Special Weekend Reissue Theory: Madonna, “Madonna: 30th Anniversary Edition”

Welcome to another installment of Reissue Theory, where we reflect on notable records and the reissues they could someday see. It’s been three decades since one of the most popular and influential performers of the last 50 years released her first full-length album, and a new deluxe edition is long overdue. Here’s a look back at the first album by Madonna.

If you’ll pardon the anachronism, it wouldn’t have been unforgivable to look at Gary Heery’s photograph for the cover of Madonna’s first album and ask “Who’s that girl?” Was this really the face of the girl who’d been filling floors of New York dance clubs with her bubbly, synth-funk jams and distinctive-if-untrained voice? Someone so young, so…white?

Of course, the bottle-blonde hair, the seductive stare and the chunky, bangled jewelry are some of Madonna Louise Ciccone’s first visual hallmarks; we couldn’t have imagined her any other way in her first few years on the scene. And while we could never really have predicted the astounding upper reaches of pop and art she’d reach in the decades to come from this record alone, Madonna, released July 27, 1983, is an impressively sturdy foundation that certainly bears rediscovery.

What follows, as always, is our Reissue Theory-style look back at the album: its creation, its impact and – finally – what it could look like if Madonna and the powers-that-be ever rolled out a deluxe edition of this album. After the borderline – er, jump – we’ll take you back to 1983, where nobody quite knew how familiar they would be with that one-named pop singer.