American singer and songwriter Madonna has recorded songs for fourteen studio albums and three soundtrack albums, with few new songs being added for five compilation albums and one live album . She has provided background vocals for songs recorded by other artists, as well as being featured on other artists' tracks.
Contents
Madonna signed with Sire Records (an auxiliary label of Warner Bros. Records) in 1982 and released her self-titled debut album the following year. [1] Since then, she has recorded a series of successful studio albums, including the all-time bestsellers Like a Virgin (1984) and True Blue (1986), as well as the Grammy Award winners Ray of Light (1998) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005). [2] Having become the sole writer of most of the songs on her debut album, Madonna collaborated with mostly one producer to write her material. Her most successful entirely self-written tracks are "Lucky Star" and "Gambler", which each reached the top five in the US and the UK, respectively. She created prolific songwriting partnerships with Patrick Leonard (chart-toppers include "Live to Tell", "La Isla Bonita", "Who's That Girl", "Like a Prayer", and "Frozen") and with Stephen Bray (chart-toppers include "Into the Groove", "True Blue", and "Express Yourself"). Producers William Orbit and Mirwais Ahmadzaï each co-wrote with Madonna on three studio albums.
Madonna has also recorded songs for film soundtracks, starting in 1985 with the single "Crazy for You", which she sang as a club singer cameo in the film Vision Quest (1985). She followed it with songs for her major film roles like Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) as well as Who's That Girl (1987). For the 1990 film Dick Tracy , Madonna recorded three songs composed by Stephen Sondheim and duetted with actors Warren Beatty and Mandy Patinkin. Madonna recorded her versions of musical numbers composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice for the 1996 film Evita , along with actors Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce. Her most recent song recorded for a film was "Masterpiece", which she co-wrote for her directorial venture W.E. [3]
Other musical endeavors from Madonna includes poems she recorded for albums, like "Bittersweet" by the Persian poet Rumi, read for contemporary spiritualist Deepak Chopra's album, A Gift Of Love: Music inspired by the Love Poems of Rumi (1998). [4] She also recorded "If You Forget Me" by Pablo Neruda, for the soundtrack of the 1994 film, Il Postino: The Postman . [5] Madonna's recorded music encompasses providing background vocals for other artists like Patrick Hernandez, John Benitez, Nick Kamen, Nick Scotti and Donna De Lory. She also recorded collaborations with other performers, including Ricky Martin, Britney Spears, Annie Lennox, Nicki Minaj, M.I.A., Justin Timberlake and Timbaland.
