubts,

he and Madonna shared the studio for every moment of the production,

including some awkward ones.

She came up to him and said, "Do you think I'm sexy?"

and he responded, "Well, of course," you know?

"You're one of the most attractive people I've ever seen."

And then she said, "Well, why haven't you tried to sleep with me?"

and then stormed out of the studio.

It was just her way of kinda like goofing around,

but also kinda keeping him on edge.

# You're so fine

Whatever the studio tensions, the results were worth it.

For Madonna, it was the song that changed everything.

Like A Virgin, for her,

was the moment where everybody who thought she was a passing fad

realised that actually this woman, she's a game changer.

JOE: She went from being a potentially big star

to being a huge, huge star.

# Like a virgin

# With your heartbeat

Helping the song provide maximum punch, the video.

The sexually charged performance

was the template for many more videos to come,

and this time, along the canals of Venice.

KATIE: She's writhing around in a gondola,

going through a tunnel and coming out the other side.

I mean, that's just so ham-fisted and so on the nose.

I think what this tells us about Madonna is she just loves to shock.

She lives to shock.

That was the first time she was thought of as outrageous,

and that really lit a fuse,

so for that, it was really an important record.

DAVID: In music, at this point, what you really didn't have

is a female artist who didn't look as though, or sound as though,

they were interested in romance.

You look at this video, the performance,

and Madonna, who was sexy on her previous stuff,

suddenly becomes Madonna who is sexual,

and there's a big difference.

Sexy is "like me and I'm pretty and I look great, don't I?"

Sexual is "I'm in control".

# Like a virgin

# Feels so good inside

Like A Virgin was the first moment

in the rise of the Madonna phenomenon

that we see her using the shock value of unashamed sexuality

and the power of controversy to create record sales -

something she will continue to do across her career.

I like to provoke people.

I don't think about the danger of it.

And if there is a dangerous element, that is exciting to me.

The single will supreme at the top of the billboard chart

for a phenomenal six weeks.

It was certified gold in the US

and went on to be a massive worldwide hit.

MATTHEW: I think Madonna became a pop cultural icon

the moment Like A Virgin was released.

As soon as that song hit the airwaves, there was no turning back.

Like A Virgin took Madonna to the next level.

The songwriters Steinberg and Kelly

had helped her find the superstardom she'd always dreamed of.

But when they saw her at a party some time later,

there was little appreciation.

We see at the other end of the terrace

Madonna walking out of the house towards us,

and she was with Warren Beatty, and I thought to myself,

"This is the perfect opportunity to meet Madonna finally,"

and a guy we knew said to Madonna,

"Madonna, I would like you to meet Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg,

"who wrote Like A Virgin."

And Warren Beatty started to laugh,

and I think he was laughing because he thought, you know,

of course she must know the guys that wrote Like A Virgin -

it must be some kind of a spoof.

I stepped up and I said to Madonna,

"I've wanted to meet you for so long,"

and she said to me, "Well, now you did,"

and she grabbed Warren Beatty and walked off.

So, she wasn't particularly, uh... cordial, shall we say.

# Material girl

As was the case from the beginning of her career,

Madonna's eyes were fixed only on the future

and her next incarnation -

recalling Hollywood's ultimate blonde bombshell

and featuring the song and iconic video

that would come to symbolise not just Madonna's pulling power,

but a whole global decade.

Material Girl.

# And I am a material girl

The mid-1980s saw free market economics sweep across the west.

You too can become leaders in this great new era of progress,

the age of the entrepreneur.

Britain is confident, strong, and trusted.

In the booming financial centres of New York and London,

fortunes were made fast and spent even faster.

For the lucky ones, the consumption had never been more conspicuous.

This was the Ronald Reagan era, the "greed is good".

Dynasty is huge on TV.

Everyone's into more, more, more.

KATIE: In America in 1985,

it was all about big hair, big shoulder pads, big wallet,

all of that kind of thing.

The new era demanded its own soundtrack,

and Madonna was the one to provide it,

with a song that would finally cement her superstar status.

# Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me

# I think they're OK

If there was ever a song that summed up an artist

that captured an attitude of the time,

that was a moment.

# 'Cause we are living in a material world

# And I am a material girl

Material Girl saw Madonna reunite with production genius Nile Rodgers.

Right on the one there, give me a nice fall off.

(SINGS MELODY FROM MATERIAL GIRL)

And to help him create another irresistibly catchy hit,

he brought in one of his most trusted backing artists.

# OK

# If they don't give me proper credit

# I just walk away (SINGS ALONG)

Well, in 1983, my brother George and I were asked to sing

on David Bowie's Let's Dance album, produced by Nile Rodgers.

And we did that.

We toured with David Bowie around the world.

And as soon as we got back, Nile Rodgers called us again

and told us he needed us to sing background vocals

on a new record he was producing by a young girl named Madonna.

Well, Nile is a local guy,

and he had a New York attitude, New York tastes,

and Madonna too was very connected to Nile's modus operandi.

Nile has a great atmosphere around him,

and Madonna was very involved as well.

You saw when you just sat in the studio that she had an opinion.

She wasn't a produced act.

She was certainly learning the craft, as she does everything.

She looks at other people, she soaks it all in.

Nile is so giving, she was absorbing.

Despite her new-found stardom,

Madonna's vocals were still developing,

and for this track, Rodgers knew she needed help.

She wasn't that skilled a singer,

so we background vocalists, you know, kind of helped her out

and gave her some pointers and kind of moved her around

and told her what to do,

so she was learning from everybody, I think.

Well, if you want to use a scale of, like,

I'm going gonna go from one to ten,

maybe she's at like a two or three.

She wasn't bad, but certainly had a long way to go.

I wouldn't say that she actually fully discovered her voice until later.

Over this period of time, what Madonna did is she found her sound.

She reinforced it, she imprinted it

and when people criticised it, she gave them more of it.

(MATERIAL GIRL PLAYS) # I am a material girl

# You know that we are living

# Living in a material world

# And # I am a material girl

It was the song's distinct lyrical pattern

that made it such a challenge for the singer.

Material Girl has a lot of beeps, blips and bloops,

and it kinda chugs along in an electronic fashion.

There's these, like, robot men.

(ROBOTICALLY) # Living in a material world

# Material # Living in a material world

It's playful, it's boppy but it's also relentless at the same time -

a little bit like Madonna herself.

Despite needing help with her vocals,

Madonna, true to form,

made sure everyone in the studio knew their place.

Every time there was a break,

and we'd be going right back to re-recording or whatever,

you know, Madonna would say, "OK, boys.

"Time is money, and the money is mine."

You know, so that got to be like a slogan,

so when she wasn't around, we'd say, "Yeah, Madonna,

"remember, time is money and the money is hers."

But by the end of the session,

she and everyone else knew they had another hit on their hands.

We finished Material Girl and we went back in the listening room -

it sounded great, you know, everybody loved it.

We were laughing, laughing, laughing.

Madonna was laughing her stones off, you know,

and it was just like, "Oh, God, this is ridiculous.

"People are gonna love this."

With the recording complete, it now had to be promoted.

For the video, featuring big-name actor Keith Carradine,

Madonna chose to play tribute

to fellow blonde bombshell of yesteryear, Marilyn Monroe.

She would be taking on one of her most iconic 1950s performances,

and with it her characteristics and costume

from the American musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

I didn't know her personally, but I admire her. She's an idol.

Do you wanna be as big a movie star as she was?

Is that important? Yeah.

Mary Lambert, the director of Material Girl, really did a fine job

of re-creating Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,

the Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend scene.

(ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS, VOCALS INAUDIBLE)

Any time you're dressing up like another performer,

especially someone as iconic as Marilyn Monroe,

it's kind of embarrassing at times,

because the original swallows up the imitator.

But I think Madonna had such supreme confidence

that she's able to take Marilyn Monroe

and use her for her own purposes

in a way that respects Marilyn Monroe

but that leaves Madonna herself intact.

# Some boys kiss me, some boys hug me

For many, Material Girl was a wholesale celebration

of '80s consumerism.

But as the video hinted, it was actually a subtle criticism.

In the Material Girl video,

Madonna wants to be the sugar daddy.

She's the breadwinner.

The video includes someone who is trying to attract

her attention romantically.

Yeah, he's still after me.

He just gave me a necklace.

I don't know. I think it's real diamonds.

# Material

When he tries to show off how wealthy and important he is,

she has no interest in him.

It's only when he humbles himself,

when he picks her up in this beat-up pickup truck,

that she even gives him the time of day.

So, there's an irony about it in the video and the song

that was kind of lost on a lot of people.

Her message may have been misunderstood,

but at the time, it didn't matter.

Material Girl's success put Madonna exactly where she wanted to be.

She started the year in 1985 as a rising star,

she ended 1985 as the biggest female artist in the world,

and this - this video, this song -

was the moment when we knew this was happening.

KATIE: It cemented her as a force to be reckoned with.

You understood that this... she was a juggernaut.

# Get into the groove

Madonna was now officially a megastar,

and that year would go on to release several more singles

from her Like A Virgin album,

all of which entered the US Billboard chart top five.

Musical success was followed by movie success, as she co-starred

in the critically acclaimed 1985 comedy drama

Desperately Seeking Susan.

And to cap the then-most-eventful year of her life,

she married Hollywood actor Sean Penn on her 27th birthday.

Madonna created a whole new way to be a celebrity,

and especially to be a young female famous person.

This is someone who, you know, at every step of her career,

was told not to do things,

but always stuck to her gut and her guns.

Madonna actually tore up the old book of rules

that said a female artist had to be demure,

had to at least appear to not be in charge.

She says, "No, I'm gonna do exactly what I want, when I want,"

and there's something really inspiring and empowering about that.

Madonna had started her career as a broke dance-school drop-out

on the streets of New York

and with just three songs in three years,

she had become a cultural icon who defined a generation.

KATIE: Early '80s Madonna kind of sums up, for me,

some of the best things about the '80s.

# You're so fine and you're mine

She presumed that success would be hers, you know,

and that's a very '80s idea -

that even if you start out with certain limitations and inadequacies,

you can overcome them.

So, she embodies that.

# Material MEN: # Living in a material world

That was her revolution. That's what she brought.

And I think she's really the first modern pop superstar,

for that reason.

DAVID: In 1982, Madonna was an unknown but up and coming.

By 1985, there wasn't anywhere you could go in the world

where people hadn't heard of Madonna.

In three years, she transformed not just her career,

but she transformed pop.

Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2021