Madonna - Wonderful Woman No. 133

Madonna - Born 1958
American Singer, Songwriter, Actress, Film Director, Author, Dancer & Business Woman

Added to the album by Becky, A Wonderful Stranger

Back in February, I was in the ladies loos at TV21 in Manchester's Northern Quarter, as I applied my lip-gloss in the mirror, a friend appeared from one of the cubicles. The friend, Libbie, commented on how much she liked the Wonderful Women album, which I had recently started on Facebook and how she enjoyed seeing the new women added in her newsfeed. Another girl in the bar's toilets (who I later identified as Becky) joined in with the conversation and suggested that I add Madonna. She said Madonna had been a huge inspiration over the years, that she had felt empowered by her and that she had been an influence as she had grown up, a role model of a strong, independent woman. It was an impassioned nomination, I added Madonna to the album the following day.

As it happens, I had been a teenage Madonna fan myself. I enjoyed her catchy pop songs but mostly, I liked her changing image and her fiestiness, her uniqueness and her boldness.

Madonna started her working life as a dancer, before forming a band and becoming a singer. Her first solo single, Everybody, was released in 1982 and she went on to release a dizzying number of singles with huge chart success, among those singles are a mass of unforgetable classics, such as Like A Virgin, Holiday and Vogue. She has release fifteen albums, with further compilations and live albums too. She has sold over 300 million records worldwide

and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's best-selling female recording artist in history. She is celebrated as one of the best stage performers in music, her live shows really groundbreaking and thoroughly entertaining. Summerising Madonna's recording career in just a paragraph is incredibly difficult, the list of awards is overwhelming, the list of songs I'd like to mention is ridiculously long and, in all honesty, whatever I write, I am destined to leave something of major importance out - so, let me just say, her success as a singer and songwriter is pheonmenal and this alone would qualify Madonna as a very worthy Wonderful Woman.

But it doesn't just end there, the list of other avenues Madonna's career has taken is massive and she has thrust herself into all that she has

done with astonishing gusto.

In 1979, Madonna appeared in her first film A Certain Sacrifice, playing the leading role. She has starred in 19 films and a number of television shows, there are some great movies among them, including Desperately Seeking Susan, A League of Their Own and Evita - for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress. She has also directed two films Filth and Wisdom and the Wallis Simpson biopic W.E.

Madonna has published many books, I remember well the controversy surrounding the release of her debut coffee table book Sex in 1992 - I was a teenage school girl at the time, there was no way my mother would have allowed me access to such a book, so I was thrilled when a girl called Sarah smuggled her copy into school. There are several other releases which focus on different moments in Madonna's varied career. In 2003, the first of Madonna's children's books, The English Roses, was published and since she has written and published a number of other books for children.

She's an astute business woman too. Among her ventures have been a fashion label and fitness centres but most notably, her own record label, Maverick, which has signed the likes of Alanis Morissette, Muse and The Prodigy.

Madonna herself is, of course, a huge brand. She's recreated her image countless times but always there is the clear determination, strength of character and complete self-belief. I am glad I was a teenager at the time of Madonna's music career height, I'm sure it inspired many other girls like Becky and I, made us see how successful and powerful a woman alone could be, sexually liberated, career driven, vibrant, determined - a wonderful role-model to have.

I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.
Madonna