Celebrating its fortieth birthday at the end of last month, Madonna‘s ‘Material Girl’ is a memorable single and video from 1985, is now seen as defining Madonna as a feminist icon, along with ‘Like a Virgin’.
When super producer Nile Rodgers refers to Madonna’s second album Like a Virgin, he calls it another Chic record. Certainly, their paw prints are musically all over the title track and this awesome hit; but Madonna’s personality is stamped all over it. She resolutely makes it her own. Her unmistakable vocals are strident and cheeky, matching the funky combination of basslines and bounding synths, packed with hooks. Written by Peter Brown and Robert Rans. Brown had success as a singer with the 1977 disco hit ‘Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me’, co-written with Rans. There’s a knowing playfulness to Madge’s vocal, dripping in impishness and an addictive robotic call and return chorus (‘living in a material world’) reflecting the song’s message, that her love can only be bought with gifts, as the protagonist chooses a life of decadence rather than romance; an assertion that she was in control of her own destiny rather than any man.
Despite not writing the words Madge makes it hers, the theme is dripping in irony and knowing, reflecting her life of superstardom and fortune she was living at that time and thus appeals to Madonna’s provocative personality. It also acts as a satire of the Raegnite-era of excess, consumerism and materialism in the same way as Pet Shop Boys ‘Opportunities‘ did. In a 1986 interview with Company magazine, she said: “I’m very career-oriented. You are attracted to people who are ambitious that way, too, like in the song Material Girl. You are attracted to men who have material things because that’s what pays the rent and buys you furs. That’s the security. That lasts longer than emotions.”
Madonna’s perspective on it today differs: “I can’t completely disdain the song and the video, because they certainly were important to my career,” she added many (mostly) male critics completely missed the irony. “But talk about the media hanging on a phrase and misinterpreting the damn thing as well. I didn’t write that song, you know, and the video was about how the girl rejected diamonds and money. But God forbid irony should be understood. So when I’m 90, I’ll still be the Material Girl.”
With the look of the memorable video riffing on a loving pastiche of Marilyn Monroe performance of ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ from the movie ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’, it’s undercut by scenes featuring a director trying to win the heart of an actress, played by Madonna herself. In contrast to the song’s lyrics, the young woman is not impressed by money and expensive gifts, but by pretending to be poor he ends up taking her on a date, the irony and contradiction on display teased out evwn early on Madonna’s ability to make a perfromamce and song firmly her own and portray deeper messages of female empowerment in a “man’s world”. Whatever the case ‘Material Girl’ confirmed Madonna as a pop icon, and it’s an unforgettable earworm to boot.
