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"Truth be told, I was a tad tardy to the #TeamMadonna party for two reasons. 1) I was born a mere 10 days after her classic gintercourse (ghost intercourse) performance of &amp;quot;Like a Virgin&amp;quot; at the 1984 MTV VMAs (C&amp;#39;mon, you&amp;#39;re going to tell me that her writhing around on the floor didn&amp;#39;t look like she was sexing on a recently departed man?). 2) My parents carefully curated my music collection, which meant no Prince or Madonna yet tons of Boyz II Men, Sting&amp;#39;s &amp;quot;Fields of Gold,&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Oh, What a Night, Late December Back in &amp;#39;63,&amp;quot; (This was pre-Google, so when I didn&amp;#39;t know the name of a song like the aforementioned Four Seasons&amp;#39; tune, I&amp;#39;d just make the first couple of lyrics the title). My only exposure to the Queen of Pop was capturing a glimpse of one of her music videos at a friend&amp;#39;s house or hearing one of her tunes on the radio. Then when I became a teenager, I was allowed to purchase The Immaculate Collection. I immediately fell in love with the catchy music and&amp;#8212;boom&amp;#8212;another fan was born.\nPinterestFacebookMadonna in action during the blockbuster Confessions Tour in 2006\nHere we are many years later: Madge&amp;#39;s songs still in heavy rotation on my iPod, the visual imagery firmly imprinted on my brain. Say what you want&amp;#8212;that she&amp;#39;s too old to be so overtly sexual, that her latest album isn&amp;#39;t as good as her previous work&amp;#8212;the fact remains that not only has she been a pop star for 30+ years, but she has created some of the most indelible pop-culture moments of all time. In honor of her 55th birthday, I&amp;#39;m taking a look back some of my favorite Material Girl moments. (P.S. For more Madge, we also rounded up her most fashionable music videos!) Let&amp;#39;s begin, shall we:\n1) Two words: Cone. Bra.\nPinterestFacebookI think I speak for everyone when I say that after seeing Madonna in the infamous Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra from her Blonde Ambition tour, we all attempted to re-create this fashion trend by placing Bugle chips on our nips and prancing around our apartments singing &amp;quot;Express Yourself.&amp;quot; No? Just me? Fair enough. Let&amp;#39;s just move on and peep Madge in action with the bra seen around the world:\n__\n\nThe Pope Telling Madonna to Let the Door Hit Her Where the Good Lord Split Her a.k.a. Banning Her From Italy Following the Release of &amp;quot;Like a Prayer.&amp;quot;__\n\nAs we all know, the pope has plenty of important things to do including doing spiritual shoulder shimmy with the man upstairs every morning. Suffice it to say, the pope is extremely busy, which is why it&amp;#39;s incredible that Madge not only got his attention but enraged him enough to make him ban her from Italy. After watching the &amp;quot;Like a Prayer&amp;quot; music video, it&amp;#39;s not difficult to see why people were so up in arms. From the stigmata to the burning crosses, Madge was clearly trying to push the boundaries of what the mainstream will accept&amp;#8212;a trait that many pop stars like Rihanna and Lady Gaga have emulated:\n3) Victorian &amp;quot;Vogue&amp;quot; at the 1990 VMAs\nIt&amp;#39;s crazy to think about it now, but when people like Michael Jackson, Prince, and Madonna were going to appear on television, it was an event. It didn&amp;#39;t matter if it was a new music video or a commercial for Pepsi. People across America crowded around their TVs to see what latest thing these superstars were going to do. Just look at Madge&amp;#39;s song &amp;quot;Vogue,&amp;quot; arguably one of her best songs and videos of all time. For those of use who were either too young to go to her concert or couldn&amp;#39;t snag tickets, the chance to watch her perform at the 1990 MTV VMAs was the next best thing:\nNo one, and I mean no one, saw her going the Victorian angle, which essentially managed to make this song seem fresh and new all over again. Not only is it one of the best VMAs moments of all time, it&amp;#39;s one of her best TV performances ever. Toward the end of the song, spot the twinkle in her eye as she knows she&amp;#39;s killing it.\n4) Pelvic Thrusting Is Her Cardio\nAfter the less-than-stellar American Life album, she decided to return to her roots&amp;#8212;making catchy pop music and pelvic thrusting&amp;#8212;in the video for debut single &amp;quot;Hung Up&amp;quot; off the Confessions on a Dance Floor album:\n\nAt the time of the video, Madonna was 47 years old and unafraid to be sexual. More important, she found her groove again and managed to crank out her best album in six years. It was awesome to see her return to form and dominate the music charts again.\n5) Throwing Shade at Lady Gaga\nI just want to start this by saying that no matter where you stand on the whole Madonna/Lady Gaga subject, there is no denying that Gaga is certainly influenced by Madge and other folks, while attempting to create her own public persona. So with that in mind, after &amp;quot;Born This Way&amp;quot; was released and sounded similar to &amp;quot;Express Yourself,&amp;quot; plenty of people were curious about Madonna&amp;#39;s feelings regarding Mother Monster. And like all good divas, Madonna knows better than to be like, &amp;quot;Bitch is wack,&amp;quot; said, &amp;quot;The library is open,&amp;quot; and read Lady Gaga in this 2012 interview:\nThe reason I love this response so much is because unlike the Madonna of the past or the Madonna of recent years, who has become more dour, the &amp;quot;reductive&amp;quot; comment struck the perfect balance. She learned to reel it in on the petulant behavior and the serious &amp;quot;I am an artiste&amp;quot; tone and deliver a snarky comment instead. I mean, look at the way she sips her tea. She&amp;#39;s having fun with the whole Lady Gaga thing.\n6) The British Accent Foolishness\nLook, I get it. Sometimes when people start dating a hot piece, they take on some of their boo&amp;#39;s characteristics unintentionally. For example, when I started dating my man, I began doing country-ass Mayberry stuff like not fully closing my apartment door if I&amp;#39;m just going across the street to get some paper towels. Um, yeah, not a smart thing to do if you live in Brooklyn. However, this little lapse in safety is nothing compared with Madge, who began dating English director Guy Ritchie and subsequently decided to sound like she&amp;#39;s performing in a regional theater&amp;#39;s broke-down version of Bridget Jones&amp;#39; Diary:\nNot only is it bizarre that the Detroit, Michigan, native started speaking in this accent, but the problem is that she was never that great at it. Check out another snippet from the same interview, where she sounds like herself:\nWhile I don&amp;#39;t think it was her intention, I laugh every time I see her adopting the British accent.\n__\n7) &amp;quot;Justify My Love&amp;quot; Music Video Being Banned__\nFull disclosure: I wasn&amp;#39;t the biggest fan of Madonna&amp;#39;s hyper-sexual phase, but maybe that&amp;#39;s because by the time I learned about it, I was almost 18. It didn&amp;#39;t seem quite as shocking as it did to the rest of the nation in the early &amp;#39;90s. Despite my feelings about that era, there&amp;#39;s no denying that she undoubtedly pushed the boundaries of sex in the mainstream media, something that seems common place nowadays. She was the Queen of Controversy, and this video shows why.\n8) 2012 Super Bowl Halftime Performance\nLook, I could&amp;#39;ve done without Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., but considering I hadn&amp;#39;t seen Madge perform live since 2008, I was going to take what I could get. This performance didn&amp;#39;t disappoint. It was fun, she sang plenty of her old hits, and the choreography was on point. I don&amp;#39;t think I was the only person to feel that way. It turns out 114 million people watched this! That&amp;#39;s the highest ratings for a halftime show in Super Bowl history:\n9) The David Letterman Interview\nYes, this infamous interview is a disaster on many levels: Madge drops the F bomb 13 times, she&amp;#39;s defensive, etc. However, it makes for great TV. If there is anything we know about Madonna, she&amp;#39;s all about creating great moments while ruffling feathers, which is the kind of cringeworthy behavior that wouldn&amp;#39;t be out of place on comedies like Curb Your Enthusiasm and Girls. Furthermore, it&amp;#39;s interesting to watch someone as seemingly unflappable as Letterman get bothered. After all, he is known for being able to bust his guests&amp;#39; chops and dominate or rein in a guest, but he&amp;#39;s unable to do that with her. It&amp;#39;s kind of cool to see.\nBut more than that, Madonna was in complete control, I think. She&amp;#39;s built her whole career on calculating moves, and I&amp;#39;m pretty darn sure that all she wanted out of this interview was for it make national headlines, which it did.\nPart One:\nPart Two:\n10) Madonna/Britney Spears Lip Lock at the 2003 VMAs Making Justin Timberlake Do the &amp;quot;Oh, I See How It Is&amp;quot; Look That I Do When I Tell a Security Guard at an Office Building How to Pronounce My Name and He Keeps Saying It Incorrectly When He Announces My Arrival to the Person I&amp;#39;m Meeting With Because He&amp;#39;s Wearing a Poly/I-Don&amp;#39;t-Give-an-Eff Blend Suit Jacket.\nYou knew I was going to close out this list with this moment. The early aughts had two divas jockeying for Madonna&amp;#39;s Queen B spot: Ms. Spears and Christina Aguilera. So to see all three ladies team up for a &amp;quot;Like a Virgin&amp;quot;/&amp;quot;Hollywood&amp;quot; medley was simply enough to snatch headlines. Madonna, being Madonna, knew she had to up the ante, which is why she planted kiss on both Brit and X-Tina. It&amp;#39;s not the most scandalous thing that Madge has ever done, but it&amp;#39;s how people react to the, let&amp;#39;s be honest here, tame girl-on-girl kissing that makes it so memorable:\n\nMary J. Blige is giving a &amp;quot;These heifers...&amp;quot; face that is normally reserved for people who talk loudly on their cell phone while riding public transportation. Behind her is Queer Eye for the Straight Guy&amp;#39;s Carson Kressley having &amp;quot;Did someone just say there&amp;#39;s going to be bacon?&amp;quot; freak-out. And most important, JT&amp;#39;s side eye at his ex-boo nibbling on Madonna&amp;#39;s lips. The pursed lips, trying to play it off like he feels absolutely nothing when he was probably raging inside. Hats off to you, Madonna, for still knowing how to piss people off and have fun while doing it.\nIf you want to see more MJB and JT reaction shots, watch the clip of full performance is below:\nBritney Spears, Madonna, Christina Aguilera Kiss MTV VMA 2003 from Tender Espana on Vimeo.\nHappy birthday, Madonna! Glamour readers, what are some of your favorite Madge moments/performances?"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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