Madonna (Madonna album)
Madonna (retitled Madonna: The First Album for the 1985 re-release) is the debut album by American singer Madonna, released on July 27, 1983 by Sire Records. After having established herself as a singer in downtown New York City, Madonna was signed by Sire president Seymour Stein, due to the success of her debut single, "Everybody" (1982). She became the sole writer for most of the album's tracks, and chose Reggie Lucas as its primary producer. Unhappy with Lucas's production outputs, she invited John "Jellybean" Benitez to complete the album, who remixed three tracks and produced "Holiday".
Madonna (entertainer)
Throughout her career Madonna has been involved in writing and producing most of her own music. Stuart Price, one of her past collaborators, said that "You don't produce Madonna, you collaborate with her. She's a really good producer herself and obviously a great writer too. She has her vision and knows how to get it." Madonna's early songwriting skill was developed during her time with the Breakfast Club in 1979. According to Carol Gnojewski, her first attempts at songwriting are perceived as an important "self-revelation". Madonna later became the sole writer of five songs on her debut album, including "Lucky Star" which she composed on synthesizer. As a songwriter, she has registered a total of 287 songs to ASCAP, including 18 songs written entirely by herself. "Rolling Stone" has named her "an exemplary songwriter with a gift for hooks and indelible lyrics." According to Freya Jarman-Ivens, Madonna's talent for developing "incredible" hooks for her songs allows the lyrics to capture the attention of the audience, even without the influence of the music. Despite having worked with producers across many genres, "Rolling Stone" writes that Madonna's songs have been "consistently stamped with her own sensibility and inflected with autobiographical detail." She has criticized "songwriting camps" which she had to undergo during album cycles for "Rebel Heart" and "MDNA", due to the fact that people are always in a hurry. She clarified her preference for writing material with other artists "from beginning to the end" of a record, and described her songs as "meant to be ironic and not taken literally, and some are just straight-up, 'Open my veins, this is who I am'." Madonna has been nominated for being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame three times, for 2014, 2016 and 2017 ceremony. In 2015, "Rolling Stone" ranked Madonna at number 56 on the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time" list.
Before emerging as a pop star, Madonna spent her early years dabbling in rock music alongside her bands, Breakfast Club and Emmy. While performing with Emmy, Madonna recorded about 12–14 songs which resemble the punk rock of that period. Her early rock roots also can be found on the demo album "Pre-Madonna". Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted that with her self-titled debut album, Madonna began her career as a disco diva, in an era that did not have any such divas to speak of. In the beginning of the 1980s, disco was an anathema to the mainstream pop, and according to Erlewine, Madonna had a huge role in popularizing dance music as mainstream music. The album's songs reveal several key trends that have continued to define her success, including a strong dance-based idiom, catchy hooks, highly polished arrangements and Madonna's own vocal style. Her second album, "Like a Virgin" (1984), foreshadowed several trends in her later works. It contained references to classical works (pizzicato synthesizer line that opens "Angel"); potential negative reaction from social groups ("Dress You Up" was blacklisted by the Parents Music Resource Center); and retro styles ("Shoo-Bee-Doo", Madonna's homage to Motown).