Madonna is featured on the cover and in the pages of the new issue of Rolling Stone magazine wherein she talks about (among other things) her early days in the music biz, her divorce from ex-hubby Guy Ritchie and her opinions on Lady Gaga. Here is Maddy‘s new (old) RS coverphoto and some excerpts from her coverstory interview:

In January 1984 Madonna had just one album under her belt when she told American Bandstand’s Dick Clark she had lofty plans: “To rule the world.” Over the past three decades, she has provoked, innovated and inspired; she’s set and broken her own records, most recently wrapping the highest-grossing tour ever by a solo artist with her Sticky & Sweet show. And now that she’s released the two-disc retrospective Celebration, the pop superstar who rarely looks back sat down with Rolling Stone’s Austin Scaggs for a revealing trip through her early days in New York, some of her biggest scandals, and of course, her most massive hits in our new issue, on stands today. Even as a seventh grader in Michigan, Madonna reveals she knew how to push her audience’s buttons. For her first ever performance, “I had my girlfriends paint my body with fluorescent hearts and flowers,” she recalls of a rendition of the Who’s “Baba O’Riley” that left her fellow students speechless. “I wore a pair of shorts and a midriff top, and I just went mad. … I’m sure everyone thought I was insane. That was the beginning of my provocative performances, I guess.” But having innate stage savvy didn’t mean Madonna grew up a wild child. Though she tells Scaggs about her days as a graffiti artist when she was running with Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in New York City (her tag: Boy Toy), life was tamer before that. “I was a geek in high school. I didn’t really have a drink until I got divorced for the first time [from Sean Penn] when I was 30,” she admits. ” ‘Geek’ is not a word anyone uses to describe me, except perhaps [Confessions on a Dance Floor producer] Stuart Price, who once said, ‘You know, you’re a nerd at heart, nobody knows it.’ I took it as a compliment.” She credits her first major shift in style — from punky brunette club kid to blonde wedding wonder — to getting dressed and styled for more photo shoots and videos as her career progressed. “I think people put a lot of emphasis on the whole reinvention of my image, and it’s always been a lot less calculated than people think,” she says. ” I think it’s boring to stay the same. A girl likes to change her look.” But if she had to pick her worst fashion moment: “It was the purple lipstick, fluorescent-green sweater combo. … It’s OK, it was the Eighties. It was a bad-hairstyle era. Let’s face it.” But Madonna doesn’t have many musical regrets. She tells Scaggs about writing “Live to Tell” and “Vogue,” returning with a head full of brand-new ideas on Ray of Light and teaming with some of the industry’s biggest hitmakers on Hard Candy. But after all these years, she admits she still can’t sniff out a Number One. “I’ve never been a good judge of what things are going to be huge or not. The songs that I think are the most retarded songs I’ve written, like ‘Cherish’ and ‘Sorry,’ a pretty big hit off my last album, end up being the biggest hits,” she tells RS. ” ‘Into the Groove’ is another song I feel retarded singing, but everybody seems to like it.”

You know, say what you will about Madonna — whether you love her or hate her — you cannot deny that the woman knows what she wants and gets what she wants … no matter what it is that she wants. From the start of her career, her hunger to conquer the world has kept her on point and allowed her to carve out a legendary career. Because she now has everything that she wants, she’s not as hungry anymore and, therefore, isn’t as innovative as she used to be. While I would love for Madonna to be the iconic trendsetter that she is known to be for years to come, I just don’t know that she can really do that anymore … which is why, I think, she is looking to the next generation to take up the reins. After the jump, read some of Madonna‘s comments about Lady Gaga and find out what she thinks of the singer …

“I can see myself in Lady Gaga. In the early part of my career, for sure,” she told the mag. “When I saw her, she didn’t have a lot of money for her production, she’s got holes in her fishnets, and there’s mistakes everywhere. It was kind of a mess, but I can see that she’s got that It factor. It’s nice to see that at a raw stage.” And she appreciated the “Just Dance” singer live, as did Madonna’s oldest child, Lourdes. “I think Lady Gaga is great. When [she and daughter Lourdes] saw her, I actually felt a kind of recognition. I thought, ‘She’s got something,’” the pop star said. “There’s something quirky about her. She’s fearless and funny, and when she spoke to the audience, she sounded intelligent and clever. She’s unique.”

And a few more excerpted quotes from this Rolling Stone interview:

“What can you say? It was a challenging year. I think work saved me, and I’m very grateful that I had work to do. I may have thrown myself off a building,” she told the mag. “Life is an adjustment. It’s different. My sons aren’t with me right now, they’re with their father, and I’m not very comfortable with the idea of my children not living together. There are pros and cons, but I feel good now” … “I wanted to work with Eminem,” she revealed. “I don’t think he wanted to work with me. Maybe he’s shy” … “I was a geek in high school. I didn’t really have a drink until I got divorced for the first time [from Sean Penn] when I was 30,” she said. “‘Geek’ is not a word anyone uses to describe me, except perhaps [‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ producer] Stuart Price, who once said, ‘You know, you’re a nerd at heart, nobody knows it.’ I took it as a compliment.”

That is some compliment that she paid Lady Gaga … as I’ve said many times, I’m not the biggest Gaga fan primarily because I find her over-the-top “shocking” tactics extremely contrived and banal. I do believe she is a very talented musician and I have HUGE respect for her work to advance equal rights in this country. For me, the jury is still out on Lady Gaga but the fact that Madonna has given her her stamp of approval says a lot. I cannot wait to read the rest of this interview. I’m still solidly on Team Madonna … even if she isn’t the inspirational innovator that she once was, her contributions to pop culture cannot be denied.

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