‘Like A Virgin’: The Album That Proved Madonna Had The Touch

Like A Virgin’s title-track, with its bassline nod to Michael Jackson’s then recent mega-hit Billie Jean, was the single that broke Madonna worldwide after her showstopping performance at the very first MTV Video Music Awards – and, of course, following the release of that memorable music video, directed by Mary Lambert and shot in Venice. The song became a Christmas No.1 in the US and made the Top 3 almost everywhere else, marking the last time Madonna would be forced to trek round the world’s TV studios for appearances on shows such as the BBC’s Top Of The Pops. After this single, she was simply too famous for that sort of routine promotion.

The pop-dance of the other three Stephen Bray songs – Over And Over, Stay and Pretender – offer a type of musical ballast around the big hits while adding to a frenzied collection of urgent pop-dance, offering solid, nagging melodies that might have made single release if the remainder of Like A Virgin hadn’t been so uniformly strong. In Shoo-Be-Doo, with Madonna as the sole author, you can catch her understanding of the Motown pop-soul sound that shaped much of her early musical inspiration. The more demanding performance theatre and avant-garde leanings of the decades ahead were yet to develop, but it’s clear Madonna knew how to hook the listener’s attention with a decent melody. Nile Rodgers builds around this and the album’s other cuts with some percussive depth and some lighter rhythmic highlights that create a sparkling contemporary pop gloss over the whole record.

The most significant record every released by a woman

On a cover of Rose Royce’s Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, Madonna’s choice to record with an orchestra signalled early promise that her range would easily outpace critics’ expectations in the years to come. The song received a single release in Japan and was later resurrected as a wider single to promote 1995’s ballad collection Something To Remember, with a video finally shot on a rare day off from filming Evita.

In Dress You Up, the final single from Like A Virgin, you have, arguably, the album’s sharpest time capsule. With a video recorded on one of the dates from her debut US tour, it catches Madonna at the peak of her early fame. The song bursts with charisma and drive courtesy of a hook-heavy synth-pop appeal that’s among the highlights of her early catalogue.

Released on 12 November 1984, Like A Virgin’s addictive energy makes it the stuff of legend. As Madonna wannabes became a cultural phenomenon, and the star’s dazzling video persona redefined what it was to be a female artist, this album sat in the eye of the hurricane – arguably the most significant record ever released by a woman. In an era long before #MeToo, Like A Virgin showed that Madonna was calling all the shots. The world would forever dance to her inspiration.

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