Bay City is a city and county seat of Bay County in the U.S. state of Michigan, located near the base of the Saginaw Bay on Lake Huron. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 34,932, and it is the principal city of the Bay City Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Saginaw-Midland-Bay City Combined Statistical Area. The city, along with nearby Midland and Saginaw, form the Greater Tri-Cities region of Central Michigan.
Madonna Louise Ciccone is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the "Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, and visual presentation. She has pushed the boundaries of artistic expression in mainstream music, while continuing to maintain control over every aspect of her career. Her works, which incorporate social, political, sexual, and religious themes, have generated both controversy and critical acclaim. A prominent cultural figure crossing both the 20th and 21st centuries, Madonna remains one of the most "well-documented figures of the modern age", with a broad amount of scholarly reviews and literature works on her, as well as an academic mini subdiscipline devoted to her named Madonna studies.
Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop.
"Drowned World/Substitute for Love" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for her seventh studio album, Ray of Light (1998). It was written and produced by Madonna and William Orbit, with additional songwriters including Rod McKuen, Anita Kerr and David Collins. McKuen and Kerr received the credits due to the usage of a sample from one of their songs, "Why I Follow the Tigers". "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" is an ambient pop song which lyrically describes Madonna's spiritual transformation to seek authentic love over superficial alliances.
"Deeper and Deeper" is a song by American singer Madonna from her fifth studio album, Erotica (1992). It was written and produced by both Madonna and Shep Pettibone, with additional writing from Anthony Shimkin. In Australia and most European countries, the song was released as the album's second single on November 17, 1992; in the United States, a release was issued on December 8. It was included on Madonna's second greatest hits compilation, GHV2 (2001). A dance-pop and house song, it has disco and Philadelphia soul influences; the bridge features instrumentation from flamenco guitars and castanets, and features background vocals from the singer's collaborators Donna De Lory and Niki Haris. Lyrically, the song talks about sexual desire, though it has been argued that it is actually about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality, and includes a reference to Madonna's single "Vogue" (1990).
A Madonna wannabe, or Madonnabe, is a person who dresses or acts like American singer Madonna. When she emerged into stardom in the mid-1980s, an unusually high number of women, particularly young women and girls, began to dress and do their hair and makeup in the style that Madonna displayed in public. The term was popularized by writer John Skow in a May 1985 Time cover story on the singer. Numerous sociologists and other academics commented on the Madonna influence in her wannabes, and mainly because by that time, using fashion with identity was a fresh concept. At some point of her career, and largely thanks to this phenomenon, Madonna was the most-imitated woman in the world on the report of American journalist Ricardo Baca.
Madonna: Truth or Dare is a 1991 American documentary film by director Alek Keshishian chronicling the life of American entertainer Madonna during her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. Madonna approached Keshishian to do an HBO special on the tour after watching his Harvard senior project. Initially planned to be a traditional concert film, Keshishian was so impressed with the backstage life that he persuaded Madonna to do a full film focusing on that. Madonna funded the project and served as executive producer. The film was edited to be in black-and-white, in order to emulate cinéma vérité, while the performance scenes were edited to be in color.
The English Roses is a children's picture book written by American entertainer Madonna, released on September 15, 2003, by Callaway Arts & Entertainment. Jeffrey Fulvimari illustrated the book with line drawings. A moral tale, it tells the story of four friends who are jealous of a girl called Binah. However, they come to know that Binah's life is not easy and decide to include her in their group.
Madonna studies is the study of the work and life of American singer-songwriter Madonna using an interdisciplinary approach incorporating cultural studies and media studies. In a general sense, it could refer to any academic studies devoted to her. After Madonna's debut in 1983, the discipline did not take long to start up and the field appeared in the mid-1980s, achieving its peak in the next decade. Educator David Buckingham deemed her presence in academic circles as "a meteoric rise to academic canonisation". The rhetoric academic view of that time, majority in the sense of postmodernism, generally considered her as "the most significant artist of the late twentieth century" thus she is understood variously and as a vehicle to open up issues. In the 21st century, academic studies about Madonna have remained and continued in many aspects. At the height of its developments, authors of these academic writings were sometimes called "Madonna scholars" or "Madonnologists", and both E. Ann Kaplan and John Fiske were classified as precursors.
Madonna: An Intimate Biography is a book by American author J. Randy Taraborrelli, chronicling the life of American singer Madonna. The book was released in April 2001 by Sidgwick & Jackson in the United Kingdom, and in August 2001 by Simon & Schuster in the United States. Taraborrelli first considered writing the book in 1990, but, realizing the project might be premature in respect to Madonna's fledgling career, set it aside. He began writing the book in 1996, when Madonna gave birth to her daughter Lourdes.
Madonna: Like an Icon is a biography by English author Lucy O'Brien, chronicling the life of American singer Madonna. The book was released on 27 August 2007, by Bantam Press in the United Kingdom, and on 18 October 2007, by Harper Collins in the United States. Madonna: Like an Icon chronicles the life of the singer from her birth, up to the release of her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy, in 2008. Initially critical of her work, O'Brien had become a fan of Madonna after seeing her perform on television for The Virgin Tour in 1985. From that point of time, the author followed Madonna's career closely, attending her concerts, and collecting interviews, magazines, and albums.
Alina Simone is an American musician and writer. She is best known for her original songwriting, her album of cover songs by Russian punk poet Yanka Dyagileva, and her collection of autobiographical essays You Must Go And Win. She also blogs for The New York Times.
American entertainer Madonna has produced five fashion brands, beginning with a clothing range for fashion store H&M in March 2007. She later created an enterprise, MG Icon LLC, a joint venture with her manager Guy Oseary and Iconix Brand Group which produces her lifestyle brands Material Girl and Truth or Dare by Madonna. She also collaborated with Dolce & Gabbana on a range of sunglasses which marked the first co-branded collaboration that the design duo has ever undertaken.
This is a list containing the different written works about Madonna, including biographies and other literary forms. Many authors have written more than one book about Madonna and these have been published in multiple languages other than English, including German, French, Dutch, Spanish and Italian. The releases have sometimes become bestsellers and have faced varied reception from critics and academics. The staff of Xtra Magazine commented that "she has inspired a mini publishing industry all her own". Maura Johnston said that "the appetite for books on Madonna is large, and the variety of approaches writers, editors, and photographers have taken to craft their portraits is a testament to how her career has both inspired and provoked". On the report of Eric Weisbard "only Madonna books proliferated" compared to her other contemporary fellows from the 1980s. Evelyn Briceno from La Tercera described her as a character worthy of biographies, photo books and various analyses.
Life with My Sister Madonna is an autobiography by American artist, designer and interior decorator Christopher Ciccone and author Wendy Leigh. The book is a memoir about Ciccone's relationship with his sister, American singer Madonna, and was released on July 14, 2008 by Simon Spotlight Entertainment. A tell-all book, it details Ciccone's life spent with Madonna, and unknown aspects of the singer's life. The relationship between Ciccone and Madonna had deteriorated over the years, following the singer's refusal to employ him as her tour director. Writing the book was a catharsis for him and he contacted Leigh. Together they developed the project secretly and offered it to Simon Spotlight Entertainment for publication.
American singer-songwriter Madonna has had a social-cultural impact on the world through her recordings, attitude, clothing and lifestyle since her early career in the 1980s. Madonna has built a legacy that goes beyond music and has been studied by sociologists, historians and other social scientists. This contributed to the rise of the Madonna studies, an academic and critical response dedicated to her work and persona for which Madonna's semiotic and image was diversified in a wide-ranging of theoretical stripe from feminism to queer studies among others.
Madonna fandom refers to the fan community of American singer-songwriter Madonna. She appeals and encompasses to different audiences, thus her fandom is composed by different types of level-interested person, and for which she gained a cult status amongst different audiences according to professor Sheila Jeffreys. Unlike others fandoms, her fan base does not have an official moniker, although "Madonna wannabe" became a popular media label to talk about her fans. The fanaticism surrounding the singer, and also called Madonnamania initiated no later than 1985. She produced various consecutive successful singles in various major music markets, established numerous international records and impacted the fashion industry. Millions of her female fans were dressing like Madonna around the world and the term "Madonna wannabe" was born.
A Madonna impersonator is an entertainer who impersonates American singer-songwriter Madonna. Professional Madonna impersonators have existed at least since the mid-1980s, and sometimes are sorted as "tribute acts". As an established artist, Madonna impersonators have seen a notable demand, many of them performing in front of thousands people and visiting several countries in their professional Madonna career as some media outlets have reported. Notable Madonna impersonators, include Venus D-Lite, Chris America and Melissa Totten. Others impressionists have included Madonna in their repertoire, such as Tracey Bell, Charlie Hides and Véronic DiCaire.
American singer-songwriter Madonna has been regarded as a sexual icon and defined by an author, as the leading sex symbol of the postmodern era. Many have considered Madonna's sexuality as one of the focal points of her career. The Oxford Dictionary of English (2010) credited her image as a sex symbol as a source of her international stardom. Her sexual displays have drawn numerous analysis by scholars, sexologists, feminists, and other authors. Due to her constant usage of explicit sexual content, Madonna faced censorship by MTV for her videos, as well as by other entities for her stage performances, and other projects.
Madonna is a name from the 16th century, originally used as a respectful form of address to an Italian woman. It comes from Old Italian phrase ma donna which means "my lady". It was later adopted as one of titles for Mary, mother of Jesus in Roman Catholic tradition in the 17th century.
