In the late 1970s, Madonna had established herself as a singer in downtown New York City; alongside her Michigan boyfriend Stephen Bray, she put together a demo tape with four dance tracks and began pitching it around local nightclubs.

The song drew positive reception from the crowd, and Kamins took Madonna to Sire Records, where label president Seymour Stein signed her on for three twelve-inch singles.

Madonna is mostly a dance-pop post-disco album, and features the newest technology of the time, including the LM-2 drum machine, Moog bass and Oberheim OB-X synthesizer.

Critics have also said that it helped to make dance music popular again, and "set the standard" of dance-pop for decades afterwards; its influence can be seen in the work of female artists such as Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, Kylie Minogue, and Lady Gaga.

[6] In 1981, after attending one of Emmy's gigs at Max's Kansas City, Adam Alter and Camille Barbone from Gotham Records signed a contract with Madonna, who at this point already had a "small downtown cult following in the gay scene".

[6] However, the association was short-lived and dissolved the following year due to creative differences between the label and singer: Gotham was interested in rock and roll whereas Madonna wanted to pursue disco.

She will do anything to be a star, and that's exactly what I look for in an artist: total co-operation... With Madonna, I knew I had someone hot and co-operative, so I planned to build her career with singles, rather than just put an album right away and run the risk of disaster".

[11] Sire A&E executive Michael Rosenblatt, who oversaw the entire process, wanted to release a double-sided single with "Ain't No Big Deal" as A-side and "Everybody" as B-side.

"Ain't No Big Deal", however, "did not come out well", so Roseneblatt decided to put "Everybody" on both sides of the record: One version lasted 5:56, while the other was a dub form with a duration of 9:23.

[14] According to Michael Rosenblatt, he wanted the album to have an "R&B feel", hence he brought in Warner Bros. producer Reggie Lucas, who had worked with artists like Roberta Flack and Stephanie Mills.

[15][9] Barry Eastmond had been hired as the track's arranger, but left the project after getting into an argument with Madonna; she felt his work was "too slick", and lacked the "edge of the club-land grooves she was hankering after".

[21] The lyrics to "Lucky Star" were written on a yellow legal notepad, while the music was created on a Casiotone keyboard with a cassette player Kamins had given Madonna.

[13][23] Problems between the singer and Lucas arose, as she felt he was "moving [the songs] away from the sparse form of the original demos", something she did not approve of; the producer ended up leaving the project without altering the tracks.

[10][24] Another issue arose after Madonna learned Bray had sold "Ain't No Big Deal" to disco act Barracuda, thus rendering it unavailable for her album.

[34][38] Billboard's Joe Lynch pointed out that the track "drops the bright, buoyant vibes that characterized the rest of the album and closes it on a dark, sensuous note".

[13] That misconception was cleared with the song's music video, which was directed by Ed Steinberg, and shows the singer and two backup dancers performing at New York's Paradise Garage.

[80] In the music video, which was directed by Mary Lambert, Madonna portrays the girlfriend of a Hispanic man, to whom she returns after being enticed to pose and model for a white British photographer.

Dubbed "The Virgin Party", it drew a crowd of around 1,200 people; attendees were encouraged to wear white, and for $5 admission fees, were able to view the Madonna videocassette and the music video of the then-upcoming "Material Girl".

The author also singled out the "pristine" production, ultimately concluding that, "without overstepping the modest ambitions of minimal funk, Madonna issues an irresistible invitation to the dance".

[93] From The Plain Dealer, Laura DeMarco classiffied it as a "sparkly, lightweight release, full of club-disco joie de vivre paired with New York art-scene grit".

[100] For Matthew Rettenmund, author of Encyclopedia Madonnica, Madonna is "one of the most auspicious musical debuts of the 80s [...] a seamlessly sweet, lyrically coy, infectiously kinetic dance album".

[45] Writing for the Evening Standard, El Hunt said it was a "disco-infused debut [that] feels wrenched straight out of Danceteria", which contains "all of the hallmarks of Eighties synth-pop, but still sounds futuristic in the process".

[92] Jim Farber from Entertainment Weekly opined: "[Madonna] might have wound up just another post-disco dolly if [the songs on the album] didn't announce her ability to fuse club beats with peerless pop".

[102] To the Portland Mercury's Mark Lore, "despite the disco influence, Madonna is punk rock in attitude and even, to an extent, style [...] The synthesizers here are just as dark and bracing as those found on Devo and Gary Numan records".

[10] Even though he praised its catchiness, John Murph from streaming service Tidal expressed that, "nothing [on the album] suggested someone who would become a worldwide icon with a career spanning four decades.

[113] After 17 years since its release, the album was certified five-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of five million copies across United States.

Its success showed that, with the right diva at the helm, music similar to disco could find a place in the white mainstream—a call to the dance floor answered by everyone from Kylie to Robyn to Gaga to Madonna herself".

[141] Both Andrew Morton and Martin Charles Strong agreed that the album helped to make Madonna a household name and to establish her base as an artist.

[51][150] According to some publications, the singer and album's influence can be seen in the work of other female artists such as Janet Jackson, Debbie Gibson, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue.

[35] For Entertainment Weekly, Kyle Anderson wrote: "Madonna’s sound, and of course her look, would be heavily copied for years to come, but [the album] heralded something much bigger: the arrival of the pop diva as a singular force who put personality above all else".