Madonna Louise Ciccone

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."
On her 1983 debut album, Madonna's vocal abilities and personal artistry were not fully formed. Her vocal style and lyrics was similar to other pop stars that period like Paula Abdul, Debbie Gibson and Taylor Dayne. The songs on Madonna reveal several key trends that have continued to define her success, including a strong dance-based idiom, catchy hooks, highly polished arrangements and Madonna's own vocal style. In songs such as "Lucky Star" and "Borderline", Madonna introduced a style upbeat dance music that would prove particularly appealing to gay audiences. The bright, girlish vocal timbre the early years became passé in Madonna's later works, the change being deliberate, since Madonna was constantly reminded how the critics had once labelled her as "Minnie Mouse on helium", because her early voice. Her second album, Like a Virgin (1984), foreshadowed several trends in Madonna's later works. It contained references to classical works (pizzicato synthesizer line that opens "Angel"); potential negative reaction from social groups ("Dress You Up" was blacklisted by the Parents Music Resource Center); and retro styles ("Shoo-Bee-Doo", Madonna's homage to Motown). Madonna's early style, and the change that she ushered in it, is best evident in the song "Material Girl". It opens with Madonna using a little-girl voice, but following the first verse, she switches to a richer, more mature voice in the chorus. This mature artistic statement was visible in True Blue (1986). The song "Papa Don't Preach" was a significant milestone in her artistic career. The classical introduction, fast tempo and the gravity in her voice was unprecedented in Madonna's œuvre at that time.
With Like a Prayer (1989), Madonna again entered a new phase, musically. The album introduced live recorded songs and incorporated different genres music, including dance, R&B and gospel music. Madonna continued to compose ballads and uptempo dance songs for Erotica (1992) and Bedtime Stories (1994). She tried to remain contemporary by incorporating samples, drum loops and hip hop into her music. Her voice grew much deeper and fuller, evident in the tracks like "Rain" and "Take a Bow". During the filming Evita, Madonna had to take vocal lessons, which increased her range further. Of this experience she commented, "I studied with a vocal coach for Evita and I realized there was a whole piece my voice I wasn't using. Before, I just believed I had a really limited range and was going to make the most it." Continuing her musical evolution with Ray Light, the track "Frozen" displayed her fully formed vocal prowess and her allusions to classical music. Her vocals were restrained and she sang the songs in Ray Light without vibrato. However, the intake breath within the songs became more prominent. With the new millennium came her album Music in which Madonna sang in her normal voice in a medium range, and sometimes in a higher register for the chorus. Fouz-Hernández commented that "Throughout her career, Madonna's manipulation her voice shows us that, by refusing to be defined in one way, she has in fact opened up a space for new kinds musical analysis."