The album that sent Madonna’s career into the stratosphere, Like A Virgin is a gloriously crafted example of premium pop, with a Nile Rodgers production that elevated its nine songs, from different writers, into a fully cohesive whole. Still Madonna’s best-selling album in her homeland, Like A Virgin contains classic after classic – so much so that even the album tracks are familiar cuts that could have been singles.
Let’s face it, in the mid-80s, everything Madonna touched turned to gold, but this record is a testament to her determination to make it onto pop’s front bench, and her insistence on a top-name producer illustrates the legendary career discipline that has powered her well into the 21st century. It was the ongoing success of her self-titled debut album that pushed Like A Virgin’s release back many months to November 1984, making it a closing-moments addition to arguably pop’s finest year – as shown by this track-by-track guide to each of Like A Virgin’s songs.
Listen to ‘Like A Virgin’ here.
‘Like A Virgin’: A Track-By-Track Guide To Every Song On The Album
Material Girl
The song Nile Rodgers thought should have been the album’s first single, Material Girl is an arch statement on 80s values that Madonna intended as provocative parody but which became perceived as her de facto mission statement (at least until people understood her better). The song was written by disco pioneer Peter Brown in collaboration with Robert Rans, and the nagging synth production and rich bass made this a club and pop-radio smash, with Top 3 chart placings on both sides of the Atlantic. Its classic promo video, with Madonna restaging the Marilyn Monroe Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend sequence from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, is as familiar as the song itself, and it remains one of the best Madonna promo videos of all time.
