Madonna Louise Ciccone

Madonna performed "Like a Prayer" at the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief concert in January 2010. In March she released her third live album, Sticky & Sweet Tour. It was her first release under Live Nation, but was distributed by Warner Bros. She announced plans directing her second film, W.E., a biopic about the affair between King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. It was co-written with Alek Keshishian. She later clarified that the film is about a woman's journey and was not going to be about the duchess' life. Instead, the duchess would act as the woman's spiritual guide. Madonna granted American TV show Glee the rights to her entire catalogue music, and the producers planned an episode which would feature Madonna songs exclusively. Titled "The Power Madonna", the episode was approved by her, telling Us Weekly that she found it "brilliant on every level", praising the scripting and the message equality. The episode also received positive reviews from critics. Ken Tucker Entertainment Weekly called it "one the best hours TV you’re likely to see all year", writing that the episode pays Madonna "the highest compliment possible" in not just expressing admiration for the singer, but "demonstrat a potent understanding why Madonna matters." Glee: The Music, The Power Madonna, an EP containing eight cover versions Madonna songs featured in the episode was released in May. The EP debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, with 98,000 copies sold in the United States.
Madonna's music has been the subject much analysis and scrutiny critics. Robert M. Grant, author Contemporary Strategy Analysis (2005), commented that what has brought Madonna success is "certainly not outstanding natural talent. As a vocalist, musician, dancer, songwriter, or actress, Madonna's talents seem modest." He asserts Madonna's success is in relying on the talents others, and that her personal relationships have served as cornerstones to the numerous reinventions in the longevity her career. Conversely, Rolling Stone has named Madonna "an exemplary songwriter with a gift for hooks and indelible lyrics, and a better studio singer than her live spectacles attest." Mark Bego, author Madonna: Blonde Ambition, called her "the perfect vocalist for lighter-than-air songs", despite not being a "heavyweight talent." Madonna has always been self-conscious about her voice, especially in comparison to her vocal idols such as Ella Fitzgerald, Prince and Chaka Khan.
According to Freya Jarman-Ivens, Madonna's talent for developing "incredible" hooks for her songs allows the lyrics to capture the attention the audience, even without the influence the music. As an example, Jarman-Ivens cites the 1985 single "Into the Groove" and its line "Live out your fantasy here with me, just let the music set you free; Touch my body, and move in time, now I know you're mine." From 1983 to 1986, Madonna's musical productions were ten girlish and naïve in nature, focusing primarily on love, romance, passion and boy-meets-girl relationships. This changed with the album Like a Prayer, when the lyrics became much more personal, such as in "Promise to Try", which references Madonna's lingering pain at the loss her mother. Madonna's lyrics ten suggest an identification with the gay community. Fouz believes that when Madonna sings "Come on girls, do you believe in love?" in "Express Yourself", she is addressing both the gay audience and the heterosexual female. Even in the Erotica era, with its ten adult-oriented lyrics, the songs appear free-flowing and gullible ("So won't you go down, where it's warm inside" — "Where Life Begins" from Erotica). Madonna's songwriting ability has been criticized, with Rolling Stone's Maria Raha calling her lyrics "flighty and not sophisticated. Madonna can only bring a trunk full trite lyrics on the long standing tradition pop music, love; when she wasn't singing about love, she was singing about partying and dancing." Her lyrics were considered banal, and her songwriting capability was largely ignored by critics until the release Ray Light and Music. According to Jarman-Ivens, lyrics such as "You're frozen, when your heart's not open" ("Frozen", 1998) and "I can't remember, when I was young, I can't express if it was wrong" ("Paradise (Not for Me)", 2000) reflected an artistic palette, "encompassing diverse musical, textual and visual styles in its lyrics."