Madonna

Madonna doesn't need a very high vocal range to sound good. She is a great artist with unique and very recognizable voice. She's the first female artist who made real storyline in music video ("Borderline"), the first female who showed dancing in music video ("Holiday" and "Lucky Star"), the 1st female who made video-tribute to a movie ("Material Girl").
Madonna is a singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer, director, writer, true businesswoman. She was Nothing but became the most successful & influential female thanks to her hard-working temper.
Unlike monotonous Mariah Carey, Beyonce....and many others, Madonna sang different musical genres (Pop, Dance, Disco, Gospel, R&B, Jazz, Lounge, Trip Hop, New Jack Swing, Country, Latin, Broadway score etc) and she sounded different & fresh in each of them.

An extremely underrated artist, who is getting judged more by her image than her music. She has shown incredible diversity and creativity with her music. Confessions on a Dancefloor might be her masterpiece, it's her most consistent, I don't think it has a weak song, and it's so filled with energy. It is an essential pop/dance album. Ray of Light and Like a Prayer are two other masterpieces, very magical quality to them. Add to that great albums like True Blue and Music, heck even the underrated American Life, and you have one of the finest Pop artists ever.

She has lost me a bit with her last 3 albums, but who cares when she has a back catalogue like that. (Edited)

From junodog4 TOP 100 COMMENTER 07/13/2012 03:57 | #46340

Madonna up to Ray of Light is an icon. She wrote seminal pop music, and promoted her image, pushed boundaries, and provoked people. Since 2000, she hasn't aged well. Nothing new is coming out of her and she's desperately grasping for relevancy. She should've called it quits after Music.

From 9999 TOP 100 COMMENTER 08/17/2022 20:44 | #288565

It would be very easy to undervalue Madonna, and even easier to dismiss her entirely, but I think that would be a huge mistake. Very few artists have played as big a role in molding the music landscape as she has. Her output during the eighties changed the game for women in music and redefined what a female pop star could be. She's a marketing queen who, through sheer will and ambition, was able to exert an unprecedented creative control over her career at a time when that was virtually impossible to do for a female pop artist. She looked at trends and reinvented herself multiple times, and she took big risks that paid off in spades. Her far-reaching influence goes way beyond music. She is a pop culture icon. Not the best singer, not the best songwriter, but a fascinating and multifaceted artist nonetheless. There are dozens of artists who wouldn't even exist without her, and I can't help but having mad respect for her for that. Also, let's be honest: mainstream or not, she has more than a few killer tracks under her belt, and several albums (her debut, Like a prayer and Ray of light come to mind) of considerable quality. She's far from being my favourite music artist, but I think she definitely deserves a spot on the top 100 artists of all time, and if we were to rank the most influential ones, she would probably land near the top 10. I'm sorry, but a rating of 68/100 for this woman sounds insanely low to me. (Edited)

From Jasperjames 02/20/2014 20:55 | #103767

A cultural icon beyond the world of pop music