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Hi, MJD!
Fantastic work! As a diva fan myself, it is always so much fun to follow your meticulous analysis of each and every diva.
I’d like to point out a potential confusion/error. In page 41, Something to Remember contributed 623,000 sales to Confessions on a Dance Floor. There is perhaps a mix-up between the track “Forbidden Love” from COADF with the homonymous, but different track from Bedtime Stories. STR included the one from BS, not COADF (which was released one decade later). If I am correct, should these sales be credited to Bedtime Stories instead?
Love your work!
oh no!
something is wrong with this,
Ray Of Light has sold over 3.9 in the US, no that almost 5 millions and it has sold 13 million world wide
Hi Alex!
Nothing is wrong - 3,9 million is only its Soundscan sales, which are not comprehensive.
Yes 80 million albums alone. Including greatest hits in Europe based on this chart. However, not including CSPC.
Madonna was not as big as Whitney Houston or Celine Dion or Mariah Carey in Asia at her peak. She was big but not as big. Having said that her consistency is just so amazing. She managed to get an overall bigger sales in Asia compared to Celine and Whitney. Im surprised she managed to surpass their total.
Hi,MJD!
First of all ,thank you and congratulations on your fantastic work.
I just wanna point two missing items regarding Mafonna's video sales.
First is Justify My Love that sold quite well in the US due to being banned by MTV and all the controversy it generated.
And also Ray of Light video single is missing.
One more doubt. The MDNA World Tour is certified 3x platinum in Brazil if im2not mistaken. These equals shipments of 90k ,right ?
How has it only sold 200k then?
Again,sorry if I'm mixing things up!
Cheers,
Alan
Hi Alan!
Sales of video singles were added to the singles directly. That's how Justiy My Love broke 2 million!
About MDNA World Tour, Brazilian certifications are just like Polish / American ones, e.g. factored per discs. In this country shipments of the 2CD+DVD format are 20,000 units, the DVD 23,000 units and the Blu-Ray 5,000 units.
MDNA has sold 70k in Russia. And "Masterpiece" was the 6th most played song of the year here (even without single release and video). I'll never undrstand why it wasn't released as a single.
It's all about ageism on the radio and cultural references. E.g. look at Alla Pugacheva (1949)-worshiped Russia and Madonna's iTunes Top 10 songs in Russia now: Hung Up, Bitch I'm Madonna, Frozen, Masterpiece, 4 Minutes, Ghosttown, Vogue, You'll See, La Isla Bonita, Sorry.
https://itunes.apple.com/ru/artist/madonna/id20044#see-all/top-songs
Looks different from the US or UK iTunes, isn't it? People compare her to 70-80s Soviet diva and find Madonna's reign so much better))). She didn't change "paradigma from rock group to female solo" here and in 2006 it took Orthodox Church hours of slut-shaming on central TV during prime time to spoil her first show here with just 80% attendance. Catherine II was German and she rulled Russia more than anybody else. People were waiting for invitation to Cremlin a-la Paul McCartney, largest newspaper published "3 burning questions":
1. What do you know about Russia?
2. Do you know Russian musicians?
3. If you weren't married and Putin weren't married would you marry him?
(Putin's daughters were rumoured to be Madge's fans).
People of Russia were morally prepared for anything. But hours of slut-shaming in prime-time worked miracles. Now we have gay-propaganda law and "religious feelings of believers" are protected by law, Madonna divorced, Putin divorced. Her fans are much younger here but she cut them with her promise not to travel Russia again. Rebel Heart is a lot better than her previous two albums, IMHO. Her story of her hacker still looks very suspicious to me.
Yeah. And I've always thought Madonna is an album artist. It was surprising for me that people don't think so and buy greatest hits. She doesn't have a reputation of being a "real musician" and singer-songwriter like Adele. People considered her being a bitch and slut. And that's why it's really hard for her now, without radio support and MTV. But even in 80s Cher was asking Madonna to write songs for her because "she can't sing herself". Maybe Madonna trubute-albums of alternative music like "Through the Wilderness" help a little bit to conquer slut-shaming narrative. But since I remember myself "whore Madonna" wasn't "cool" among schoolchildren and students of 90s and 00s. I hope she reconciled with the idea of low sales and won't blame Interscope or Universal for that like Michael Jackson did with Sony (according to Tommy Mottola).
How many years (or decades) it will take for Rebel Heart to become Gold in US according to its current catalogue sales trend?
Hi MJD!
I have question!
Ray Of Light in France don't have diamond album yet? Because her album sold more than million copies there!
And one more thing! You can update Madonna's achievements please?
Thank you so much!
Hi Mat!
Indeed, Ray of Light was never awarded a Diamond cert in France. It broke the million mark in recent years, after the change of criteria which dropped the Diamond level in 2009.
Feel free to share more relevant achievements if you think at some, I'll add them!
Thank you so much!
I found this:
Madonna:
Like A Virgin 1984 (10 M) USA
The Immaculate Collection 1990 (10 M) USA
Like A Virgin 1984 (1 M) Canada
True Blue 1986 (1 M) Canada
True Blue 1986 (1 M) Francia
The Immaculate Collection 1990 (1 M) Francia
Confessions On A Dance Floor 2005 (700 K) Francia
All Madonna's diamond award. But i think she has more... maybe. You can help me with this?
I love your site! Is sooo interesting!
I want made the list and show you the Madonna achievements! But you can tell me that is a record or not!
Please?
Thank you thank you thank you!
This article is reading for a lot people. Like a Madonna fan i want it to be complete this article.
I've noticed that a lot of albums are lower in sales than in previous version of this page. http://web.archive.org/web/20170401233053/http://chartmasters.org:80/2016/06/cspc-madonna-popularity-analysis/18/
Did people give away albums or you've found more reliable sources?
Hi Anna!
There isn't one unique reason for variations, each album has been updated as per up to date information available which may led to slight changes. The main reasons of the small changes were:
- for late 80s albums, the poor results proportionaly speaking that she got in off radar (that were thus calculated by automatic formulas) countries like South Africa, India or Indonesia.
- for American Life and post-2008 albums, change of policy in regards to returns. I used to stick to certifications as the minimum amount shipped for albums that most likely sold less, the most obvious example is American Life in the US, certified Platinum which a third of those copies that were quickly returned. I decided to focus on real shipments to date since some time, which is why some figures can be lower than certified amounts. As all her post-2008 albums had lower than expected results, they all had optimistic shipments upon release and all of them have at least a few countries with certifications higher than their real sales to date.
- for post-2003 albums, most notably COADF, I decreased formulas for continental Asia. They were too high in the past, we noticed lately that markets like South Korea or Taiwan collapsed much more and much faster than Japan after early 00s, which led mid-00s albums to be a bit overstated there.
Hi MJD!
Do you have the total sales for Rebel Heart Tour 2CDs, Blu-Ray + DVD:????
USA
Canada
Brazil
Mexico
America:
UK
France
Germany
Italy
Spain
Poland
Portugal
Europe:
Australia
Oceania:
Thanks you!
1). Are the totals for The Immaculate Collection based purely on physical and digital sales? I thought the Immaculate Collection only sold 10 million in the United States
2). Just wondering why compilations are not included in your ranking of the biggest selling albums? If they were included, I'm wondering where The Immaculate Collection would be in the ranking.
It's in the article! Total = 28,100,000 (physical + digital) + 470,108 (streaming) =28,570,108
Interesting--I had no idea Immaculate basically went twelve times platinum in the United States. I'm wondering if it just needs to be re-certified? And I do think it should be included on the list of biggest selling albums.
Hi Hexar!
10 million is the number of units certified way back in October 2001, TIC continued to sell ever since especially from 2001 to 2009 prior the release of Celebration.
Compilations aren't included since the objective is to define which albums created the most value and the value is created by studio albums rather than compilations. Their sales are spread into each original studio album which is why Madonna's 80s albums are so high!
Thanks MJD, I'm surprised Immaculate Collection hasn't been re certified, it has been 17 years.
I get what you are saying, but I feel like it would be really cool to make a list of pure album sales with compilations thrown in. Just to put things in perspective.
Can I ask a question cause I'm confused. According to your list Madonna is the 3rd best selling artist with 241,135,000 sales. These are just her album sales right? Not including singles?
