Madonna

Madonna: Queen of Pop (2007) [DVD] Standard edition

"I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes mea bitch, ok." Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone never made any secret of her overarching ambition. From childhood, she was driven by an iron determination to become the most successful female recording artist of all time. And she succeeded. Her album sales top 200 million and her 2006 Confessions Tour grossed close to 200 million dollars – the highest-earning concert tour ever for a female artist. Hostile criticism generated by the crucifix scene in the tour is just the latest in a string of controversies that Madonna has provoked throughher songs, videos, stage performances, film roles and books – deliberately provoked as part of a superb exercise in self-promotion lasting overtwo decades. The raunchy performance of her first chart-topping hit, "Like A Virgin", at the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards - rolling around the floor in a wedding-veil, bustier, stockings, garters and her infamous "Boy Toy" belt, laid down a marker. As the song said, this girl "had nothing to hide" - and she has proved that repeatedly in a career defined by an uncompromising full-on, in-your-face-style that leaves little to the imagination and is calculated to invite censure.