She has also received acclaim as a role model for businesswomen in her industry, "achieving the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within the industry" generating over $1.2 billion dollars in sales within the 1st decade of Madonna's career.
Offered by Warner Music the usual perk of a vanity label (similar deals had been arranged for artists such as Mariah Carey and others), within a few years Maverick Records had - unusually for such labels - become a large commercial success due to Madonna's efforts.
Writing in The Times in 2009, music journalist Robert Sandall reported that in a 1992 interview w/ her it had been clear that being "a cultural big hitter" was more important than pop music, a career she described as "an accident". He also noted the contrast between Madonna's anything-goes s*xual public persona, and a secretive and "paranoid" attitude towards Madonna's own finances (for example, firing her own brother as interior designer when he charged her for a light-fitting, estranging him in the process.)
An analysis of her business acumen by academics at the London Business School presents Madonna as a "dynamic entrepreneur" worth copying, identifying Madonna's vision of success, Madonna's understanding of the music industry, Madonna's ability to recognise her performance limits (and thus bring in help), Madonna's "sheer hard work" and her ability to change as key to why she has been a striking commercial success.
However Madonna's ability to overcome her own musical limits has been sharply criticised by songwriter Joni Mitchell, who in widely reported comments stated that "[Madonna] has knocked the importance of talent out of the arena. She's made a lot of money and become the biggest star in the world by hiring the right people." These comments were part of a sustained attack on the contemporary music industry as a whole, with Mitchell threatening to quit recording altogether. Reporter Michael McWilliams comments: "The gripes about Madonna -- she's cold, greedy, talentless -- conceal both bigotry and the essence of her art, which is among the warmest, the most humane, the most profoundly satisfying in all pop culture."
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