Madonna w/ Matthew Rettenmund (Madonna, Episode 1)

Welcome to The Complete Catalog, a podcast for media deep dives. For this second season, host Tristan Ettleman and his guests explore the 18 albums of Madonna (including some videos, movies, and other releases) across 43 years.Madonna’s 1983 self-titled debut almost feels like a fully-formed artist burst into pop culture consciousness out of nowhere. But as Tristan and Matthew Rettenmund, author of Encyclopedia Madonnica, discuss, there were a lot of work ethic and New York scenes/aesthetics that led to the Madonna (the album and the artist) as we know them, and her meteoric success wasn’t necessarily immediately assured.