Madonna

[Angeman]

Lots of Bots.

Also its like that for everything. Articles will say "blah blah blah draws critisism" and then cite like 3 tweets that are bad. Ignoring the praise.

[oneofone]

It's quite interesting that the comments on Madonna's insta post and the videos I've seen on YouTube seem to be mostly positive...like 98% mostly too... it does just seem to be a vocal small amount of people saying negative things...I've noticed this same trend in other fandoms recently too...

Whatever it is they do, but most if not all negative comments get almost automatically deleted. Don't believe the hype!

[Artoo]

I rewatched it and I think I’ll just forget it ever happened. We’re all allowed a blip. However performance then popped up on YouTube, from six months ago, and reminded me what she can do.

[MadonnaIcon]

IMO her 10 biggest global hit songs are:

Chronological order

- Like A Virgin
- Material Girl
- Into The Groove
- Papa Don’t Preach
- La Isla Bonita
- Like A Prayer
- Vogue
- Music
- Hung Up
- 4 Minutes

…..

Not all of them translated gracefully into the streaming platforms though. But back when they were released they were smashes.

Where is Take a Bow and Frozen?

[spiritboy]

Take A Bow isn’t a smash. When it was released it was a flop in UK as all her singles debuted and peaked in top 10 and TAB peaked at #16. I don’t think it’s one of her most remembered hits.

[Artoo]

I know Material Girl is one of her runaway successes on streaming, but I still cannot view it as one of her biggest hits. Don’t get me wrong, it’s up there, but it’s not in her top ten imo.

For me, her Top 10 biggest hits are:

Holiday
Like a Virgin
Into The Groove
Papa Don’t Preach
La Isla Bonita
Like a Prayer
Vogue
Music
Hung Up
4 Minutes

Incidentally, this almost matches her top streaming songs if you overlook all versions of Frozen and Material Girl (Music being a tad further down the list).

I appreciate some people are chart focused but that cannot be the barometer of what is considered a hit. The charts only measure a songs popularity in a specific moment in time and don’t look at its enduring appeal.

I mean, Into The Groove was never technically released as a single in the US - it didn’t chart on the Hot 100. Does that mean it isn’t a hit? On the other hand, Who’s That Girl was a #1 both sides of the Atlantic but I’d never put it up there in her Top 10.

The other measure some fans use are sales, but that makes no sense either. In the UK her top ten best selling singles are:

Into The Groove
Like a Virgin
Crazy For You
Holiday
Papa Don’t Preach
Hung Up
Like a Prayer
True Blue
Frozen
Beautiful Stranger

I don’t think anyone could ever argue that this was Madonna’s top tier list of a-list hits. It’s a good list, but where’s Vogue? This is why it’s important to consider more than just charts and sales. Endurance matters. Cultural impact matters.

Music is one of the biggest moments of Madonna’s career. She was #1 for four weeks in the US, #1 on both sides of The Atlantic, was over the age of 40 and had a new sound a lot of people had never really heard before. It was one of the biggest moments of her career and that is why people are surprised at how low the streaming numbers are.

It’s also worth noting Madonna isn’t the oldest person to have a #1 but in the US, she was the only woman over the age of 40 to have a #1 single between 2000 and 2016 (when Sia got to #1).

[Artoo]

Take A Bow isn’t a smash. When it was released it was a flop in UK as all her singles debuted and peaked in top 10 and TAB peaked at #16. I don’t think it’s one of her most remembered hits.

In the UK I think Warner messed up. Every single physical product was released with the same track listing and none of the remixes were released here. They also opted for 7” picture disc rather than a 12”, when 12” are always more desirable.

Its worth noting that it’s overall sales are very similar to Secret, which went top five, so it might have just been a busy release week. But the buck stops with Warner imo.

At least they raised their game for Bedtime Story, releasing a 12” and convincing Madonna to come perform the song at The Brits.

[Eugine]

Reading the comments on here and fans truly are dreadful, Madonna is 63 she isn't 30 anymore god for heavens sake have some respect for her. Only bad thing she has done is the amount of plastic she has gotten for herself. She is a performer and will always be, sure this was not her best but it wasn't that bad as you guys are claiming it out to be.

Madonna just needs to understand that she is old and her body cannot always keep up with her, I understand her but you guys are devils. Performance was not upto the mark she looked drunk to me but it happens, no need to be this negative and be respectful.

[MadNuno]

I loved her performance. Not perfect but enjoyed it very much.

[Angeman]

So MetGala tonight will she attend? Will it be a mess?

[Artoo]

So MetGala tonight will she attend? Will it be a mess?

I doubt she be there - has she even left Medellin?

[MadNuno]

According to Mediatraffic data while on the charts "Music" was Madonna 6th biggest song (and Mediatraffic data do have into account diferent sales in each week in each country unlike European Hot 100).

http://www.mediatraffic.de/alltime-track-chart.htm

Also "Music" song did lead to "Music" album enjoy huge sales. In UK the single charttrun was #01-#02-#05 and on week of the album release was down to #11. It was still able to stay inside the UK charts for 24 weeks ("Frozen" was only 13 weeks on the charts and "Amercian Pie" was 18 weeks on UK Charts spending all weeks in one calendar year) spending its last weeks on the chart in February 2001 already and even returning for one last week in May 2001.

About "American Pie" - people that wanted the song had to get the single or the OST where it was so many prefered the single (as it happened before with "Beautiful Stranger" single as well.

In UK the "Music" album was certified 4xPlatinum in less than 4 months (it took "Ray of Light" 18 months to sell that much in UK) and after 9 months got to 5xPlatinum (and was still 38 weeks inside the UK charts after that, including 9 weeks on the TOP 40 and 2 inside the TOP 20 - most in 2001 and 2002 - so a 6xPlatinum can't be far). The "Music" single certainly fuelled most of the album sales worldwide (sure "American Pie" did help in Europe too but was not the main promotion song).

"Ray of Light" took 5 and half years to get to a 6xPlatinum but ended up getting there already while "Music" still haven't got it but I'm sure GHV2 certainly canibalized much of "Music" album sales compared to "Ray of Light" as all 3 singles from the album were there while "Ray of Light" had 4 out of 5 singles in that compilation.

Oh! And did "Music" internet demo leak helped or injured the song success?
Warner and Madonna had to rush and release the song before the initially scheduled date as it was already available for free on Napster a month before release.

[Angeman]

No clue if shes left Medellin but judging from her instagram shes busy editing live photos from the performance to post

[MrLeonix]

The fact that she keeps on sharing more pics of rehearsals than the actual performance

[maroon]

I know Material Girl is one of her runaway successes on streaming, but I still cannot view it as one of her biggest hits. Don’t get me wrong, it’s up there, but it’s not in her top ten imo.

I have to agree. I put it at #10 alongside 2 other songs but mainly because of its recent return to popularity. It's definitely not up there with the biggest hits but still for me it's way higher than "Music" looking at the long term impact, cultural factor and everything else (non-chart related) that you're mentioning later on.

I appreciate some people are chart focused but that cannot be the barometer of what is considered a hit. The charts only measure a songs popularity in a specific moment in time and don’t look at its enduring appeal.

I mean, Into The Groove was never technically released as a single in the US - it didn’t chart on the Hot 100. Does that mean it isn’t a hit? On the other hand, Who’s That Girl was a #1 both sides of the Atlantic but I’d never put it up there in her Top 10.

The other measure some fans use are sales, but that makes no sense either. In the UK her top ten best selling singles are:

Into The Groove
Like a Virgin
Crazy For You
Holiday
Papa Don’t Preach
Hung Up
Like a Prayer
True Blue
Frozen
Beautiful Stranger

I don’t think anyone could ever argue that this was Madonna’s top tier list of a-list hits. It’s a good list, but where’s Vogue? This is why it’s important to consider more than just charts and sales. Endurance matters. Cultural impact matters.

Music is one of the biggest moments of Madonna’s career. She was #1 for four weeks in the US, #1 on both sides of The Atlantic, was over the age of 40 and had a new sound a lot of people had never really heard before. It was one of the biggest moments of her career and that is why people are surprised at how low the streaming numbers are.

It’s also worth noting Madonna isn’t the oldest person to have a #1 but in the US, she was the only woman over the age of 40 to have a #1 single between 2000 and 2016 (when Sia got to #1).

I am very chart focused because charts and sales are the only data driven factors. Everything else is just subjective. For some people Frozen was bigger, for some others Music and arguments about what made a bigger impact will never end while when we look at the charts and sales, we can clearly state what was the biggest SELLER and that was my point to begin with. Even your first argument about Music's status is its US & UK number one so charts will always be the greatest indicator of popularity and I'm just looking a bit further than the English speaking world since sales charts from various countries have always been my passion.

Side note, I think your list is a bit outdated because "Vogue" has surpassed "Beautiful Stranger" by now, "4 Minutes" might have taken it over as well. "Hung Up" is also above "Papa Don't Preach" now, I believe.

[maroon]

According to Mediatraffic data while on the charts "Music" was Madonna 6th biggest song (and Mediatraffic data do have into account diferent sales in each week in each country unlike European Hot 100).

Madiatraffic is not an official chart, please...
While we can give it some credit for their albums estimations, "singles" chart is completely random, mixing sales, streams, airplay and god knows what else in a weird points system that no-one understands. Singles sales from most countries are not even published anywhere, come on.

Also "Music" song did lead to "Music" album enjoy huge sales. In UK the single charttrun was #01-#02-#05 and on week of the album release was down to #11. It was still able to stay inside the UK charts for 24 weeks ("Frozen" was only 13 weeks on the charts and "Amercian Pie" was 18 weeks on UK Charts spending all weeks in one calendar year) spending its last weeks on the chart in February 2001 already and even returning for one last week in May 2001.

About "American Pie" - people that wanted the song had to get the single or the OST where it was so many prefered the single (as it happened before with "Beautiful Stranger" single as well.

In UK the "Music" album was certified 4xPlatinum in less than 4 months (it took "Ray of Light" 18 months to sell that much in UK) and after 9 months got to 5xPlatinum (and was still 38 weeks inside the UK charts after that, including 9 weeks on the TOP 40 and 2 inside the TOP 20 - most in 2001 and 2002 - so a 6xPlatinum can't be far). The "Music" single certainly fuelled most of the album sales worldwide (sure "American Pie" did help in Europe too but was not the main promotion song).

"Ray of Light" took 5 and half years to get to a 6xPlatinum but ended up getting there already while "Music" still haven't got it but I'm sure GHV2 certainly canibalized much of "Music" album sales compared to "Ray of Light" as all 3 singles from the album were there while "Ray of Light" had 4 out of 5 singles in that compilation.

Oh! And did "Music" internet demo leak helped or injured the song success?
Warner and Madonna had to rush and release the song before the initially scheduled date as it was already available for free on Napster a month before release.

Sorry but most of what you wrote here is a bit off topic regarding the discussion about "Music" - the song - and its hit status that, by the way, nobody denies.
The fact it helped sell the album well is actually the core function of every single, isn't it? Especially if it's a lead single.
Norah Jones sold shit loads of copies of her blockbuster album "Come Away With Me" and the singles such "Don't Know Why" or the title track did definitely help a lot in this feat but it doesn't mean they were hits on their own so albums and singles should be discussed separately.

[Artoo]

I am very chart focused because charts and sales are the only data driven factors. Everything else is just subjective. For some people Frozen was bigger, for some others Music and arguments about what made a bigger impact will never end while when we look at the charts and sales, we can clearly state what was the biggest SELLER and that was my point to begin with. Even your first argument about Music's status is its US & UK number one so charts will always be the greatest indicator of popularity and I'm just looking a bit further than the English speaking world since sales charts from various countries have always been my passion.

But what you fail to understand is that the charts and it’s data are subjective. There are many driving factors behind music sales:

- How well an artist promotes a single
- The public mood towards an artist
- The willingness of radio to play a song
- How engaging a music video was
- The time of release
- The competition at the time of release
- Economical and social factors

If you rely solely on chart statistics and sales as a barometer, you will never ever see the whole picture. As a Madonna fan you must know this - Madonna’s singles stopped charting overnight in the US because of an erroneous ‘Anti-American’ stance.

As I explained in a post above, Warner UK messed up the formats of Take a Bow which limited it’s ability to chart higher. In the UK almost all Madonna releases had multiple formats and they aimed at securing multiple sales from one buyer.

Then of course is the pretty obvious fact that single sales were on a slow decline for decades. How on earth can you compare sales in the 1980s to something from 2000s?

You are entitled to your opinion of course but you are mistaken. Not one person here agrees with your assessment and that must tell you something.

Music was such a huge hit for her it was probably the first time she really played into the ‘Queen of Pop’ persona. The only real way of knowing how big a moment it truly was is from Madonna’s own actions - she felt secure enough that Music was a new career peak that when she performed it, she did so in front in front of a video of her greatest hits and it felt right.

It wasn’t about celebrating her past, it was celebrating herself as the Queen of Pop right there and then and Music her theme song. There was power and authority in those performances. Ray of Light was a nice era with critical acclaim, but Music made Madonna MADONNA in the same way Vogue had a decade earlier.

[Angeman]

Is this a hint?

[Artoo]

I don’t think she’ll be there. She’s had a busy few days and there’s no way she wouldn’t be hinting on instagram by now.

[MrLeonix]

I think judging or defining a “hit” just by sales alone won’t reflect the full picture.

For albums I get it …. But for singles many factors play into account in order to define a hit, it’s a combination of sales, radio performance, longevity on charts, amount of royalties, impact, and these days we add streams to the formula.

So we have to take into account all of those factors that played into the “Music” (song) and that made it one of Madonna’s biggest hits ever.

Sales alone won’t cut it. “4 Minutes” sold more copies than “Hung Up” and still to this date I consider “Hung Up” a bigger hit because of the superior balance it had with global dominance, longevity, global radio exposure, chart performance, sales, streams, etc.

[maroon]

But what you fail to understand is that the charts and it’s data are subjective. There are many driving factors behind music sales:

- How well an artist promotes a single
- The public mood towards an artist
- The willingness of radio to play a song
- How engaging a music video was
- The time of release
- The competition at the time of release
- Economical and social factors

If you rely solely on chart statistics and sales as a barometer, you will never ever see the whole picture. As a Madonna fan you must know this - Madonna’s singles stopped charting overnight in the US because of an erroneous ‘Anti-American’ stance.

As I explained in a post above, Warner UK messed up the formats of Take a Bow which limited it’s ability to chart higher. In the UK almost all Madonna releases had multiple formats and they aimed at securing multiple sales from one buyer.

Then of course is the pretty obvious fact that single sales were on a slow decline for decades. How on earth can you compare sales in the 1980s to something from 2000s?

You are entitled to your opinion of course but you are mistaken. Not one person here agrees with your assessment and that must tell you something.

Music was such a huge hit for her it was probably the first time she really played into the ‘Queen of Pop’ persona. The only real way of knowing how big a moment it truly was is from Madonna’s own actions - she felt secure enough that Music was a new career peak that when she performed it, she did so in front in front of a video of her greatest hits and it felt right.

It wasn’t about celebrating her past, it was celebrating herself as the Queen of Pop right there and then and Music her theme song. There was power and authority in those performances. Ray of Light was a nice era with critical acclaim, but Music made Madonna MADONNA in the same way Vogue had a decade earlier.

Chart data are still DATA and that cannot be subjective. 1+1 will always be 2, whether it's a lot or not is subjective but 2 will always be more than 1 and less than 3. Of course sales data depends on many factors - availability, promotion, market condition, competition etc. but it's up to the artists and their management to use these tools and opportunities to sell their products, isn't it? Radios didn't play "Baby Shark" and it became a global hit. Nobody was buying singles by Tom Jones in 2000 but "Sex Bomb" revived his career all of a sudden. Many pop songs were hammered by music channels and heavily promoted live on TV, yet failed to chart high or have longevity. Sales from the 80s can of course be compared to those from the 2000s. How on earth did "Hung Up" manage to outsell almost all of Madonna's catalogue when released at the end of 2005? Organisms such as IFPI are there to make sure the consumption of music is fairly represented in sales figures and these are being adjusted to the ways of music consumption, be it physical sales, downloads, streams ratio etc. Not for nothing lists of "all time best sellers" still keep on appearing here and there.

Where exactly am I mistaken? In which assessment and who doesn't agree with me? Maybe it's you who misunderstood that assessment?
My assessment was that "Music" is not one of Madonna's 10 biggest sellers in the world and by extension not one of her Top 10 hits. Global Spotify users seem to agree with me by streaming this song less than around 15 other Madonna tracks day after day, week after week, month after month etc.

The part about Madonna being Madonna or queen of pop is completely irrelevant as I was not referring to how important "Music" was for Madonna or her career or how she felt about it. What does it even have to do with the single's performance? She shot that video with other songs' titles even before the single was released so I see no connection to the subject whatsoever. Again, I never said "Music" was not a hit because it obviously was but whenever we get a list of her BIGGEST SELLERS (based on sales or streams or a combination of both), you'll see it won't make the Top 10. That's it and how "important" you think it was is a completely different story as it can't be backed by any data.

[MadNuno]

Chart data are still DATA and that cannot be subjective. 1+1 will always be 2, whether it's a lot or not is subjective but 2 will always be more than 1 and less than 3. Of course sales data depends on many factors - availability, promotion, market condition, competition etc. but it's up to the artists and their management to use these tools and opportunities to sell their products, isn't it?

Chart data and sales data are objective but they are still Market Research paid by Record Companies to find out what is more commercial relevant and how songs and arists are doing (in dfifferent measurings) and so they are also indexed to their bases and rules depending on a lot of things. Also Charts are used as Marketing Tools to promote songs and artists by Record Labels.

- Music Industry manufactoring or distribution during those years
- The Music Market changes for that ERA
- Chart Rules changes
- Music consumption changes (people buying more albums or more singles)
- Prices changes (albums, maxi-singles, singles, digital songs or streaming)
- Radio Payola
- Discounted Records (that falsely inflate demand for a song or artist making it chart higher)
- Streaming Payola (now)

As you may know Record Labels get much more data from Nielsen and all other companies that compile charts in every country in the world that isn't published and showed to the public (that's why they pay good money for it).

Do you know why records used to take time to climb up the charts and later start debutting at #01? During the 80's most records would still take up to 4 weeks (or more) to be available everywhere. They would usually be available in most big cities first and later in smaller cities and villas. Once distribution chain was improved and records would get to almost all the stores on week of release then sales would also be different. Also the new measuring system implemented initially was only available on big cities big stores so all the other sales weren't even counted - this started in 1991 in US and in 1994 in UK.

Now with streaming hit songs stay much more weeks on the charts. Does that makes them bigger hits just because of it? No!

The fact that people even stream more and listen to less radio and mass media even makes some huge hits that before everybody would know the song and had listen to many times be unknown for most of the population. I've seen the new Harry Styles video only twice so far on MTV and still haven't heard it on the radio but the song is already #01 for many weeks. Even if it stays on the charts for another 40 weeks it doesn't mean it will be a bigger Hit than Music was (it may become bigger or not). Literaly everyone that listened to music back in 2000 knows the "Music" song very well and that's how you know the song was really huge.

Before probably people would play the songs just as much 1 year after buying them but they wouldn't buy the single again so it wouldn't count for the charts during dozens of weeks as it happens now with streaming..

Sure they try to be comparable across the years but they are not that much comparable as in the 60's singles would sell much more than albums; in the late 70's on albums gained much more importance until digital songs came in 2004. Later and since 2014 streaming gained importance and each time we were listenning to a song online we would be "buying" a tiny part of a single and of an album at the same time. I certainly listened to way over a 1000 times each Madonna song on CD (some even over 10.000 times) but on streaming now that would mean a lot of songs and albums bought for chart and sales purposes.

You can't compare 1 blueberry with 1 grape, 1 Apple and 1 Melon and say that those are 4 equal units - sure they are all fruits but not 4 equal fruits. They are very different and they never came up with a fair way to compare it. The difference is so big that in some countries 100 grapes are 1 Melon and in other countries 300 grapes are equivalent to 1 Melon - you know what I'm saying? That's how objective things are right now. You can't compare 2 numbers with different bases (one of maths basic rules).

1 blueberry + 1 mellon = 2 mellons? Never ... but they aren't 2 blueberries either... or 101 blueberries or 301 blueberies.

Organisms such as IFPI are there to make sure the consumption of music is fairly represented in sales figures and these are being adjusted to the ways of music consumption, be it physical sales, downloads, streams ratio etc. Not for nothing lists of "all time best sellers" still keep on appearing here and there.

IFPI is an organism created by Recording Music Labels and serve their interest. They pay for IFPI to exist so don't be naive.

They work toward Record Labels interest of promoting brand new artist that may become profitable and all profitable artist they have.
Their goal is to promote the music and artists of all big music labels and help the music industry market to grow and become more profitable
They are not there to make sure consuption of music is fairly represented. They only care about doing it in a way they promote best the artists they need to promote and nothing more.

Where exactly am I mistaken?

- Summing numbers with different bases to find the biggest hits - that's not possible as conversions vary greatly in each time and era.

- Comparing data that also have different base rules (charts were compiled using different rules along the years and sometimes those changes had nothing to do with different way to consume music but just Records Companies trying to manipulate the market data in order to achieve their marketing goals).

- Thinking that real numbers are better to compare how much bigger a hit is compared to other from a different year. If that was like that then streaming equivalents didn't need to change over the years as they have been changing. You need to look at that year market share as well.

- Comparing different kind of sales (even singles and maxi-singles are not the same let alone digital sales and streams - yet they are all in the same charts when illegible)

- Comparing different kinds of data. The way charts were compiled before soundscan was different in US - not only sales charts but airplay charts too. The way charts were made in Europe also changed and that have had nothing to do with the market changing but the evolution of technology most of the time.

- Ignoring the real culture impact of the songs (it seems to me that you didn't always ignore it but you did ignore it - possibly not on purpose)

- You don't have data to say that Music was not one of Madonna TOP 10 Biggest Selling Singles in the world - not accurated anyway - mediatraffic says it's Madonna 6th best selling single so where are we at? You have better numbers than they have (Record Labels used to have access to ALL weekly sales for every song on the charts and many still have that info in their arquives).

We can try to use criterias to sum te numbers to get to a result but in the end the way we decide to use those criterias will change the result as they are not even agreed to use the same in all the world countries (not even in Europe).

The cultural impact of songs cannot be seen on the sales charts, airplay charts and streaming numbers. The cultural impact of songs is something less objetive that is felt on society and indirectly seen how the song influenced others. You have many songs from the 70's that weren't even TOP 10 Hits and that are culturaly much more relevant than songs that hit #01 during that decade. This is usually seen by how the song influenced other songs and artists on the following years.


Do you think a song like Jlo "Play" would have ever existed without "Music" (and many other 2000's Hits that were recorded after Music)... well think again.

As you said "Music" was a big milestone for Madonna in UK Charts (and also US Charts): her 10th UK #01 Hit (first and still only female artist to achieve 10 #01's or more in UK) and the first time Madonna have had 2 consecutive #01 Hits in UK since 1987. Sure this was very different from 1987 when "La Isla Bonita" and "Who's That Girl" were #01s as Times have changed.Not sure if this made the song more influential or a bigger hit but it certainly had its cultural importance.

[BodyShop]

I swear this discussion will go on forever
Music is such a moment Madonna's career i dont understand how it's even debatable if it's among her 10 biggest hits or not.
And that's why I gave up on this discussion a while ago.

[autumnwind]

I swear this discussion will go on forever
Music is such a moment Madonna's career i dont understand how it's even debatable if it's among her 10 biggest hits or not.
And that's why I gave up on this discussion a while ago.

Agree. It's one of her biggest hits. It's obvious.
streaming won't define anything for physical record eras.

[autumnwind]

It's been a while since she attended that gala last time. I think she won't be attending in the future.