Today in Madonna History: December 3, 2014

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On December 3 2014, two photos for Donatella Versace’s 2015 spring/summer collection were revealed.  The photos were taken by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

Donatella said of Madonna:

“Madonna says it best herself: She is unapologetic.  She is her own woman, a role model who shows other women how we can do what we want, and get what we want, and do so for all of our lives, with no compromise.”

Today in Madonna History: December 2, 2000

On December 2 2000, Madonna’s Don’t Tell Me single was reviewed by Chuck Taylor in Billboard magazine.

Don’t Tell Me was Madonna’s final single to be released on cassette in the U.S., while Warner Bros. U.K. would issue Madonna’s next two singles in the format, with the last being 2002’s Die Another Day.

In Canada – the first market to consistently issue Madonna’s singles in the format (the cassette maxi-single of Angel was the first in 1985) – her final cassette single was 1995’s Bedtime Story and her last cassette maxi-single was 1994’s I’ll Remember.

Today in Madonna History: December 1, 1986

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On December 1 1986, Madonna appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine, with photos by Bruce Weber. Madonna is photographed alone, as well as with her many brothers and sisters.

The headline: That Fabulous Couple: Madonna and the Camera.

Quote from Life Magazine:

“Her greatest role, is the one she was born to play: Madonna.”

Today in Madonna History: December 31, 2015

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On December 31 2015, Madonna was featured on the cover of Elle France magazine.

Here’s a snippet of the article inside (translated):

“Morons have always hated her. Or loathed her. For Madonna is not only consumerism. It would be an insult to Madonna fans to speak of her only in terms of figures. Because she was the first to deliver this message to such big crowds, and still does after 30 years: that her femininity is openly in conflict with what religions demand from female individuals, yet her femininity never ceases to be spiritual.”

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Today in Madonna History: December 30, 2005

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On December 30 2005, Madonna’s Hung Up entered it’s 7th consecutive week at #1 on Germany’s Top 100 Singles chart. The hit single spent an additional two weeks at #1 before finally sliding to #2 in its 10th week on the chart.

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Today in Madonna History: December 29, 2000

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On December 29 2000, Madonna was named Woman Of The Year, Hype Of The Year (Madonna at Brixton) and Music is named Best Promo Video Of The Year by the writers of Dotmusic.com.

Today in Madonna History: December 28, 1992

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On December 28 1992, Madonna was named one of the 25 Most Intriguing People In The World For 1992 by People magazine.

Here’s what People had to say about Madonna in 1992:

The Movies! The Album! The Naughty Pictures! Once Again Madonna Was Everywhere, Shouting, “Look at Me—Every Inch of Me!”

Intriguing: suggests an air of mystery. Madonna: does everything in public but floss her teeth.

Intriguing: wrapped in enigma. Madonna: not wrapped in anything.

Intriguing: means doesn’t appear on-camera in romantic encounters with Evian water bottles. Madonna: does.

OK—so what’s so intriguing about somebody who lets you know that her lovers require a five-cent deposit?

For one thing, she made ya look. Consider Sex, the photo book in which she had her picture taken doing everything but blushing. Besides proving that a naked Madonna could arch backward over a pinball machine without mussing her hair, it also pushed the envelope out to the size of a circus tent. And when the crowds came pouring in, there she was at center ring, cracking her whip.

It only served her purposes that Sex earned sniffy reviews like “The Empress Has No Clothes” and that it was banned in places such as Japan and Ireland. Coming on the heels of her summer film hit, A League of Their Own, the fuss over her book helped to launch her new album, Erotica, and primed the movie audience for her next assault on their sensibilities, Body of Evidence. Her success at getting the world to subsidize her sexual preoccupations—to say nothing of her mammoth self-absorption—is what makes her worth the $60 million deal she cut this year with Time Warner (the parent company of PEOPLE). Madonna is not the first star to find the bucks in buck nakedness. But no one before her has capitalized so well on human willingness to have our fears and desires repackaged and sold back to us.

Yet this most public of women still strains to be a mystery. This year she went through more faces than Lon Chaney—one minute in Baby Jane pigtails, a cupcake from hell; the next in sour milkmaid gear, Heidi with a mean streak. Her changing gallery of faces is one reason that she’s a sex symbol who inspires a lot of heavy breathing from intellectuals. One landmark of the 1992 publishing list—The Madonna Connection: Representational Politics, Sub-cultural Identities and Cultural Theory. You didn’t get this sort of thing for Petula Clark.

But does she really throw such a mysterious light on our culture? More likely it’s just the glinting gears of a giant publicity machine. Yet the sheer magnitude of her achievement in that regard is, well, intriguing. And the grinding of those gears is surely too loud to be ignored. “I’m a revolutionary,” she once sighed. “And yes. it’s a burden.”

Sometimes it’s a burden for her, we sigh in return, and sometimes for us.

Madonna was a busy woman in 1992! What did you enjoy most? A League Of Their Own? This Used To Be My Playground? Erotica? Sex? Body Of Evidence?