I'll bet it's because that single and video was released in the spring of 1984, and that's when people really started to notice her because of MTV's heavy rotation of that video. So, for a lot of people, "Lucky Star" was their introduction to Madonna. "Borderline" was before that, but seemingly not quite as popular. "Holiday" was the first single from the album at the end of 1982, but was confined to Black/Urban radio, and there was no video for it that I am aware of.
Is "Holiday" Madonna's most known song? At one time it was her signature hit but she's had like 50 hits since. Does it still stand head and shoulders above the rest? You could make an argument for Like a Virgin, Vogue, Like a Prayer, Hung Up, etc.
It's her most iconic single, IMO. Surprisingly, it's her 4th most viewed music video on Youtube. "Bitch, I'm Madonna" leads the pack with a whopping 220,000,000+ views.
No. It's very hard to say what her most known song is. As I hinted before: "Holiday" wasn't that well know when it came out, but was just enough to get her noticed by the public, and MTV. A lot of people thought she was a Black girl. Not me, though. You can pick a number of songs that could be her most known song, and some of it would depend on your age, country, or when you first became familiar with her: Holiday Borderline Lucky Star Like A Virgin Material Girl Into The Groove Crazy For You Papa Don't Preach True Blue Like A Prayer Vogue Justify My Love ...see where i'm going with this? You could pick any one of those, and others. It's like trying to define The Beatles' most known song. Had to slip a Beatles reference in here.
The only questionable songs on that list are Borderline, True Blue and Crazy For You, but I get your point.
I remember "Borderline" as pretty huge back in 1983. It got to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart, so it was obviously a bigger hit than you remember. I've been around ya know!
I know you're a huge fan of the song and have championed it in the past but let's be realistic here, there's no way in hell anyone would seriously claim "Borderline" to be Madonna's most well known song. I'm not understating it's status or importance but it's simply not one of the giants. It even looks out of place on the list above. That's like saying "I Feel Fine" is the Beatles' most known song because it soared to #1 on the Hot 100 singles chart in 1964. It's still not in the same class as Hey Jude, Let It Be, Yesterday, etc.
I think we'd probably all have a different idea of what her signature song is. She really has had so many classic singles. Mine is "Hanky Panky".
Madonna might have more hits than any other artist in the history of Pop music. I'm talking real hits, not forgettable songs that charted high "back in the day". Hanky Panky? I don't seem to remember that one. We're talking about Madonna, not Tommy James and the Shondells.
To me, the 45 mix of "Borderline" is the definitive version of that song. It's a shame it's not more readily available. The 45 mix of "Everybody" hasn't had a digital release either. The Celebration compilation was a real missed opportunity for making these versions available again.
My friend lived next door to a DJ and bought Burning Up long before it was a hit because she heard it playing through the walls. Everybody wasn't even released here but it was played to death in the clubs. The clip they used to show of Holiday started with two people of a balcony above a dance floor and one says something about Madonna being the girl with the singing navel. It looked English.
I was going to wait until we started discussing Like a Virgin to talk about this, but one of my favourite things about that album is having the Chic rhythm section on a few of those tracks. Tony Thompson's drumming, in particular, is a real highlight. I just wish Thompson and Edwards had played on all of the songs. That said, Nile Rodgers' contributions throughout the album were terrific.
Since I started this thread, I've been watching a lot of early Madonna performances on YouTube. It's amazing that she was only about a year away from superstardom. Here's another great video that dates back even further. Madonna's first live performance of "Everybody" from December 1982:
I love this quote by Fred Zarr (in Rolling Stone's oral history of the album). He's referring to "Holiday", but he did synth programming on a lot of the album ("Lucky Star" and "Borderline" too): Jellybean hired me to put my own touch on it. I was using new equipment at the time. The Oberheim System, which was the OB-X synthesizer, the DMX drum machine, and the DSX sequencer. I was reading the manual while I was programming in the studio. It was very primitive, but it was state of the art at the time. Rolling Stone's oral history, with Seymour Stein, Sire A&R man Michael Rosenblatt, Reggie Lucas and Zarr: How Madonna Became Madonna: An Oral History ยป
I'd also say "Vogue". Followed by "Like A Virgin" and "Holiday". "Holiday" is her most performed song (on Setlist.fm's stats): she's performed it live 434 times (No. 2 is "Like A Virgin", then "La Isla Bonita", "Music" and "Vogue").
