Madonna (Madonna album)
| Madonna | |||||
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| Studio album by Madonna | |||||
| Released | July 27, 1983 | ||||
| Recorded | May 1982 – April 1983 | ||||
| Studio | Sigma Sound Studios (New York City) |
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| Length | 40:47 | ||||
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| Madonna chronology | |||||
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| Madonna video chronology | |||||
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| Alternate cover | |||||
Cover for the 1985 international re-release of the album, titled Madonna: The First Album
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| Singles from Madonna | |||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  |
| Blender |  |
| Christgau's Record Guide | A– |
| Encyclopedia of Popular Music | |
| Entertainment Weekly | A |
| Q | |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide |  |
| Slant Magazine | |
| Spin Alternative Record Guide | 8/10 |
| The Village Voice | B |
Madonna (retitled Madonna: The First Album for the 1985 rerelease) is the eponymous debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna, released on July 27 1983 by Sire Records. After having established herself as a singer in downtown New York City, Madonna was signed by Sire Record president Seymour Stein following the success of her 1982 single "Everybody". Unhappy with the work of producer Reggie Lucas, Madonna invited John "Jellybean" Benitez to complete the album, who remixed many of the tracks and produced "Holiday".
Madonna has an upbeat synthetic disco sound, using new technology of the time, including the Linn drum machine, Moog bass and Oberheim OB-X synthesizer. Madonna sings in a bright, girlish timbre, with lyrics about love and relationships. She solely wrote five of the album's eight tracks. To promote the album, Madonna performed one-off gigs in clubs and on television in the United States and United Kingdom throughout 1983–84, followed by the Virgin Tour in 1985. Five singles were released, including the international top-ten hits "Holiday", "Lucky Star", and "Borderline". Their accompanying music videos were released on the Madonna video compilation, which became the best-selling videocassette of 1985 in the United States.
Madonna peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200, and was certified five-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of five million copies across the United States. It reached the top ten of the charts in Australia, France, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. Though Madonna was dismissed by some critics at the time of its release, it has been applauded by contemporary critics; in 2008, the album placed number five on Entertainment Weekly's list of "Top 100 Best Albums of Past 25 Years". The album helped popularize dance music, setting the standard for dance-pop for decades afterward, and pointed the direction for numerous female artists of the 1980s.
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