Like A Virgin

Like a Virgin is Madonna’s top hit, released in November, 1984 by Sire Records. The second studio album of pop singer Madonna was titled Like a Virgin after the single of the same name. Like a Virgin was written by Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg and demo was recorded by Kelly too. Nile Rodgers became the producer of the song.

Madonna loved her work and did anything to make all projects successful. Being a hard-working person, Madonna herself controlled the process of song creating. Billy Steinberg said during the interview with Songfacts: “When Madonna recorded it, even as our demo faded out, on the fade you could hear Tom saying, 'When your heart beats, and you hold me, and you love me...' That was the last thing you heard as our demo faded. Madonna must have listened to it very, very carefully because her record ends with the exact same little ad-libs that our demo did. That rarely happens that someone studies your demo so carefully that they use all that stuff. We were sort of flattered how carefully she followed our demo on that.”

The music video for Like a Virgin was shot in Venice, Italy and in New York City. Mary Lambert became its director. Madonna dressed in a wedding dress was dancing on a gondola. The video was ranked #61 on VH1's 100 Greatest Videos. The live performance of Like a Virgin was nominated for MTV Video Music Awards in two nominations: Best Female Video and Best Choreography. Like a Virgin single was awarded in 2000 by Rolling Stone magazine and MTV and named the fourth song on their list of the “100 Greatest Pop Songs”.

Later this single was included in Madonna’s best-selling 1990 compilation album The Immaculate Collection. Madonna sang this hit in five of her seven tours.

The song has a good stage story. Like a Virgin was used in the movie Reservoir Dogs as a conversation amongst gangsters. In the short story La Bamba three young girls are singing Like a Virgin. In one episode of Married with Children heroes of the movie are talking about a dedication from a girl. The dedication is Like a Virgin.

Like a Virgin gave Madonna an opportunity to debut at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. It was awarded by Rolling Stone and MTV in 2000 as one song on the list of "100 Greatest Pop Songs". It was first of 12 number-one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and later got the gold certification. The single became number one on the Hot Dance Club Play, and was her first top-ten hit on the R&B chart. Besides, Like a Virgin achieved top places in many countries on both sides of the Atlantic: Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy and others. The song would be Madonna’s biggest selling and top-charting single worldwide until Like a Prayer in 1989.