Posted March 1, 200718 yr http://i12.tinypic.com/2j26fb4.jpg Material girl is still on top By JIM FARBER DAILY NEWS MUSIC CRITIC As Madonna gets ready to conquer yet another field - fashion designer - it points up just how far she stands out from the current wave of stars hogging the ink. While other gawk-worthy celebs suffer meltdowns or embarrass themselves with ugly epithets, Madonna forever floats above the fray. She has triumphed by keeping her toes planted on the treadmill and her mind firmly on the bottom line. It's ironic that a woman who initially rose to popularity on the strength of controversy should sustain that career by clean living. In fact, Madonna famously maintains an eating and exercise schedule that could make Jack LaLanne look slovenly and a work ethic feverish enough to flip Donald Trump's hair. It makes for a particularly brutal contrast to the woman who looked, just a year and a half ago, like her obvious successor. When Madonna planted that big wet one on Britney Spears' kisser at the MTV Awards, everyone viewed it as the ultimate passing of the torch: the grand dame graciously handing off her crown to a new generation's pop tart. Now, it looks like the opposite was happening. Madonna was apparently laying down a gauntlet and offering up a challenge. "You've had a nice run, kid," she seems to have been saying. "Now try to keep that up for two more decades." That Britney couldn't even keep it up for one tenth that time - while Madonna blithely re-adjusted her crown and moved on - says everything about the difference between the two stars' approach to their careers and lives. Madonna's method gave her yet another rousing career resurrection in the last two years. Her just-in-time return-to-the-club album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," brought her back to multiplatinum sales after suffering her one (and only) poor-selling stinker of a CD, "American Life." Madonna's subsequent tour, last summer, was the most lucrative of the season. While Cher has sustained an impossibly lengthy career as well, hers slogged through long desert stretches before finding fresh water. Madonna has danced from oasis to oasis with barely a dry patch in sight. Now 48, she gives every sign of being able to carry her pop torch for as long as she so desires. SOURCE
