‘Shit On The Floor’: Madonna’s long-forgotten punk demo
Today, New York City is a concrete metropolis full of tourists, flash skyscrapers, and expensive neighbourhoods, but the New York City of years gone by was a vastly different place. Back in the 1970s, the East Coast city was awash with addiction, depravation, and grime. Still, this didn’t stop various budding young artists from taking up residence in the run-down neighbourhoods of the East Village. Among the punks, junkies, and painters, a 20-year-old Madonna abandoned her life in Michigan to pursue her dreams in New York.
Despite the widespread sleaziness of late 1970s New York, the city was witnessing a particularly vibrant period for music and artistry. Black neighbourhoods in Brooklyn and The Bronx were pioneering early hip-hop, artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat were rapidly rising through the ranks of the city’s grassroots art scene, and punk rock was in full swing. In the East Village, particularly, the abrasive sounds of punk rock were unavoidable, and Madonna came to realise this upon settling in the city.
“It was the first time I’d ever taken a plane, the first time I’d ever gotten a taxi cab. I came here with $35 in my pocket. It was the bravest thing I’d ever done,” Madonna later said of her move to New York City. It is fair to say, however, that the move paid off for her in the long run.
At the time, the future pop sensation was in Alphabet City, side by side with the musicians and artists populating punk clubs like CBGBs or Max’s Kansas City. From the moment Madonna set foot in New York, her aim was clear: to become a professional dancer. Before too long, however, the underground music scene of the city lured her in. Immersing herself in the world of punk, new wave, and no-wave music and expression, the budding young dancer found a wealth of musical inspiration.
Eventually, Madonna relocated from Alphabet City to a converted synagogue in Queens, where she lived with then-partner Dan Gilroy. Together, the pair formed the band Breakfast Club, whose early sound was typical of late 1970s New York punk and no-wave music. Madonna’s time with the band was fairly short, leaving in 1980, and they would not find any real attention until years later, signing for ZE Records in 1984.
That early period of the Breakfast Club provided Madonna with her first real taste of musical expression, however. After a year in the group, she splintered off to form the similarly obscure outfit Emmy and the Emmys. Both groups were heavily influenced by punk, new wave, and the underground tunes Madonna encountered in New York, and the Breakfast Club’s demo tape certainly reflects that fact.
Composed of four adrenaline-fueled punk anthems, including the opener ‘Shit On The Floor/Safe Neighbourhood’, the demo tape features Madonna on vocals and on drums. It is fair to say that neither Madonna nor the rest of the band had really found their groove when they came to record the demo. Nevertheless, the sounds of Madonna screaming lyrics about New York sleaziness are pretty fascinating, especially when contrasted with her later work.
Madonna might have entered the 1980s as the drummer and vocalist of an unknown New York punk outfit, but she concluded the decade as one of the biggest pop stars in the world. She released her debut solo single ‘Everybody’ in 1982, and that song set the standard for her unparalleled career in pop, which extended far beyond the five boroughs of New York City.
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