From Madonna to Saucy Santana—The Legacy of ‘Material Girl’

Lately almost every other viral video on social media has included Saucy Santana’s snappy song Material Girl as the background music for short-video visuals. Throughout 2021 Santana’s bass-filled single was the theme song, and still remains to be in 2022, for any high-maintenance girl (or boy) that enjoys the luxurious lifestyle.

Even those who have yet to reach a pampered place in life still resonate with Santana’s materialistic lyricism, using his words as a form of manifestation affirmations. All of us can relate to wanting the finer things in life, thus why Santana’s 2020 single Material Girl is such an absolute success. Only accepting the best that there is to offer isn’t a new concept, albeit it was presented distinctively by Santana, but actually has been a repetitive message since Hollywood’s Golden Age.

The transcendent film icon Marilyn Monroe had an entire singing slash dance sequence in the 1953 movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where she praised receiving gifts over receiving love. Monroe’s signature song Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, taught all who listened that while love is great, a lavish way of life is glamorous. When it comes down to it isn’t the opportunity to experience a bit of glamorousness what most girls want at the end of the day?

Understanding this, the magnificent Madonna made her own interpretation of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend—song wise not much music video wise—with her 1985 Billboard hit song Material Girl. Whereas Monroe promoted materialism in a roundabout way, Ms. Madonna bluntly declared herself a material girl and her contentment with being one since this is a material world after all.

With influence from Monroe and Madonna, Santana was able to craft a stellar hip hop homage to commercialism and grandiosity in his version of Material Girl. Santana’s booming rap version of Madonna’s 1985 song by the same name is utter perfection, and is a reminder that embracing being bourgeois is totally fine.