‘Like a Virgin’ turns 39. How Madonna’s iconic song paved the way for female musicians
We all know it like an anthem: that prowling bassline, the peek-a-boo synth and Madonna’s girl-like voice wafting in on the fourth measure.
It’s been 39 years since “Like a Virgin” hit the top of the charts in the U.S. on December 22, 1984. And, in the final week of 2023 — a year of massive success for women in music — this anniversary feels particularly poignant.
According to scholars of her work, Madonna’s song and its popularity marked a turning point for women in popular music. Until then, pop featured a very narrow archetype of womanhood. “Like a Virgin’s” raunchy lyrics and sensuality were unusual.
“At the time of its release, it rankled mostly male rock critics, who sneered at Madonna’s unbridled sensuality,” wrote Matthew Rettenmund, author of Encyclopedia Madonnica, in an essay in the Library of Congress.
According to Rettenmund, “The use of the word “virgin” in a song was shocking for 1984.” The track had been written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelley as a love song. However, draped in Madonna’s voice, the narrator’s affections seemed far more promiscuous and sexual to 1980s audiences.
With Chic mastermind Nile Rogers as producer, Madonna “delivered a fizzy cocktail that channeled New York City’s pulsating club energy and topped it off with a sleeker pop sheen,” wrote John Murph for Tidal Magazine.
Released on Nov. 12, 1984, “ ‘Like a Virgin’ was the title track of the album that made Madonna the first female artist in the U.S. to sell more than 5 million copies of an album,” Murph wrote. The album eventually sold 10 million. It helped elevate her to equal status to male icons like Prince and Michael Jackson.
On the album cover, the 26-year-old singer wore a corset wedding dress with lace gloves and a belt buckle that read “Boy Toy.”
The song held #1 in the U.S. charts for six weeks straight. Madonna’s music videos began to saturate MTV, a new and highly influential music broadcasting machine at the time.
While it was Madonna’s mainstream appeal that set her up to be the ground-breaker, she was far from the first artist to bring sexuality and suggestive lyrics to the microphone. Numerous female artists in the Black community — like Millie Jackson and Grace Jones — had been doing that for years.
“Many of us in the black community…chuckled as white conservatives made such a nationwide fuss over ‘Like a Virgin,’” wrote Murph.
“Because of the far-reaching mainstream pop appeal,” wrote Murph, “Madonna’s transgressive tendencies — her supposed heresy, her sexually boundary-pushing material — were afforded greater scrutiny and buzz-worthy controversy.”
In other words, more attention. Of all kinds.
She became known as the Queen of Pop. “Like a Virgin” and her subsequent hits, like “Material Girl” and “Into the Groove,” “allowed Madonna to create an archetype of pop stardom that Gwen Stefani, P!nk and Lady Gaga have followed,” wrote Murph.
This first hit was an important piece of ground laid for women in music who came after her–the fruits of which we see today.
And few years brought us those fruits more than 2023. With Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour becoming the highest-grossing music tour ever, to Beyoncé’s breaking the record for the most Grammy wins in history, to Missy Elliot becoming the first female rapper in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the past 12 months were a procession of female musical success.
Madonna — with all the controversy and critique her career (and recent interviews) has yielded — is considered by many a foundational figure in the tone and breadth of female musical success today.
