great covers 3. MADONNA: LIKE A VIRGIN

The consensus is that Madonna must be clever because she's made so much out of so little: she's not the world's greatest dancer, not a very good singer and certainly not the best looking. I hate that. Her singing is good enough, she is the best dancer in pop and, as this album cover proves, she is absolutely the best looking. It was before she started plucking her eyebrows and injecting her lips. I could never understand why everyone labelled her the "new Marilyn Monroe", because she looks so exactly like Lana Turner.

Like a Virgin was the last time Madonna appeared to be up for a laugh. Despite being incredibly sexy, she still looks like a "girls' girl". It's a real "hey Ma, watch me do the splits" record. She was feisty, before she started to work so hard at it. She was funny and unpretentious. She was never supposed to look like a run-of-the-mill supermodel, which is how she looks now. She's meant to look a bit slaggy, very Italian and rude.

It was also the last time a little girl could dress up like Madonna. A friend gave me this record for Christmas when I was seven. It was the first present an adult gave me that I actually wanted.

EMMA FORREST