Engelska

<b>In this riveting and immersive biography, acclaimed author Mary Gabriel details the meteoric rise and enduring influence of </b><b>perhaps the greatest pop icon of the modern era: Madonna.</b><br/><br/>With her arrival on the pop music scene in the early 1980s, Madonna generated nothing short of an explosion - as great as that of Elvis or the Beatles or Michael Jackson - <b>taking the world by storm with her liberated politics and breath-taking talent.</b> Within two years of her 1983 debut album, a shopping mall in California was nicknamed "The Madonna Mall" because it was overrun with "Material Girls". Later that year, the flagship Macy's store in Manhattan held a Madonna lookalike contest with Andy Warhol as judge, and opened a department called "Madonna-land".<br/><br/>Everywhere, women and men gravitated to the singer and actor as an emblem of a new age, one in which the <b>women's liberation</b> could shed the buttoned-down demeanour and reserved seriousness of the '60s and '70s and continue to make tremendous strides for a new generation. Topping charts again and again with provocative, visionary music and videos, <b>Madonna brought queer and sexually-curious identities into the mainstream</b>, fiercely defending a person's right to love whomever, and the space to be who they wanted.<br/><br/>Now, after almost <b>45 years in the spotlight, and in her 65th year</b>, no stranger to controversy, Madonna stands as one of the staunchest supporters of women's and LGBTQ+ rights and continues to represent a lionized emblem of liberation throughout the world.<br/><br/>Deftly tracing the artist's life and influence from her Michigan roots through to her sold out concerts around the globe, master biographer Mary Gabriel captures the <b>inspiration, fame, and activism</b> of one of the greatest music icons of our time.