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People just imply that she's a girl. That's why she's pop artist no matter what her sound is. Rock is "macho music" and jazz is for intellectuals. Madonna is "80s music" only, etc. These stereotypes are still alive. It's easier to despise her like that. Finally she's managed to get rid of her "glores" and most of her admirers are really happy about her last two albums. No need to argue.
I'm pretty sure in non-classical music the image is always more important than genre. The majority of Avril Lavigne fans in Russia think they're listening to alternative music because she dressed like a teenage boy back and her glance was angry many years ago. Yandex Music streaming service even lists her as "alternative". It sells because she's not as popular as she was in the 2000s. Non-classical music business in general is all about that.
Even some classical musicians are using this method to achieve more success. Playing cello while being naked (really good musician, not just "slut")... Anyway, I don't think Madonna made more than three really pop albums - it's her first three studio albums. But people really mention her 20 #1 hits either in US or UK. I think that's a record for a female artist and the one you can add to this article - it's in Russian wikipedia table. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0_(%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0)#%D0%94%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F
Im América latina shes huge as Canadá
In all the tvs and radios she sounds increíble
Can you update Madonna's statistics please? Her Youtube accounts is fixed (90%). Almost all her videos uploaded there now. Some twice but they will probably get merged.
Wasn't YCD and WTG Gold for 100k copies in Brazil?And ABPDZ started counting sales since 1989?
In February 1998, Madonna was awarded a plaque for 5 million albums sold by Warner Music Australia. Maybe that is a round up figure lol
Hi dhhd!
Goes on to show one more time how careful we should be with these awards! Even when they seem as clear as water to understand, they require some real attention to interpret them correctly. In this case, I added her album, singles and VHS sales pre-1998 in Australia, only to get 5.1 million units. Take off catalog sales of these records up to date, and add the 'new' (back then) shipments of Frozen / Ray Of Light, and you get that 5 million figure, which was thus definitely not awarding "albums" but yes records!
ABPD started awarding plaques in 1990, but it doesn't mean sales pre-1990 weren't eligible for certification purpose! Among these two only YCD got Gold, in 1994.
You said that ABPD allowed sales since 1989...then YCD sold 100k from 1989 to 1994?
No, 1989 is when they were created. Just like the SNEP started in 1973, but sales before that are eligible for certification purpose. Same for the RIAA, or the BPI now.
Who knows, this happened as part of a later audit already. What's safe to say is that Warner did an extensive audit in 1994 and that many pre-1989 albums were included, many going Platinum (which is way too high to refer to catalog sales only).
Just Cyndi's ONE debut album outsold Madonna's debut, both came out in 1983. By late 1984 when Madonna released her follow up, Like a Virgin, it was "lights out" for Cyndi...
True Blue sold only 425k through retail shops since 1991 (I know it didn't include club sales but double this figure is way too much since the figure was counted since 1991 not 1995) and it certified 7M in 1995. How did it climb to 7.7M sales in total?
Based on discogs data, STR and ROL sold pretty well in China. M, LAV, TB and YCD were actually officially issued in China in 80s by China National Publications Import and Export (Group)Corporation.[I don't know why discogs didn't show them, these were offcially issued back in 80s when they were hot] But LAP was issued in 1996 and TIC in 1998 so maybe catalog sales were not much. Some albums were never offcially issued in China like WTG or Erotica or BS or COADF or HC. And in the Billboard article 1993/08/21 about China"The western music that does sell is
composed almost totally of icons like
Michael Jackson and Madonna or sweet balladeers like French pianist
Richard Clayderman, who has toured
China and appeared on national television." So Madonna actually sold very well in China. You can add little estimated legitimate sales for her in China😜
Hi dhhd!
Not sure exactly what's the question. Anyway, this total is made of estimates of 1135k for Japan, 550k for Taiwan, 120k for Singapore while remaining markets got extrapolated with standard calculations factoring in the market size per period for the region and the strength of the album.
Hi dhhd!
It's important to always check why an album was certified. True Blue wasn't certified on the back of continuous catalog sales. It went 7xP because from 1994 all music club sales were allowed into certifications by the RIAA. That's why for example Like A Virgin jumped from 7xP to 9xP the same day as True Blue went 7xP, in 02/09/1995.
That same Like A Virgin, which isn't that much stronger in catalog sales, went then from 9xP to 10xP in 1998, while it had sold nowhere near a million in 3 years. It's because club sales have put it anywhere from 9,000,000 to 9,999,999 when updated at 9xP in 1995, just like True Blue was anywhere from 7,000,000 to 7,999,999 by that date.
The question ends up being not only how much it sold since 1995 but also how much more than 7m it had sold by then. Since LAV sold more on clubs and got the same (2xP) jump, one can suppose TB was most likely in the lower half of the 7 million units. The absense of update in the following years, when several catalog records where updated (LAV, TIC, S2R, Madonna, Music) confirms the same.
Hi dhhd!
If they were issued by the China National Publications Import and Export Corp, then it's logical that no version appears in Discogs! It means they were sold as imports, so no local version was produced. Copies sold in China were exports from some other version, maybe from Southeast Asia, maybe from the US, we don't know. It's the same situation I pointed out when you asked for remaining Asian sales of Jackson's Dangerous, markets that got only imports. The only way to actually know which version was likely sold in China is to check owners of all versions and see if some of them has many owners living in China, but that would take weeks to check with no guarantee of results 😉
BTW, I don't doubt she did well there!
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/90s/1993/BB-1993-05-15.pdf
"Warner Music says
Eric Clapton's "Unplugged" has
sold 450,000 units across Southeast
Asia, including more than 200,000 in
South Korea (regionally, Warner
Music previously reached 1 million
units with a Madonna release)."
All albums mentioned in the article were all from 90s, so it mostly like speaking about TIC reached 1 million in Southeast Asia by 15/05/1993. According to RIAJ, TIC was 2xP by 1992 and 3xP by 1994, which suggested about 500k-600k shipped in Japan by then, where it eventually sold 1135k copies. So, is it possible that TIC topped 2 million mark there up to date? BTW, I do not believe TIC topped 500k mark in Taiwan, because Taiwanese media always report that STR is Madonna's best-selling album there, neither TB nor TIC. Taiwanese markets was small in 80s, that's why platinum was only equal to 20k for international releases back then, the same level as Hong Kong. so I also doubt that "TB sold 500k" thing according to old nelson post.
Hi MJD
Well then how do you estimated 7.7 million for True Blue? Was it the same for other albums released before SS era? I just wonder this^^
Hi, MJD
According to AMPROFON only albums since Music got certified. And Billboard magazine reported Erotica at 250k in 90s. Where did the LAP and ROL figures for Mexico from? On the ukmix page it was said that LAP at 2xP+G and ROL at P, but AMPROFON showed nothing about these certications.
Hi dhhd!
I agree that the article is in all likelihood about TIC. I doubt its catalog sales there topped the ones from Japan though. If it multiplied its tally by 2 there, it should have done a bit less in continental Asia. We should keep in mind that their markets collapsed in 1998-2003 (depending on the country), while Japanese market remained healthy much longer. When I have this situation, I always downgrade the extrapolation for the rest of Asia based on Japanese sales timeline by about 20% for this reason.
This is a general remark, with TIC why not, it's always possible although unlikely. It doesn't take much: if she toured there just before, a good part of this million was just shipped / ordered and had yet to be sold, if she toured just after, then the x2 becomes possible. I'm lazy to check the details right now, my point is that at times tiny details can be very tricky and change the reality of the situation!
