Spin ranks Madonna 4th greatest musician

2026-08-10T19:25:57Z

Spin has ranked Madonna as the 4th greatest musician of the last 40 years.

Their write-up is great:

Madonna changed the world.

Bruce Springsteen may have been the biggest rock star in the ’80s (and may still be) but Madonna was the biggest star. No movie star, director, painter, writer or other musician created the tsunamic wake she did when she floated into and out of a country. Crowds the size of those who came to see the Pope greeted her when she arrived in a city like Rome, besieging her hotel. (When she later played Evita in a movie, that role was a step down from the adulation she witnessed in real life.)

Her music was great but that alone didn’t create the rip in the cultural space-time continuum. She was a liberator. She was 100 percent who she wanted to be and who she said she was, which was more than refreshing, it was, then, society-tearing down. Love her or hate her, she was equally happy with either reaction. She freed sex from the prissy cotton wool Reagan’s America was wrapping it back in. Nothing she did was as outrageous as the next thing she did. She was a sustained cultural orgasm.

She coincided with MTV’s rise perfectly, and defined them as much as they helped define her. Her videos were small movies — some R-rated level and banned — and they were great! Her songs and videos were controversial on multiple levels, including the tremendous furor that “Like a Prayer” caused for using Christian crosses and kissing the statue of a Black saint. She sold more than 300 million records, but that’s beside the point. Madonna more embodied the spirit of rock ‘n roll than rock stars. She was nobody’s fool, and still isn’t.

full article:https://www.spinmagazine.com/2025/11/40-greatest-musicians-of-the-last-40-years-40-to-31/?fbclid=IwdGRleATnBPdwZG9mBWZkaWQWUMPpLBIQE03y9v4kAdLS6QXz5kjeZGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR68oeKi7Z4KJsA3Mt5P5ubqtDg2E0kmhqMuAq8j96apmnnypmooU6xkXqSf1Q_aem_rBhPKccStmVhhRocZAmd0A