Golden Oldies: Rachel Johnson: God Bless Her Madgesty

Isn’t it strange that it’s taken a hospitalisation and her Celebration world tour postponed for people to admit that Miss Madonna Ciccone is one of the most important artists of the modern age? She collapsed with a bacterial infection the day she’d been rehearsing with Katy Perry ahead of her planned Celebration tour – 84 shows in Europe and North America, the month before her 65th birthday. This is a pop star who emerged from the underground of lower Manhattan in the late ’70s, in the thick of the social and sexual revolution. She is a woman who has always let her freak flag fly. Her work ethic proved that even if you weren’t Nina Simone/Ginger Rogers/Meryl Streep but put in a proper shift, you could achieve pretty much anything. Madonna sang. Madonna danced. Madonna acted (Desperately Seeking Susan, Evita). And yet, when she hit her thirties, journalists older than...

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