Madonna is the debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on July 27, 1983, by Sire Records. In the late 1970s, Madonna had established herself as a singer in downtown New York City; alongside her Michigan boyfriend Stephen Bray, she put together a demo tape with four dance tracks and began pitching it around local nightclubs. She managed to get Mark Kamins, the resident DJ at Danceteria, to play "Everybody"—one of the songs from the tape. The song drew positive reception from the crowd, and Kamins took Madonna to Sire Records, where label president Seymour Stein signed her to a deal for three twelve-inch singles. Following its release on October 6, 1982, "Everybody" found success in the dance scene, and the label approved the recording of an album.
For the album, Madonna worked with Warner Bros. producer Reggie Lucas, who had worked with artists such as Roberta Flack and Stephanie Mills. Soon, however, problems between the singer and Lucas arose, as she was not happy with his production work. Madonna then invited John "Jellybean" Benitez, her boyfriend at the time, to work on and remix the rest of the album. Madonna is mostly a dance-pop and post-disco album, and features some of the newest technology of the time, including the LinnDrum drum machine, Moog bass and Oberheim OB-X synthesizer. The songs mostly address love and partying. Five singles were released from the album: "Everybody" and "Burning Up" were released months before it was completed; neither song made a major impact on the charts. "Holiday" was Madonna's big breakout single, followed by "Lucky Star" and "Borderline".
Upon release, Madonna received generally positive reviews from critics, who highlighted its dance-oriented nature and sound. In the United States, it peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 and was certified five-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It reached the top ten of the charts in Australia, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and has sold an estimated 10 million copies worldwide. Between 1983 and 1984, Madonna promoted the album and singles through a series of live appearances in nightclubs and television programs across the United States and Europe. The singles were then performed on the Virgin Tour of 1985, Madonna's first concert tour. In retrospective reviews, Madonna has been referred to as one of the greatest debut albums of all time, and one of the best albums from the 1980s. Critics have also said that it helped to make dance music popular again and "set the standard" of dance-pop for decades afterwards; its influence can be seen in the work of female artists such as Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, Kylie Minogue, and Lady Gaga.
Background
In 1979, Madonna was trying to establish her music career in New York City. She was the drummer of a band called Breakfast Club, which was led by the Gilroy brothers, Dan and Ed. The following year, after a dispute with Dan, Madonna left the band. She then called her former Michigan boyfriend Stephen Bray, who "readily" agreed to join her in New York. Along with Gary Burke and Brian Syms, they formed a band called The Millionaires. Then, when the Gilroy brothers rejoined the group, they changed their name to Emmy, another of Madonna's many nicknames. In 1981, after attending one of Emmy's gigs at Max's Kansas City, Adam Alter and Camille Barbone from Gotham Records signed a contract with Madonna, who at this point already had a "small downtown cult following in the gay scene". However, the association was short-lived and ended the following year due to creative differences between the label and singer: Gotham was interested in rock and roll whereas Madonna wanted to pursue disco.
By 1982, Madonna was living with Bray in an unused rehearsal studio. After coming to the realization that "funky dance records were in style on the radio and dance floor", they created a demo tape with four dance tracks, including "Everybody", "Burning Up", and "Ain't No Big Deal", which was described as a "bright Michael Jackson/Donna Summer confection". Without a record label backing her, Madonna began pitching the tape on her own, visiting local nightclubs trying to get DJs to play it. She managed to get Mark Kamins, the resident DJ at Danceteria nightclub, to play "Everybody", which was met with a positive reception from the crowd. Kamins promised Madonna he would help her get a record deal on the condition that he would get to produce it. As he was also an A&R scout for Island Records, Kamins took the tape to his boss Chris Blackwell, but he was not impressed and was not interested in signing Madonna.
Kamins then approached Sire Records president Seymour Stein, who at the time was at Lenox Hill Hospital recovering from heart surgery. Stein had his secretary send the tape to the hospital so he could listen to it; "I liked the hook, I liked Madonna's voice, I liked the feel [...] I liked it all and played it again", the executive recalled. He signed the singer to a deal for three twelve-inch singles with an option for albums; she would get $15,000 for each one, but would also have to pay for all recording costs. Sire A&E executive Michael Rosenblatt, who oversaw the entire process, wanted to release a double-sided single with "Ain't No Big Deal" as A-side and "Everybody" as B-side. "Ain't No Big Deal", however, "did not come out well", so Rosenblatt decided to put "Everybody" on both sides of the record: one version lasted 5:56, while the other was a dub version with a duration of 9:23. Since he had recorded the demo, Bray argued that he should be the producer for the single, but Stein decided to appoint Kamins, "for the sheer interest of seeing where it would go". Kamins, however, wasn't interested in producing, wanting to focus on A&R instead; he approached musician Kashif to see if he was interested in working on the song, but he turned down the offer. "Everybody" was released as Madonna's debut single on October 6, 1982. It failed to enter the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 7 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100. It was more successful on Billboards Dance Club Songs chart, where it reached the third spot. Music promoter Bobby Shaw recalled that, "['Everybody'] made noise enough to earn her an album deal".
Development and recording According to Michael Rosenblatt, he wanted the album to have an "R&B feel", hence he brought in Warner Bros. producer Reggie Lucas, who had worked with artists such as Roberta Flack and Stephanie Mills. Rosenblatt also felt Madonna needed to work with someone who "could really help her with her vocals. Mark [Kamins]'s strength was grooves, not working with a girl who's never been in the studio before". Upon meeting her, Lucas wasn't impressed with the singer's "boho-punk style", and thought she didn't seem "particularly avant-garde". "Everybody" was recorded at Bob Blank's Blank Tape Recording Studios in April 1982, over three days. Barry Eastmond had been hired as the track's arranger, but left the project after getting into an argument with Madonna; she felt his work was "too slick", and lacked the "edge of the clubland grooves she was hankering after". Rosenblatt made the decision to replace Eastmond's keyboard parts, and it was Arthur Baker, an assistant to Kamins, who brought in Fred Zarr to redo all the keyboards.
The remaining songs were recorded at the Sigma Sound Studios in New York. Prior to entering the studio, Madonna wrote three more songs for the album: "Lucky Star", "Think of Me" and "I Know It". The lyrics to "Lucky Star" were written on a yellow legal notepad, while the music was created on a Casiotone keyboard with a cassette player Kamins had given Madonna. She wrote it as a thank you to him, and with the hope that he'd play it in his sets at Danceteria. One of the earliest recorded versions of "Lucky Star" Madonna and Lucas created was described as being very "R&B-leaning", while another was heavy on guitars, but due to a negative experience involving Madonna and a rock guitarist, was quickly discarded. Soon, however, the singer realized there were not enough songs for the album, to which Lucas then brought in two compositions of his own: "Physical Attraction" and "Borderline", written specifically for Madonna. The latter was the first song where Lucas used a drum machine instead of a drummer; he and Madonna worked on the track while she was staying at artist Jean-Michel Basquiat's apartment. Problems arose between Madonna and Lucas, as she felt he was "moving [the songs] away from the sparse form of the original demos", something she did not approve of; the producer ended up leaving the project without altering the tracks. John "Jellybean" Benitez, her boyfriend at the time, remixed three songs that would appear on the album. In the case of "Burning Up" and "Lucky Star", Benitez added extra guitar riffs and additional vocals; for the latter he also added a "synthesized disco beat with soulful flourishes", and elements of New Wave.
Another issue arose after Madonna learned Bray had sold "Ain't No Big Deal" to disco act Barracuda, making it unavailable for her album. Benitez approached Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens-Crowder from the band Pure Energy, and asked them for a song. Titled "Holiday", the track was written by Hudson and Stevens-Crowder for Pure Energy, but their label Prism Records decided not to record it. "Holiday" had been previously offered to Mary Wilson of The Supremes, and Phyllis Hyman. After she was given the demo, Madonna quickly recorded the vocals. Benitez assembled the musicians, hummed the music to them, and asked the singer to sing in a "very soulful approach". Hudson played guitar, and his brother Raymond the bass; Madonna herself played the cowbell heard near the beginning, while background vocals were provided by Norma Jean Wright and Tina Baker. Just before it was completed, Benitez and Madonna took the tape to Zarr, so he could add what the singer referred to as "Zarrisms": "creative flourishes" that would provide the "finishing touches", which ended up being a piano solo near the end.
Composition
AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Sal Cinquemai from Slant Magazine noted that Madonna is a dance-pop post-disco album. Most of its songs address "love, heartbreak and hedonism in general". In his book The Complete Guide to the Music of Madonna, author Rikky Rooksby wrote that the record's overall sound is "dissonant, upbeat synthetic disco". Instrumentation includes Linn drum machine, Moog bass and the OB-X synthesizer, some of the newest technology of the time. Opening track "Lucky Star" begins with the sound of a "shimmering, programmed" glissando, followed by "clanging rhythm guitars, synth atmospherics, and [a] chugging bass"; the lyrics are a double entendre and compare a lover's "heavenly body" with the stars in the sky, while the "simple" refrain refers to the nursery rhyme "Star Light, Star Bright". Second track "Borderline" has Madonna singing in a more "refined and expressive" way, and lyrically depicts a woman complaining of her lover's chauvinism. Its sound has been compared to Stephanie Mills' "Never Knew Love Like This Before" (1980), while the chord progression evokes Bachman–Turner Overdrive's "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (1974); the inversions are similar to the sound of the 1970s, specifically disco, Philadelphia soul, and the work of Elton John.