MADONNA:

Madonna’s celebrity status reached points early in her career that made it easy to forget why she was famous to begin with. Soon after she rose to stardom, the public became so interested with her persona that most of her musical merits were overshadowed. Although Madonna’s music has been focused on less over the past decade, she has managed to continue producing multiple hits and has demonstrated her skill of manipulating the media and the public at large with her music, her videos, her publicity, her films, and her sexuality. She has arguably been the first female pop star to have complete control over her career as an artist and public figure.