The artist Madonna called “the greatest talent” in pop music
It’s not stretching to say that the entire pop sphere can be broken down into pre-Madonna and post-Madonna.
She was far from the first pop star to break down barriers, but her way of using the visual medium on MTV and spinning controversy to her advantage is half the reason why recent pop stars can embrace weirder avenues in their music. But it’s not like Madonna was the only one looking to shake things up once the 1980s opened up.
Then again, the first few years of the 1980s seemed a bit unsure of itself. I mean, take a look at the bands that were on the charts circa 1981. Sure, there are some people like Tom Petty that would have phenomenal careers in the 1980s, but there’s also the sad hangover of the 1970s still lingering around, usually with a lot of AOR rock bands like REO Speedwagon clogging up the charts.
Even when MTV kicked into high gear, no one would have seen a Madonna-esque figure coming. When she debuted, her sound was still indebted to genres like disco, but the minute that people listened to Like A Virgin, they weren’t simply seeing another pop singer. This was a visionary artist, and even if parents and religious fanatics took issue with her writhing around on the stage, it only served to build her image up even more.
Because Madonna knew before anyone else the power of working in the world of music videos. She had already tried her hand at being an actor before she started making her own tunes, but whereas the early days of MTV saw Talking Heads making strange artsy films, Madonna was responsible for turning her shoots into full-on blockbuster productions.
The videos for songs like ‘Material Girl’ packed more substance into a few minutes than most feature films, but Madonna already had competition when Michael Jackson arrived. ‘The King of Pop’ already had a lifetime of show business expertise thanks to the Jackson 5, but if his moonwalk in the middle of Motown’s 25th anniversary show proved anything, it was that the 1980s belonged to him.
Both of their catalogues defined the 1980s for music fans, but Madonna knew there was no competition between her pop tunes and Jackson’s work, saying, “There is no question that Michael Jackson is one of the greatest talents the world has ever known. When he sang a song at the ripe old age of eight, he could make you feel like an experienced adult was squeezing your heart with his words. His music had an extra layer of inexplicable magic that didn’t just make you want to dance but actually made you believe you could fly, dare to dream, be anything that you wanted to be.”
No one was going to mistake one of Jackson’s songs for Madonna’s, but what linked them both was how they were willing to push themselves outside of their comfort zones as well. Thriller and Like A Virgin were albums that could set up anyone’s career for life, but looking through their work in the 1990s, like Dangerous and Ray of Light, they never stopped being curious about what they could do, even if it managed to piss off a handful of diehard fans along the way.
But whereas Madonna did have that confrontational element to how she presented her sexuality at times, Jackson could let the music do the talking when he wanted to as well. The arrival of MTV was shaped by what Madonna did for the art form, but Jackson’s music is so firmly etched into pop history that he may as well be mandatory listening for anyone remotely interested in the genre.
