Madonna at the 1984 Video Music Awards is one of them:
People were gasping in the audience," says Madonna's longtime publicist, Liz
Rosenberg, of the star's "Like a Virgin" at the first-ever MTV Video Music
Awards, in 1984. "An ex-boyfriend of mine leaned over and said, 'Her career is
over before it even started.' Of course, I was petrified."
Madonna wore a lascivious reinterpretation of a wedding gown -- a white bustier
and a shredded white tutu -- accessorized with lace gloves, dangerously high
heels, clunky necklaces and a tulle veil that didn't stay on her head very long.
She started her performance dancing on top of a giant wedding cake and ended it
by rolling around the stage at New York's Radio City Music Hall, humping her
veil and revealing her panties to a live TV audience. "Madonna took it so much
further than anyone knew she was capable of," says Rosenberg. "Some people
thought she was the greatest thing ever, and other people thought she was
disgusting."
Huey Lewis, who also performed that night, says he admired Madonna's nerve. "She
didn't just have the idea on the spur of the moment," he says. "She had
practiced it at rehearsal. It was thought-out, and it turned out to be a
history-making performance. She knew what was going on with the medium of
television, and we clearly didn't."
The three-year-old MTV network wanted to set itself apart from staid awards
shows such as the Grammys. It worked. "We were looking to produce a show that
reflected MTV's image and went against the grain," says Infinity radio chairman
John Sykes, who was the executive producer of the first VMAs. "We were like kids
discovering all these hydraulic lifts and stage devices in Radio City. We were
working all these cool effects, but when Madonna walked out and began writhing
on the floor in a wedding dress, I'll never forget the look on our advertisers'
and affiliates' faces in the front row. We felt some heat the next day, but
nobody told us we shouldn't have done it."
In twenty-three years, MTV's viewership has grown from a subscriber base of 2.5
million to 375 million, and the budget for the VMAs is eight times what it was
in 1984. What hasn't changed is the ongoing attempt to match the shock value of
that first broadcast. Only a few came close: Howard Stern in assless stretch
pants as "Fart Man" in 1992, the kiss Michael Jackson and then-wife Lisa Marie
Presley shared in 1994 and, most recently, the reprise of "Like a Virgin" at
last year's ceremony that culminated with Madonna slipping tongue to Britney
Spears. "After the Madonna performance in year one, we all knew we had to put at
least one moment like that into the show to give it the 'oh, wow' factor," says
Sykes. "That became part of the planning from that point on. What would be the
moment picked up around the country the next day?"
