Madonna

The definitive biography of one of the world’s most famous women. Madonna is the biggest-selling female recording artist in the world and one of our greatest living pop stars. With each pioneering album she has consistently reinvented her music and her image, transcending the world of pop to become a global cultural icon. In 2018, unbelievably, she is hitting her 60th birthday – yet she still remains as relevant as ever. Lucy O’Brien’s extensive and well-researched biography looks at Madonna the artist, offering a detailed analysis of her music with input from acclaimed musicians and producers, as well revealing interviews from her intimate inner circle. She follows Madonna from her difficult childhood and those frenetic early years in New York, through the shocks and scandals of the 1990s Sex era to her twenty-first-century incarnation as an outspoken activist. Providing a fascinating insight into her life, relationships and what motivates her as a woman and an artist, Madonna: Like an Icon is the definitive biography of one of the biggest stars in the world.

*A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR | A GUARDIAN MEMOIR OF THE YEAR | A TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR * 'Chronicles, in enthralling detail, Madonna Louise Ciccone's path from terrifyingly ambitious trainee dancer to pop colossus, all the while placing her in a wider social and cultural context.' GUARDIAN MAGAZINE 'Gabriel charts her extraordinary life, right through to pop icon. She deserves a biographer as meticulous, intelligent and insightful as Gabriel.' DAILY MAIL 'Madonna built the house in which nearly all female artists now live . . . A Rebel Life brings home not just her obvious willpower and strength, but her fearlessness and sheer intelligence' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A fascinating take on one of music's greatest icons' BELFAST TELEGRAPH 'It's a mark of Gabriel's skill that she has managed to wrestle this complex, sprawling, eventful life into a book that rarely flags and conveys its subject's wider significance without tipping into hagiography. We come to understand Madonna the person as well as Madonna the concept: a woman who, for a generation, embodied female artistic, sexual and financial liberation.' GUARDIAN In this exceptional biography, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion - as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles - taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanour of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever - and be whoever - they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our time.

*A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR | A GUARDIAN MEMOIR OF THE YEAR | A TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR * 'Chronicles, in enthralling detail, Madonna Louise Ciccone's path from terrifyingly ambitious trainee dancer to pop colossus, all the while placing her in a wider social and cultural context.' GUARDIAN MAGAZINE 'Gabriel charts her extraordinary life, right through to pop icon. She deserves a biographer as meticulous, intelligent and insightful as Gabriel.' DAILY MAIL 'Madonna built the house in which nearly all female artists now live . . . A Rebel Life brings home not just her obvious willpower and strength, but her fearlessness and sheer intelligence' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A fascinating take on one of music's greatest icons' BELFAST TELEGRAPH 'It's a mark of Gabriel's skill that she has managed to wrestle this complex, sprawling, eventful life into a book that rarely flags and conveys its subject's wider significance without tipping into hagiography. We come to understand Madonna the person as well as Madonna the concept: a woman who, for a generation, embodied female artistic, sexual and financial liberation.' GUARDIAN In this exceptional biography, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion - as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles - taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanour of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever - and be whoever - they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our time.

*A SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR | A GUARDIAN MEMOIR OF THE YEAR | A TELEGRAPH BEST MUSIC BOOK OF THE YEAR * 'Chronicles, in enthralling detail, Madonna Louise Ciccone's path from terrifyingly ambitious trainee dancer to pop colossus, all the while placing her in a wider social and cultural context.' GUARDIAN MAGAZINE 'Gabriel charts her extraordinary life, right through to pop icon. She deserves a biographer as meticulous, intelligent and insightful as Gabriel.' DAILY MAIL 'Madonna built the house in which nearly all female artists now live . . . A Rebel Life brings home not just her obvious willpower and strength, but her fearlessness and sheer intelligence' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A fascinating take on one of music's greatest icons' BELFAST TELEGRAPH 'It's a mark of Gabriel's skill that she has managed to wrestle this complex, sprawling, eventful life into a book that rarely flags and conveys its subject's wider significance without tipping into hagiography. We come to understand Madonna the person as well as Madonna the concept: a woman who, for a generation, embodied female artistic, sexual and financial liberation.' GUARDIAN In this exceptional biography, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary Gabriel chronicles the meteoric rise and enduring influence of the greatest female pop icon of the modern era: Madonna. With her arrival on the music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion - as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles - taking the nation by storm with her liberated politics and breathtaking talent. But Madonna was more than just a pop star. Everywhere, fans gravitated to her as an emblem of a new age, one in which feminism could shed the buttoned-down demeanour of the 1970s and feel relevant to a new generation. Amid the scourge of AIDS, she brought queer identities into the mainstream, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever - and be whoever - they wanted. Despite fierce criticism, she never separated her music from her political activism. And as an artist, she never stopped experimenting. Madonna existed to push past boundaries by creating provocative, visionary music, videos, films and live performances that changed culture globally. Deftly tracing Madonna's story from her Michigan roots to her rise to super-stardom, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the dramatic life and achievements of one of the greatest artists of our time.