Why is Madonna the queen of pop? Check out 10 reasons

Madonna arrived in Brazil last Monday (29) to perform in Rio de Janeiro. She will perform a free show next Saturday (4), on the sands of Copacabana beach.

The free show on the beach in Rio will close “The Celebration Tour”, a tour that brings together the main hits and celebrates 40 years of the queen of pop’s career.

At the show, Madonna is expected to bring together around 1.5 million fans, who have been waiting for the pop queen's return to Brazil for 12 years. His last visit to the country was with the “MDNA World Tour”, in 2012.

But why is she considered the queen of pop? What makes you sovereign within this musical genre? A CNN explains below.

Why is Madonna the queen of pop?

• 1. Four decades of success

Madonna has remained current and relevant in the music world throughout her career. In 2023, she completed 40 years of her professional career. Her first single, “Everybody”, was released in 1982, but her first album only came the following year.

The singer marked an era in pop music and has since released more than 20 albums. The last of them, “Madame X “, was released in 2019.

• 2. Female artist who sold the most albums in history

It's hers Guinness Book record woman who sold the most albums in the history of music, with more than 400 million records sold . Madonna is only surpassed by three artists, all men: Elvis Presley , Michael Jackson and the Beatles .

• 3. Complete artist

Madonna became famous and is known for being a complete pop artist. She sings, dances, performs, composes, produces, presents and writes books.

Outside of music, she collects record book sales and has acted in more than twenty films.

The American singer even won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for playing Eva Perón in the film “Prevents “. She competed with big names such as Glenn Close (“101 Dalmatians”), Frances McDormand (“Fargo”) and Barbra Streisand (“The Mirror Has Two Faces”).

• 4. Created the concept of touring as we know it today

It was Madonna who popularized the show format that is now enshrined in tours by pop divas such as Taylor Swift , Beyonce It is Lady Gaga with interludes, blocks, different scenes, concept for the show, cohesive costumes, thematic choreography and well-rehearsed performances.

For almost 15 years, she held the record for the most profitable female tour in history with “Sticky & Sweet”, which was released to promote the 2008 album “Hard Candy”.

The leadership was taken by Beyoncé with the “Renaissance World Tour” and, later, by Taylor Swfit and her “The Eras Tour”.

• 5. Always linked to cinema and fashion, boosting big names in the sectors

Madonna was responsible for detecting and highlighting a series of designers and filmmakers who were emerging at the time and, later, became big names in the industry. It is the case that Jean-Paul Gaultier who designed the famous cone bra for the “Blond Ambition Tour” and Dolce & Gabbana, responsible for the costumes for “The Girlie Show World Tour”.

In cinema, Madonna made videos with names like David Fincher (“Fight Club” and “Gone Girl”) and James Foley (“Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed”).

• 6. Scathing social criticism

She was one of the first – and perhaps the most notable – artists to address HIV and AIDS in an open and frank manner. Madonna always advocated for the dissemination of information about the disease in the 1980s, when the disease still killed people and generated stigma and prejudice, especially against the LGBTQIAPN+ community.

She launched “Like A Prayer” with a leaflet disseminating information about HIV, visited hospitals and took the topic to the stage. To this day, the issue is important to Madonna, who saw friends die from complications caused by the disease. During “The Celebration Tour”, the singer pays tribute to them during the performance of “Live To Tell”.

She also criticized the “American Way Of Life” on the album “American Life”, released after the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Recently engaged in the topic of ageism fighting against prejudice against older people.

• 7. Female empowerment

Madonna was courageous enough to make women's relationship with sex one of the most discussed topics of her career, especially at a time when women's sexual freedom was even less talked about.

At the turn of the 1980s to the 1990s, especially, she released a series of albums and music videos that had as their themes feminism and the discovery of sexual pleasures by women.

This culminated in the album “Erotica” and the book “Sex”, which were, at the same time, sales success and objects of censorship.

• 8. Controversies

Due to her social engagement and dry topics, Madonna also had to deal with censorship and boycotts. Three of her clips were banned from being shown on MTV, the main music channel in the United States, due to their sexual content and provocations towards the Catholic Church.

The singer also had a contract with a soft drink brand canceled after the release of the video for “Like A Prayer”, in which she appears kissing a black saint and burning crosses.

• 9. ABBA Recognition

Madonna was one of the only artists in the world to manage to get the Swedish group ABBA, owner of hits such as “Dancing Queen” and “The Winner Takes It All”, to allow the use of a sample from one of their songs.

The American singer went to Sweden to look for ABBA and, according to her, had to beg them to release her to use an excerpt from “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” in “Hung Up”, from the 2005 album “Confessions On A Dancefloor”.

• 10. Influencing new generations

It's difficult to separate Madonna from everything that came after her entry into pop music. Big names from different generations, like Lady Gaga , Britney Spears , Christina Aguilera , Ariana Grande It is Taylor Swift have already paid tribute to the queen of pop.

The most notable of these is perhaps the remix of “Break My Soul” released by Beyonce which contains a sample of “Vogue” and pays homage to Madonna and, at the same time, lists great black women in the pop industry, such as Aretha Franklin and Janet Jackson.

See also – 10 of Madonna’s striking looks