College Times

Issue date: 3/6/08 Section: Music

Media Credit: Hahn-Khayat

Madonna has been many things in her 26-year career.

The Material Girl has been a pop star, a video star, a movie star, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a dancer, a label exec, a producer and, most recently, a director.

Calling her a rocker, though, is a bit of a stretch.

Yes, there are a handful of borderline rock songs in her catalog and she did learn the guitar for her "Music" tour. But Madonna is a pop star. When she looks for new musical inspiration, it has almost always come from the dance clubs, embracing electronica and Europop instead of rock.

Does that mean Madonna should be excluded from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Of course not.

"To me, it's the same issue as last year with Grandmaster Flash and `does hip-hop belong in?'" says Jim Henke, vice president of exhibitions and curatorial affairs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. "I think here at the museum and among other inductees, we've always defined rock and roll pretty broadly.

"It's not just about four guys with guitars or something like that. Madonna certainly had a huge impact on popular music and rock `n' roll throughout the `80s and `90s and she's certainly deserving of being honored."

Henke points to Madonna's music, her incorporation of dance elements and her mixing of styles that influenced lots of performers that came after her.

Her biggest contribution, though, was her music videos.

"Madonna takes us into a new era," says Rick Krim, VH1's executive vice president for music and talent programming. "As the years go on, the new eligibles from the MTV era will be different from those who came before them. They will be different from the Ventures or the Dave Clark Five. And Madonna emerged as one of the icons of the video era."

When Madonna made her debut in 1982 with the dance single "Everybody," she seemed like just another dance pop singer, like the countless ones who would follow, from Regina and Martika to Stacey Q and Pebbles.

Once she figured out how to use music videos to sell her image as well as her songs, Madonna, with the help of MTV, was soon in a league of her own.

Established performers who adapted well to music videos improved their careers, but Madonna was the first superstar to be launched on MTV.

"Other acts, like Michael Jackson or Prince, saw their careers taken to another level by videos on MTV," says Krim, who worked at MTV in its early days. "Madonna was born there. She always pushed the limits. Her videos never looked like something somebody else did. We always took everything she did really seriously and we still do."

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