All About Madonna

This week, I decided to pull out my old Sire records of Madonna like "Open Your Heart" and just marvelling at how her new style of dance music changed the platform of pop and R&B. The synths and nu wave styles had literally changed the landscape of '80s music and it all started with early '80s hits like "Borderline" and "Holiday."

I had a lot of special memories of "Holiday" and remembering how the song literally exploded on MTV and even black radio. Who knew that the virtual-unknown diva would emerge as one of our generation's greats.

Towards the back of the book Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco, author Peter Shapiro celebrated the star for her revival of dance music after disco began to vanish from the pop music scene. After I read that chapter, Shapiro's account created a new awakening for Madonna's detailed history. That led me to MTV's special Madonna Rising: All About Madonna. Three of the segments of that 1998 interview and documentary, with actor Rubert Everett, shows Madonna going back to her early days in New York - like her work as a dancer, performing with the Breakfast Club, her modeling shoots and her eventual audition with Sire executive with Seymour Stein (posted here). It really gives you a virtual backstage pass to her career beginnings and her reflections on that time period. It's also amazing to see how down to heart the international superstar is in these segments.

Thanks to MadonnaSlovakia for posting.