It's the 40th anniversary of Madonna's Like A Virgin era!

She and Princess Diana were the most popular women in the world back then.

R1, indeed

Great album. Iconic look. If she played the grande Dame now instead of trying to be 25 she would be a force.

I wish that she would have made proper official music videos for Angel and Dress You Up.

Does anyone know why she didn't?

R4 I read that she was going to make a video for Angel but the record label cancelled it because they were worried another Madonna video in heavy rotation on MTV would overexpose her. I’m not sure about Dress You Up. Nevertheless WB UK did create a montage video for Angel and the live performance from the Virgin Tour was used for the Dress You Up video.

The good ole days when she was truly the queen of the world. It's hard to believe this is the same woman who embarrasses herself daily on Instagram.

Warner Brothers needs to seriously consider knocking off Madonna and replacing her with a hologram that's a composite of her vintage days.

UK montage video.

Let’s try this again.

I would always sing "I made it through the wilderness" after a particularly long and arduous hike.

It's also the 40th anniversary of Weird Al Yankovic's pastiche Like A Surgeon.

I was born in 1987 and got into Madonna as a teenager in the 2000s. I always liked her music but never owned an album.

One little memory. Before I bought the album, I always assumed “Madonna” and “Like A Virgin” were the same album. I remember being so surprised “Holiday”, “Lucky Star”, and “Into The Groove” weren’t on this album. I always thought this album was her “Thriller” and was shocked when I discovered this wasn’t her first album.

According to her ex-boyfriend “Over and Over” was the first song she’d ever written while she says it was “Tell The Truth”.

Fun fact: Over and Over was only released as a single in Italy and the Philippines. God knows why it was only released in these two countries, but the Italian single came in a unique picture sleeve.

I liked the album cover.

Wow - I feel... ancient.

Why didn't she do an international tour for The Virgin Tour?

R16 well technically, she did tour Canada as well. But as far as a world tour, I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t quite big enough yet.

[quote] Madonna's "The Virgin Tour" was not international because, despite initial plans to take it overseas, the record label, Warner Bros. Records, decided to limit the tour to the United States and Canada due to concerns about Madonna's global popularity at the time, particularly since the tour was primarily intended to support the massive success of her album "Like a Virgin" within the North American market; they wanted to capitalize on her growing fame in those regions first

This is from AI. The irony being that Madonna WAS very popular globally. But maybe it worked out for the best. Who's That Girl world tour was massively successful overseas.

All these nags Madonna suck

The performance that started her super stardom:

Another freaking Madonna thread? 😒🙄

If you could only pick 1, which song would you have wanted a proper official music video for out of Angel or Dress You Up?

My favorite Madonna. She lost me when she did the Truth Or Dare movie.

R23, why didn't you like TOD?

r24 she came off as a bit of a c*nt

Can an era have an anniversary?

I saw her on The Virgin Tour, I remember it being a great show.

R27, I'm jealous. I'm sure it was a great time.

My fave songs from Like A Virgin are:

Angel

Stay

Love Don't Live Here Anymore

Dress You Up

Pretender

Stay

Material Girl

I dislike the song "Like A Virgin". I liked it when it first came out but due to it being so overplayed and such a simple song, I dislike it today.

Aw, the Like a Virgin Tour was my second concert (Cyndi Lauper being the first!). Beastie Boys opened for Madonna and as a young teenager from the sticks, I remember standing there watching Beastie Boys (they weren't much older than me!) and thinking, what in the world is this?! And then being totally blown away by Madonna. It was a small stadium concert at the St. Paul Civic Center. Ah, the memories.

[Quote]Beastie Boys opened for Madonna I would have loved to have seen her in live, in-concert circa 1984-1985.

R30, who was better live, Madonna or Cyndi?

Madonna

R29, what about Over And Over?

R34 it’s just ok

R32, I don't remember thinking either was better or worse than the other. I was 14 years old and had never been to a concert before, so I was just super pumped to be seeing both of them. I loved them both. But again, I was knocked for six by the Beastie Boys. I had never heard anything like it in my life. I was mainly puzzled at the time and couldn't wrap my head around it, but eventually became and still am a Beasties fan.

Sorry, it's R30 at R36.

R36, thanks for posting. I was born in 1987, so I only started getting into Madonna's music around the time of Ray of Light. Back then, did people really think Cyndi would be the one to stick around and Madonna would fade?

Love Madonna. Hate that everything is now referred to as an 'era.'

OP, I think you mean the biggest cunt in the music industry.

The reason why there wasn’t an accident international tour for Like a Virgin was because the rest of the world looked at her and thought, “Putana! Whore!”

They didn’t get the joke.

R38, I remember seeing it announced on MTV News that Madonna was going to be in a movie called Desperately Seeking Susan and I said, “HA! No one will remember who she is by the time THAT comes out!!”

To be fair, they did rush the video release of the film.

I like the Over and Over remix on that remix album. It’s one of the few things she ever did that I liked. (And it’s a great cardio tune.)

r43, Spotlight is a great tune for aerobics!

R44, I LOVE “Spotlight”! It’s one of my favorite Madonna songs.

Is it true that Madonna met Sean Penn on the set of the Material Girl music video? Or was that PR?

I like "Shoo-Be-Doo." "Like A Virgin" has all the musicians from Chic -- Nile Rodgers, Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson -- playing on most of the tracks so it's a very solid album, musically.

R46, I think that is true.

I really Mary Gabriel’s biography — i think it does a great job of making sense of Madonna. It also gave a real appreciation for some of Madonna’s later music that I hadn’t really checked out until I read the biography.

She could give us a massive CD/DVD/Blu Ray box set for each and every album that has a major anniversary. There is a major wealth of remixes and unreleased material. Porbably even a couple of fully finished but unreleased albums. But instead she just re-releases the singles digitally remastered and re-releases the album on vinyl and nothing else.

She keeps all of her outfits and copies of her masters for all of her music and music videos (including b-roll footage) and negatives/master prints of her photoshoots in a heavily secured well hidden warehouse somewhere.

R49, agreed

R49, I don't know why her manager doesn't pressure her and Warner Bros. to capitalize on special editions.

R49 This is why I don’t consider her a true narcissist. She could do a million things to keep herself in the headlines and keep her music out there, but she refuses to allow it. Ryan Reynolds had to go to her personally to get LAP in Wolverine/Deadpool!!! A guaranteed huge movie and she was ehh, what are you going to do with it. ANY singer would have killed to allow their song in a gargantuan movie. And even then, she didn’t go out of her way to capitalize on it.

Many of you have bought into the cunt mythology but the Mary Gabriel book portrays a much more complicated and nuanced person. You completely understand every single thing she has ever done from the first 9 chapters alone. You will come away appreciating her more and realizing she isn’t the cunt you think. Her rudeness and bitchiness to some is explained thoroughly by her life experiences in the first 9 chapters of the book. It’s hard to explain, but the book is so well written you immediately get her in that short amount of time. You’ll come away with a much more appreciation and understanding of her. Example: she was offered success on a platter many times, but it wasn’t the way she wanted, so she put herself in poverty and filth over and over. More than a few times. As hungry as she was, she wanted it her way, and was willing to risk it all, go literally hungry and homeless, to achieve success her way. I liked her before, but my admiration for her grew infinitely after that book.

I hope the full Virgin Tour is released on DVD/Blu-ray one of these days.

A shame that Borderline, Angel, and Burning Up were cut from the home video.

Does anyone know why those performances were cut?

R53 yes, she felt her vocals were bad on those songs that night. There is a YouTube clip from Dallas of Borderline, I think, where her vocals are great. There is also a soundboard recording from Houston where her vocals were really good on at least two of those songs.

She also doesn’t allow her songs to be sung on shows like American Idol or the Voice, except on special occasions like when Christina Aguilera asked to use Like A Prayer on the Voice. It was a big deal when she allowed Glee to use her music.

Can we just give her a gold watch and force her to retire?

R56 STFU

R63, because as much as she prayed for a voice for that performance, the Lord never answered her prayers.

R58 She sure had a good one for the other songs.

99% of everything she released after Confessions (except for bits and pieces of MDNA and Madame X and the entire Rebel Heart album) sucked. The first 25 years of her career (1982-2007) are golden.

[quote] except for bits and pieces of MDNA and Madame X and the entire Rebel Heart album) sucked.

That's a lot less than 99% then.

R60, you didn't like anything on Hard Candy?

Not R60, but I liked Hard Candy a lot more than I ever expected to. I still play it in full from time to time when I feel like singing along to something fun.

I think Hard Candy sounds better today than it did then. But she should have released it in 2006 or 2007.