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".
Everybody (Madonna song)
"Everybody" was commercially released as Madonna's first single in October 6, 1982, and came with a Lou Beach-designed sleeve depicting a hip hop–style NYC street scene. Because of the ambiguous nature of the record sleeve and the R&B groove of the song, Madonna was widely believed to be a black artist when the single was released. According to Matthew Lindsay of "The Quietus", it was ironic that the record sleeve did not depict Madonna on the cover, as she would become "the face of the 80s."