Top Ten Madonna Moments of 2009

Madonna fell off a horse.A nude shot of her caused a commotion.
Letterman engaged her in a fizzy chat.She was protested, boycotted, and booed while on tour.Quick: What year was it?The Madonna Meta Machine chugged along another year, and you're forgiven for losing a sense of regularity. Her rare gift of perennial resurrection and reinvention assured that, even in comparatively low-wattage 2009, fresh M news blended with Groundhog Day-ish stories familiar, creating a stream-of-consciousness media cocktail of Madonna lore.To keep us on track, and in furtherance of her various interests - music, fashion, charity, sexual politics - Madonna was of course at the reins. As she closed out another decade - her third in the superstar stratum - we were reminded of all the irons this lady's got in the fire.
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Top Ten Madonna Moments of 2008

It was by no means a bold prophesy to predict that we'd have an embarrassment of Madonna riches on our hands this past year.

With her countless projects and exhaustively crammed 2008 schedule, from "Heartbeat" to heartbreak, the most famous woman in the world didn't fail to keep her name bouncing around the zeitgeist, notwithstanding a turning-point American election, a global economic crisis, and the unabashed headline-sucking of interchangeably wannabe starlets.

The media couldn't get enough Madonna, even in the (rare) times this year when it seemed like flying under the radar was her M.O. Whether it be a paparazzi fest in the Mumbai slums at the tail end of her long Indian vacation, feverish reportage of a Marilyn Monroe historian's confusion of Sex-era Madonna and her onetime muse, or the pile-on of bad buzz during preparations for the Sticky & Sweet Tour - least of which was the almost-too-perfectly-timed release of "estranged" brother Christopher Ciccone's poison-penned book - the line between sanctioned product and leaks from within the Great Madonna Media Dam became increasingly blurred.

So much happened in the world of Madonna, in fact, that no less than her seventh career Grammy (for The Confessions Tour DVD) is but a minor historical footnote of the past twelve months. The woman had a lot going on.

The following ten events best illustrate what made up the significant signposts of a busy time for the busiest lady, Madonna '08:

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