Madonna

There was no stopping Madonna by the time this 1986 smash hit record came out; it sold a whopping 19 million copies worldwide. The singer took her place as the de facto queen of pop with Like a Virgin, but with True Blue she destroyed all comers for the crown. "Papa Don't Preach"? "Live To Tell"? C'mon.

Of all current superstars, none has manipulated the apparatus of fame more astutely than
Madonna. Like Prince, she recognized the virtue of a one-word name and demonstrated
the truth of an old adage – sex sells. She has played America's public morals like a virtuoso,
building from starlet to megaslut to bad girl with a heart of gold to New Honest Woman.
Cynics and idealists can agree: a conquest this perfect requires incredible amou... More >

Critics flock to her uneven product the way liberal arts magnas flock to investment banking--so desperate are they to connect to a zeitgeist that has nothing to do with them that they decide a little glamour and the right numbers add up to meaningful work, or at least "fun." I'm not saying her flair is pleasureless--the generosity she demands in the inexhaustible "Open Your Heart" is a two-way street and then some. But she doesn't speak for the ordinary teenaged stiff any more than Reagan speaks for union members (that's called "selling to," folks). And while the antiabortion content of "Papa Don't Preach" isn't unequivocal, and wouldn't make the song bad by definition if it were, the ambiguity is a cop-out rather than an open door (or heart), which is bad. In a time of collective self-deception, we don't need another snow job. (Grade - B)