Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star of 1985: Madonna

(In 2018, the Billboard staff released a list project of its choices for the Greatest Pop Star of every year, going back to 1981. Read our entry below on why Madonna was our Greatest Pop Star of 1985 — with our ’85 Honorable Mention runner-ups, Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year pop stars at the bottom — and find the rest of our picks for every year up to present day here.)

By the end of 1984, Madonna had already established herself as one of the MTV era’s brightest stars, with boundary-pushing videos, underground-nodding dance-pop hits, and a writhing Video Music Awards performance that turned the then-fledgling telecast into a must-watch event. But the year after Like A Virgin’s release was owned by Madonna from back to front — the last four weeks of the title track’s run at No. 1 on the Hot 100 opened 1985, and she followed it up with smash singles like “Material Girl” and “Angel,” her feature-film debut and first silver-screen starring role, and yet more unavoidable music videos.

“Like a Virgin” hit No. 1 in December 1984 and stayed there until the end of January — just as her Marilyn Monroe-saluting, Keith Carradine-starring video for “Material Girl” was being added to MTV’s rotation. The bouncy, sardonic track would go on to reach No. 2 and become one of Madonna’s career-defining songs, its video establishing Madonna’s blonde-ambition ideal while also showing off her more down-to-earth side. It also helped Like A Virgin reach the top of the Billboard 200 for three weeks in February. 

Madonna racked up another career milestone that month, when the May-December drama Vision Quest was released. In the movie, Madonna played a singer at a Spokane bar, performing “Crazy for You,” a lush, Jellybean Benitez-produced ballad that showed off Madonna’s lower range. Madonna’s star power was so strong that in some countries the movie’s title was changed to Crazy For You — although in America, she had to settle for the soundtrack single being No. 1 for a single week in May.

A month later, Madonna appeared in her first starring role in a movie, getting top billing alongside Rosanna Arquette in the hit mistaken-identity comedy Desperately Seeking Susan. The Susan Seidelman-directed ode to New York City’s bohemian enclaves featured the pop star’s “Into the Groove” in the background of a smoky club scene, although it wasn’t on the official soundtrack. At the time of Susan’s release, Madonna had two other videos still in regular rotation on MTV, and because Madonna’s label was worried about over-saturating the market, “Groove” was only released as the B-side to the glittery “Angel,” rendering it ineligible for the Hot 100. But the punchy, commanding song got an accompanying, movie-promoting visual, and became both a channel staple and a signature Madonna hit anyway — while its “you can dance… for inspiration” koan would later inspire the title for her 1987 remix LP You Can Dance.  

In April 1985, Madonna embarked on her first live trek: The Virgin Tour brought Madonna’s vision of pop into arenas around North America, kicking off in Seattle and wrapping up with five shows in New York City — three at Radio CIty Music Hall and two at Madison Square Garden. The video for “Dress You Up,” the final single from Like a Virgin, used footage of the song’s live performance from the Cobo Center in Detroit, while the home video featuring the show in its entirety, Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour, came out in November. 

Even while selling out arenas, Madonna remained a force in the clubs, with “Material Girl” and the double-A-sided “Into the Groove”/”Angel” single hitting No. 1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart after “Like a Virgin” began the year at its summit. She was also a stealth (yet utterly unmistakable) presence on her frequent collaborator Jellybean Benitez’s blippy, freestyle-influenced “Sidewalk Talk,” a No. 1 dance hit and yet another crossover top 40 entry on the Hot 100 by year’s end — a final testament to Madonna’s first year of true omnipresence.  

Honorable Mention: Phil Collins (No Jacket Required, “Sussudio,” “Easy Lover” (with Philip Bailey), Bruce Springsteen (“I’m On Fire,” “Glory Days,” “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”), Tears For Fears (Songs From the Big Chair, “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”)

Rookie of the Year: Whitney Houston 

“Arista is preparing a big push for Whitney Houston’s debut,” ran a note in the Jan. 12 issue of Billboard. That push paid off handsomely for the then-21-year-old singer and her label, who rode her big voice and winning personality to the top of the pop and R&B charts. Houston’s self-titled debut — released on Valentine’s Day — spawned the first of her many Hot 100 No. 1s with “Saving All My Love For You” in October 1985, while vibrant follow-up “How Will I Know” began scaling the chart in December. 

Comeback of the Year: Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin’s trip down the “Freeway of Love” coincided with a journey back up the charts for the Queen of Soul. Her album Who’s Zoomin’ Who?, which came out in July, capitalized on the R&B sounds in vogue at the time, with production assistance by Narada Michael Walden — and it became her highest-charting album since 1972, reaching No. 13 on The Billboard 200. The Clarence Clemons-assisted “Freeway” topped the R&B chart for five weeks and reached No. 3 on the Hot 100, while the slinky title track peaked at No. 7 on the Hot 100, and the Eurythmics collab “Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves” proved one of the year’s biggest crossover events. 

(Read on to our Greatest Pop Star of 1986 here, or head back to the full list here.)