Madonna

For a quarter-century, Madonna has kept the pop world anticipating her next move like an Oscar®-night red-carpet reporter keeping an eye out for the next limo. She boasts three distinct faces, a virtual Hindu goddess, each expressing a different facet of the Madonna trinity. The first is her Donald Trump face, the outward display of insatiability. From its earliest stirrings in the new wave dance anthem "Material Girl" to the later, more sophisticated "Vogue," she's been endearingly brazen about wanting it all. She even had Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice write a special song ("You Must Love Me") for her star turn in Evita, a tune that was as much a reflection of Madonna as the character she portrayed. In Next Steps, we go to her dark side.

Madonna's second goddess face reveals her as a femme fatale. No longer the somewhat ambitious girl next door by the time MTV banned the video for "Justify My Love," Madonna even appeared on ABC's Nightline to express her views on censorship. Two years later, her "Erotica" was similarly banned by MTV, in the midst of a nationwide thunderstorm over her book, Sex. And when she went to work on the jazz standard "Fever," she somehow managed to outdo Peggy Lee: Where Lee acted the sex kitten Madonna played the part of a wolverine. But it's Madonna's third face — which she unveils in our Deep Cuts — that separates her from your gum-smacking, lights-on-but-nobody's-home diva.

Madonna's third and final goddess face uncovers her mystic side. From the Catholic icons in her early videos to her very name, Madonna has always embraced her spirituality. In "Shanti/Ashtangi," she takes a yoga mantra and sings it — in Hindi — over a William Orbit production set somewhere between Bollywood and Jupiter. "X-Static Process," from American Life, is part prayer, part affirmation, set against a spare acoustic-guitar-and-bass arrangement. And in a flash of insight during "Drowned World/Substitute for Love," she closes with "Now I find I've changed my mind/This is my religion."

Madonna's quarter-century reign as the queen of pop is so much a part of our musical landscape it's easy to overlook the staggering nature of its scope. Consider this: She's been cranking out hits since Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Dallas was the #1 television show, and Beyoncé was in diapers. In the meantime, she established herself as the Coco Chanel of pop — each season crafting new, and newsworthy, designs — an unrivaled trendsetter in music, fashion, and even religion. Never one to shy away from controversy, her inner gyroscope allowed her to push up against the edge of public acceptability without sailing over it. And in a business where women traditionally enjoy the shelf life of a dairy product, her repeated reinvention has kept her fresh as tomorrow's headlines.