The Age Of Madonna: Touched for a Very Long Time

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Madonna: Cover Girl

The Material Girl has long been a cover girl, regularly gracing magazine covers for the last 25 years. See how she has changed her image over time with this sampling of covers spanning 1984 to the present.

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Fly, earth mother, fly.

"Even when I was a little girl, I knew I wanted the whole world to know who I was, to love me and be affected by me." -- Madonna, to People, May 13, 1985

Two out of three, not bad. We do all know her, and we are all affected by her. (Yes, we are.)

The love part is the hardest.

She wanted to be loved?

As for love, Madonna is someone you have to hate in order to love. In Madonnaworld, scoffing is a value-added experience attached to pure fandom. Just watch a Madonna fan listen to the new Madonna album for the first time. There is such instantaneous loathing and fascination. You spend a week telling all your friends how bad the new album is, what a letdown it is, and then a week later, you magically decide you like it. The new songs take their place in a canon that stretches back into 25 years of half-hearted gym membership.

When Madonna released her hit song with Justin Timberlake this spring, I disliked it so much I had no choice but to love it, a skill I've mastered through the release of all her studio albums, soundtracks, concert recordings and two greatest-hits collections. Now I listen to that song on the elliptical trainer on which I go round and round with Madonna and never get anywhere. I'm not entirely sure of the lyrics, but I'm pretty sure it goes:

Madonna: I'm feeling old, have sex with me.

Justin: I'm down wit dat. Whatchoo got? Whatchoo want?

Madonna: I would like it fast, then slow, down there, in that place.

Justin: Where it at, girl?

Madonna: It's right there. No, it's there. Yes, no! There, wait -- no, there. Tick-tock, tick-tock!