In January 1984 Madonna had just one album under her belt when she told American Bandstand’s Dick Clark she had lofty plans: “To rule the world.” (Watch the rarely seen clip here, in our Iconic Madonna Moments gallery.) Over the past three decades, she has provoked, innovated and inspired; she’s set and broken her own records, most recently wrapping the highest-grossing tour ever by a solo artist with her Sticky & Sweet show. And now that she’s released the two-disc retrospective Celebration, the pop superstar who rarely looks back sat down with Rolling Stone’s Austin Scaggs for a revealing trip through her early days in New York, some of her biggest scandals, and of course, her most massive hits in our new issue, on stands today.
Celebrating Madonna: Look back at her 50 most iconic moments in photos and videos.
Even as a seventh grader in Michigan, Madonna reveals she knew how to push her audience’s buttons. For her first ever performance, “I had my girlfriends paint my body with fluorescent hearts and flowers,” she recalls of a rendition of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” that left her fellow students speechless. “I wore a pair of shorts and a midriff top, and I just went mad. … I’m sure everyone thought I was insane. That was the beginning of my provocative performances, I guess.”
Get a look at photos from Madonna’s record-shattering Sticky & Sweet tour.
But having innate stage savvy didn’t mean Madonna grew up a wild child. Though she tells Scaggs about her days as a graffiti artist when she was running with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in New York City (her tag: Boy Toy), life was tamer before that. “I was a geek in high school. I didn’t really have a drink until I got divorced for the first time [from Sean Penn] when I...
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily