Madonna (entertainer) - Legacy

Legacy

See also: List of awards and nominations received by Madonna, Madonna as gay icon, Madonna wannabe, and Madonna Studies

According to CNN, Madonna is "arguably the most influential female recording artist of all time." Critical theorist Douglas Kellner described her as "a highly influential pop culture icon" and "the most discussed female singer in popular music." William Langley from The Daily Telegraph noted that Madonna "remains a permanent fixture on every list of world's most powerful/admired/influential women." She is featured in the book 100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century, published in 1998 by Ladies' Home Journal. In 2010, Time magazine included Madonna in the elite list of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century", where she became one of the only two singers included, alongside Aretha Franklin. Madonna also topped VH1's countdowns of "100 Greatest Women in Music" and "50 Greatest Women of the Video Era". She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 10, 2008—her first year of eligibility—for "influence and significance on rock and roll music." Additionally, Madonna ranked seventh on VH1 and People magazine's list of the "200 Greatest Pop Culture Icons of All Time." Her worldwide commercial accomplishments have gave her multiple Guinness World Records citations, including the title for the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time. Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female albums artist in the United States, with 64.5 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of American singles chart. In 2011, Rolling Stone declared her as the all-time Queen of Pop and stated that "Madonna is a musical icon without peer."

Caryn Ganz from Rolling Stone wrote that "Madonna is the most media-savvy American pop star since Bob Dylan and, until she toned down her press-baiting behavior in the nineties, she was the most consistently controversial one since Elvis Presley." Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt that "one of Madonna's greatest achievements is how she has manipulated the media and the public with her music, her videos, her publicity, and her sexuality." He added that "Madonna was the first female pop star to have complete control of her music and image." Becky Johnston from Interview magazine commented: "ew public figures are such wizards at manipulating the press and cultivating publicity as Madonna is. She has always been a great tease with journalists, brash and outspoken when the occasion demanded it, recalcitrant and taciturn when it came time to pull back and slow down the striptease." Throughout her career Madonna has repeatedly reinvented herself through a series of visual and musical personas. Fouz-Hernández agrees that this re-invention is one of her key cultural achievements. Madonna reinvented herself by working with upcoming talented producers and previously unknown artists, while remaining at the center of media attention. According to Freya Jarman-Ivens, "In doing so Madonna has provided an example of how to maintain one's career in the entertainment industry." Such reinvention was noted by scholars as the main tool in surviving the musical industry, for a female artist. The New York Times critic Kelefa Sanneh commented: "When you imagine Madonna, you don't see a single image but a time-lapse photograph, with one persona melting and warping into the next. It's an open-ended process, and when she's at her brilliant best, it's easy to believe that she could keep reinventing herself forever."

Madonna's use of shocking sexual imagery has benefited her career and catalyzed public discourse on sexuality and feminism. The Times stated, "Madonna, whether you like her or not, started a revolution amongst women in music ... Her attitudes and opinions on sex, nudity, style and sexuality forced the public to sit up and take notice." Shmuel Boteach, author of Hating Women (2005), felt that Madonna was largely responsible for erasing the line between music and pornography. He stated: "Before Madonna, it was possible for women more famous for their voices than their cleavage, to emerge as music superstars. But in the post-Madonna universe, even highly original performers such as Janet Jackson now feel the pressure to expose their bodies on national television to sell albums." Professor Camille Paglia from University of the Arts called Madonna a "true feminist" and noted that "she exposes the puritanism and suffocating ideology of American feminism, which is stuck in an adolescent whining mode." According to her, "Madonna has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives." Madonna herself has stated, "I may be dressing the typical bimbo, whatever, but I'm in charge. You know. I'm in charge of my fantasies. I put myself in these situations with men, you know, and people don't think of me as a person who's not in charge of my career or my life, okay. And isn't that what feminism is all about, you know, equality for men and women? And aren't I in charge of my life, doing the things I want to do? Making my own decisions?"

quarter century after Madonna emerged, artists still use her ideas and seem modern and edgy doing so. Beyond the obvious Madonna wannabe 1980s singers, Madonna's influence is felt in artists from Gwen Stefani to Britney Spears to boy bands, who found in the 1990s there was an audience beyond the old rock crowd... It's worth noting that before Madonna, most music mega-stars were guy rockers; after her, almost all would be female singers... When The Beatles hit America, they changed the paradigm of performer from solo act to band. Madonna changed it back — with an emphasis on the female.

—Tony Sclafani from MSNBC about Madonna's impact in music.

Erik Thompson from City Pages stated that "in the early '80s, Madonna broke down a lot of the industry doors that young entertainers stride through so brashly and confidently these days." According to Fouz-Hernández, female pop performers such as Britney Spears, Spice Girls, Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue and Pink were like "Madonna's daughters in the very direct sense that they grew up listening to and admiring Madonna, and decided they wanted to be like her." Howard Kramer, curatorial director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, commented: "Today's more-flamboyant female pop stars enjoy the freedom to make music and perform the way they do, but they didn't create that freedom. Madonna did the moving and shaking when she burst onto the pop-music charts in the early '80s." He further asserted that "Madonna and the career she carved out for herself made possible virtually every other female pop singer to follow... She certainly raised the standards of all of them... She redefined what the parameters were for female performers." Billboard editor M. Tye Comer stated: "Although Madonna had her influences, such as David Bowie, she created her own unmistakable style... She wrote her own ticket; she didn't have to follow anybody's formula. She declared who she was ... and took possession of her music."

Madonna has received acclaim as a role model for businesswomen in her industry, "achieving the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within the industry", and generating over $1.2 billion in sales within the first decade of her career. After she established her own label, Maverick Records, in the 1990s it became a major commercial success from her efforts, which was unusual at that time for an artist-established label. Professor Colin Barrow of the Cranfield School of Management described Madonna as "America's smartest businesswoman ... who has moved to the top of her industry and stayed there by constantly reinventing herself". He held up her "planning, personal discipline and constant attention to detail" as models for all aspiring entrepreneurs. London Business School academics called her a "dynamic entrepreneur" worth copying; they identified her vision of success, her understanding of the music industry, her ability to recognize her own performance limits (and thus bring in help), her willingness to work hard and her ability to adapt as the key to her commercial success. Morton commented that "Madonna is opportunistic, manipulative and ruthless—somebody who won't stop until she gets what she wants—and that's something you can get at the expense of maybe losing your close ones. But that hardly mattered to her." Taraborrelli felt that this ruthlessness was visible during the shooting of the Pepsi commercial in 1989. "The fact that she didn't want to hold a Pepsi can in the commercial, clued the Pepsi executives that Madonna the pop star and Madonna the businesswoman were not going to be dictated by somebody else, she will do everything in her way — the only way."