CSPC: Madonna Popularity Analysis
Digital Singles Sales – Part 1
As a reminder, the weighting is done with a 10 to 1,5 ratio between albums and digital singles.
Madonna (1983) – 364,000 equivalent albums
Everybody – 180,000
Burning Up – 230,000
Holiday – 925,000
Lucky Star – 470,000
Borderline – 520,000
Remaining tracks – 100,000
Like A Virgin (1984) – 523,000 equivalent albums
Like A Virgin – 1,050,000
Material Girl – 1,050,000
Angel – 100,000
Into The Groove – 725,000
Dress You Up – 310,000
Love Don’t Live Here Anymore – 100,000
Remaining tracks – 150,000
True Blue (1986) – 421,000 equivalent albums
Live To Tell – 420,000
Papa Don’t Preach – 625,000
True Blue – 310,000
Open Your Heart – 360,000
La Isla Bonita – 940,000
Remaining tracks – 150,000
Nearly all songs from those 3 albums were hit singles back in the day. A few of them faced the time better than the others. Holiday, Like A Virgin, Material Girl and La Isla Bonita are at roughly 1 million downloads and ringtones each. While good, these figures are nowhere near the big hits from Michael Jackson, Guns N’ Roses or Queen from the same era.
Some songs are more disappointing. Into The Groove and Papa Don’t Preach, two of the very biggest hits from 1985/1986 Worldwide, lost a lot of momentum since.
Like A Virgin finally reached 40 million EAS. The album absolutely deserves it.
Finally Enough Love (Remix Album) was released last month and sold above 200k worldwide already.
Madonna really is long overdue for an update. You should do it now that she’s celebrating her 40th anniversary of being in the businness.
Her numbers aren’t growing that fast. If she’s updated, they should do Beatles, MJ, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac first. Longer ago since the update and better sellers.
A typical example of why this upvote/downvote system is so inappropriate for this website…
I agree, they are pointless, they serve no real purpose.
The main problem here though, is people. People who do not care about sales per se, just their faves sales. They never look at things objectively or even care that other artists are longer without an update or have added more since their last update.
Absolutely shocked people like Adele had albums that sold more than Madonna best one. Damn
ONE album. And Madonna doesn’t update her certifications of a lot of albuns in decades.
Celine Dion has two !
Adele voice is a unique. Within ten years she will be number one.
Has 4 Minutes really only sold 5 million?? That seems awfully low. Much lower than many other top hits of the time. And it went #1 almost everywhere and had very good placements in year-end lists. Was it all airplay? Very frontloaded sales? It just seems super low.
https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Music/Billboard/90s/1991/BB-1991-04-13.pdf/
http://golddisc.jp/award/05/index.html
I’m Breathless shipped 329k by 01/20/1991 according to RIAJ (Japan Gold Disc Award). However, according to Oricon, it scanned 322k copies in 15 charted weeks since its release in June 1990. Can it be inferred that imports were not actually sold and it had terrible catalog sales? Why is the total estimation set on 475k? I think it’s a little overestimated. Thanx
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Delete “/” and then you have it
Your numbers for sales before 2010 are so incomplete! I can’t believe you’re spreading false information this way! Some of Madonna physical singles even sold twice what you wrote they did! You should really contact her Record Labels to get the real info but not sure they have it available to get it to you (if they are lazy to even re-certify albums that sold multiple platinums more in some countries (for over 3 decades) I wouldn’t be that helpfull. Some of your single sales for Madonna are just US + UK and a little more sales (when those singles… Read more »
Why don’t you post your sources for these sales? If you have the “correct” information, then provide the sources to back it up.
Hi ChartGeek!
As Kris said, if you have numbers, you are welcome, feel free to post them and I’ll have a look at them 😉
Why do you have to re-certify old discs? Those platinum and other discs are problem waste.
Graceland is full prolem waste.
Imo LIB was the most commercially successful Madonna single. Although it was released as the 5th single of the album, it managed to outsell all previously released with the exception of PDP which was released before the album release, which obviously boosted sales. Had it been the other way around, I believe the numbers would be like more than 5m for LIB and about 2 m for PDP. And if one takes into consideration that LIB, a summer anthem, as the 2nd single would be released in the beginning of summer 1986 and not in February, or the fact that… Read more »
She’s a spent force , get over it. Most successful single of all time ? Your having a laugh l😂 😂😂😂😂😂😂
He said La Isla Bonita is Madonna’s most successful single, Not all time best.
You ARE SO BIASED!
Maybe that’s what he meant but the last paragraph does state “the most commercially successful single of all time”, not her most successful.
it makes total sense since he is puting candle in the wind, all the soundtracks and all the holiday songs a part.
But i do not think so, since Everithing i do i do it for you was really huge, so i do not know.
After reading Madonna’s popularity analisys, the first thought I have is what if Youtube and Spotify would be exist since 1985, and the instant reply is that she would be still the biggest female artist of all times, easily in the top 3. Beside, she is the most pirated artist in all times (leaked albums, black market, piracy), countless unofficial channels in Youtube with her videos, shows, performances with dismissed views, etc.
Madonna isn’t the most pirated artist in all times. Never heard about that. Led Zeppelin, Dylan, Pink Floyd, Bowie are most boolegged artists. First bootleg record was Great White Wonder by Dylan, price was 12-17 dollars! and year 1970. It sold 350 000 copies in US. Information from Clinton Heylin book about bootleg record history from 1960s.
isn’t she the biggest female artist of all time already? Not much would change
Are you guys including the new versions of Frozen’s remixes in the Ray Of Light EAS? The song became viral on tik tok and she took advantage and realeased A LOT of versions. YOUTUBE: Madonna Vs Sickick – Frozen (feat. 070 Shake) 1,4 Milion Madonna Vs Sickick – Frozen (Firebou DML Remix) 7 milion Madonna – Frozen (Sickick Remix) | Circles Bob – Frozen (TikTok Remix) 11 milioon Madonna Vs. Sickick – Frozen (Sickick Remix) 8,3 milion Madonna Vs. Sickick – Frozen Remix – 2,7 milion = 30,4 milion on youtube One version of these on Spotify has more than… Read more »