July 27 is a “Holiday” for Madonna fans: Her self-titled debut album was released on this day in 1983.
Madonna debuted at No. 190 on the Billboard 200 chart dated Sept. 3, 1983, and climbed all the way to No. 8 the following year. The Sire/Warner Bros. Records release spent a staggering 168 weeks on the chart — the longest run of any Madonna album.
It spun off three top 20 hit singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and four entries on Billboard‘s Dance Club Songs tally.
The album’s first single, “Everybody,” was actually released the previous year, in late 1982. The song became a hit in dance clubs, especially in Madonna’s then-home of New York. The cut reached No. 3 on Dance Club Songs in early 1983 and was initially embraced by the city’s dance radio station, WKTU. The outlet was arguably the first American radio station to play the track. WKTU reported it as a new “Playlist Top Add On” in the Dec. 11, 1982, issue of Billboard magazine, reflecting their station’s playlist for the week ending Nov. 30, 1982. (Fun fact: at the time, Michael Ellis was the music director of WKTU — he would later become Billboard’s associate publisher and director of charts.)
Madonna told Rolling Stone in 2009 about hearing herself on WKTU for the first time: “I was living on the Upper West Side, 99th and Riverside, and at about 7 at night I had the radio on in my bedroom, on ‘KTU, and I heard ‘Everybody.’ I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s me coming out of the that box.’ It was an amazing feeling.”
“Everybody” was followed by the double-sided single “Burning Up”/”Physical Attraction,” a No. 3 hit on Dance Club Songs in spring 1983. (It was common then for singles to be promoted as “double-sided” singles, when a vinyl record would be sent to club DJs with a different song on each side.)
Next came another double-sided single: “Holiday”/”Lucky Star,” which became her first No. 1 on Dance Club Songs in late summer 1983, just as her album was starting to take off. It was the first chart-topper her storied career as the queen of Billboard’s Dance Club Songs survey. In her career, she’s earned a record 50 No. 1s on the list — the first artist to achieve 50 No. 1s on any single Billboard chart. (This feat was celebrated on her 2022 compilation Finally Enough Love.)
“Holiday” eventually became Madonna’s first major mainstream hit in America and her first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100. It debuted at No. 88 on the Oct. 29, 1983, chart and peaked at No. 16 on Jan. 28, 1984.
The hits started to come fast and furious for Madonna after her breakthrough success with “Holiday.” “Borderline” came next. It reached No. 10 on the June 16, 1984, tally. “Borderline” became her first of 38 top 10 hits on the Hot 100.
While “Lucky Star” had been a club hit already, it was then time for it to be promoted to pop radio. It sailed to No. 4 on the Hot 100 the week of Oct. 20, 1984.
One month later, on Nov. 17, 1984, Madonna would debut her fourth hit on the Hot 100: “Like a Virgin,” the title track and first single from her second album.
But, that’s a chart story for another day…
