Since freeing her debut album in 1983, Madonna has infrequently been out of the public eye — and she’s never stopped delivering floor-filling pop hits.

Born in Bay City, Michigan, in 1958, Madonna — whose complete identify is Madonna Louise Ciccone — started dancing as a child after convincing her dad to let her find out about ballet as an alternative of the piano. After graduating from high school in 1976, she attended the University of Michigan on a dance scholarship, however she dropped out two years later and moved to New York City.

Madonna endured learning dance in the Big Apple, however she also started making tune, and by means of 1981, she had her debut single, “Everybody,” able to go. “First of all, I wanted to make a residing. I used to be tired of being broke,” she recalled to The New York Times in 2019, reflecting on the ones early years. “But second of all, all I wanted used to be a song to get played on the radio. That’s all I used to be praying for. One tune.”

That dream got here true and then some. As of 2023, she’s the best-selling solo feminine artist of all time and is tied with Barbra Streisand for most multiplatinum albums via a solo female artist. “I have one thing new to mention each and every time I make a document,” she advised Entertainment Weekly in 2016. “I believe that that’s more or less a no-brainer. I’m now not a ‘biggest hits’ roughly woman. You may say it’s reinventing, but an actual artist is incessantly converting and evolving because the art is incessantly converting and evolving. I imply, Picasso didn’t paint the identical artwork again and again.”

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Keep scrolling for a glance back at Madonna’s life and career through the years:

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