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Steve, Queen are streaming a lot recently because of the movie that sol 1 billion in theaters. One of the most successful biopic of all time (if not the most successful one). 3 years ago Queen streaming was nowhere near where it's now. Madonna will have her moment (remember that she is still alive). And there is still not a movie about Michael Jackson (but once one is released his streaming will sky rocket as well).
The cultural impact of Madonna is global. Every country has a local artist that is called by the press "The Madonna of that country". In 1985 every girl in US (and outside US) wanted to be like Madonna. Her cultural impact and her sales force in the 80's and 90's was out of this world. Her 1990 "Blond Ambition Tour" became the blueprint for modern Pop Concerts (male, female or groups). It still is.
I mean, by 1991 Madonna had the 3 best selling albums by a female artist worldwide (at the time) and was also the female artist with most #01's and TOP 10's in both US (since 1989) and UK (since 1987) - lets not forget that her first maxi-single was only released in US in late 1982. But Madonna never stopped. In 2005 she released "Hung Up" that was #01 in 41 countries and "Confessions on The Dancefloor" that peaked #01 in 44 countries official charts (both still hold that Guinness World Record).
Ageism catch up with Madonna (as it happens to all music artists) and radios stopped playing her so much as before. Even this past decade Madonna kept breaking records. In 2012 she became the first International Artist to have the best selling album of the year in Russia with her studio album "MDNA".
But let's not forget that Madonna cultural impact is way bigger, she was in over 20 movies (even earn Best Actress Golden Globe), she wrote dozens of books (having the best selling Coffee-table book of all time and the best selling illustrated children book of all time - according to Guinness World Records). She also did amazing videos and she even have 2 works as part of the MOMA collection in NY. She was also very connected to fashion (even being a model and designing clothes). Also she was the most photographed woman in the 80's and 90's after Princess Diana. Madonna still is the woman that had more magazine covers in the world and already had a few dozens covers on newspapers and magazines worldwide.
Even in 2019 her new studio album was still #01 in US (and other countries) and the first single was still able to the TOP 20 airplay in UK and other countries (in US not even TOP 100, as you can imagine). Madonna was always much more played at radio than Queen. And still is more played by the radio or TV Music Channels (MTV, VH1, MCM, etc).
I would say almost all modern pop stars are strongly inspired by Madonna (not just female). Dua Lipa just said her new upcoming album was inspired by Madonna's "Confession on a Dancefloor" album. And let's not forget that everytime a new female artist is successful the media always ask if "Is she the new Madonna?".
How many modern rock bands are that strongly inspired by Queen? Any media ever asked if a new successful rock band are the new Queen? I never hear any of them.
Boudica, did you know that Madonna's "Like a Virgin" was the first album by a female artist that sold over 5 million copies in US and 10 million copies worldwide? Many male bands and male artists did sell those kind of numbers before but not female artists.
The world was a very different place than today in 1987 when Madonna became the Female Artist with most #01 singles in UK with just 4 singles at #01 (she does have 13 today and 12 #02 singles - the most #02 among all artists). The Beatles had their 17 #01 singles already in 1987 and Elvis had 17 #01 singles that year (Cliff Richard had 11 #01s at the time, now has 14).
In US other females were also going strong at the time. After Madonna big rise Whitney Houston appeared and later Janet Jackson (and many others later on). Before Madonna the most successful female artist on US charts was Diana Ross (yet she is not even TOP 10 right now). Madonna was the first global solo female megastar (and still is the biggest by far).
Today the pop scene is probably much more dominated by female artists but before Madonna they were rare and most were just 1 hit wonders (or 2-3 hits acts).
On EAS Queen just passed Madonna on these past 3 years thanks to the movie, compilation sales because of the movie and strong streaming (also thanks to the 1 billion hit movie). On Pure Sales Madonna is way ahead and her numbers aren't updated for 3 years.
Pat, if Madonna were irrelevant she was not #01 Artist for 1 week on Billboard in 2019. And had not the best selling International album on a few countries for 2019 (at least Taiwan and Portugal). She was on the cover of literally hundreds of magazines and newspaper worldwide and had great reviews about her new music and concerts. Also lot's of Celebrities were at her concerts and raved about them (including today biggest pop stars: Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift... and the list goes on). Also her videos wouldn't be considered on the lists of the Best music videos for 2019 (as they were). If Madonna was irrelevant her remixed song wouldn't have another Grammy and she DJ's wouldn't be playing her at the clubs. I mean, Madonna had literally another 3 Club Plays #01s on Billboard Dance Charts (and will probably get a new one on the next couple of weeks as her new song "I Don't Search I Find" just climbed to #03 on Billboard Club Dance Charts). Also she had the highest ticket price average for 2019 concerts (sure she is playing theaters so less people but 80% of her concert are songs from the new album, she is not playing her Hits like most artist do).
https://www.nme.com/reviews/madonna-live-in-london-the-queen-of-pop-lets-her-guard-down-2603816
Media Traffic always includes STREAMING.
On Chartmasters you have pure sales and then streaming added from various sources to make the EAS.
Steve, just look up at the released date of their compilations and date of certification of their albums. Better: just search for old magazines (NME, Billboard, etc) and check the numbers published. Freddy died in 1991.
Just the albums (listed above) released after Freddy's death account for over 66 million copies pure sales (from those 192.5 million listed). But at the time most Queen albums had several new sales period. First after his death, then after the GH releases, then after 5 Live EP, then after "Made in Heaven" album... and so their catalog did sell well during that period (and so did their first 1981 GH album - but their new compilations also cannibalized some of the sales). Most of their albums were re-certified during the 90's and already this century in the majority of countries.
Not really. Madonna start playing drums in band, than guitar, then was vocalist and later released a solo album (after a 5 years she started) where 80% of the songs were written by Madonna herself ONLY. She also plays piano but she studied to be a classical ballerina. Part of Madonna huge success is her music/lyrics writing skills and control on the production result. If you went to her concerts you could see her play guitar (and sometimes even piano as well) besides dancing (with moves more gracious than any other pop star ever did).
Madonna is the most successful female songwriter worldwide according to Guinness World Records.
In UK Charts there were even 2 songs Madonna never sang but wrote that went TOP 5 (one of them was even #01 on the charts). And of course a few other songs she wrote that other artists did cover versions also went also TOP 10 (besides her own single releases).
Madonna was never just a media celebrity. She was a singer, an actress, a songwriter, a dancer, a fashion icon (posing and designing cloths) and more recently even a children books writer. She had 68 consecutive UK TOP 20 Hits from 1984 to 2008 - during almost 25 consecutive years every song she released went TOP 20. "Miles Away" was the song that broke her streak peaking #39 that year - no other artist was ever even close to achieve anything like this ever before. She also had 36 consecutive TOP 10's from 1984 to 1994 - Cliff Richard had the record before with 26 consecutive TOP 10 Hits and remains the closest (no active artist even have over 10 consecutive TOP 10 Hits now but Westlife were able to get 25 consecutive TOP 10's). Madonna have a total of 63 TOP 10's in UK. Only Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard have more (Michael Jackson have 44 and comes 4th among all artists, the closest female second to Madonna is Kylie Minogue with just 34 Top 10 Hits in UK). Queen had 26 TOP 10 Hits in UK (And 43 TOP 20 Hits). Let's not forget that Queen are British and that's one of their biggest markets.
In Canada Madonna had 25 #01 singles. Her first #01 was in the 80's and her most recent was in 2012. If she was just a media celebrity she wouldn't be getting #01 songs for 4 decades in Canada (or literally dozens of TOP 10's in UK for 3 decades). The Beatles had 22 #01's in Canada but Queen just had 3 #01 singles in Canada.
In Spain and Italy Madonna had over 20 #01 singles as well (being the artist with most #01's singles in Italy and second to U2 in Spain).
Queen are doing very well on Streaming lately but their total sales are 192 million albums and 50 million singles plus 60 million digital download tracks (and ringtones).
This website it's nice and have very cool data but you have to get it with a grain of salt. Also don't forget that many other artists need updates to 2020.
Keep in mind that EAS method was invented by them and it's not that fair either. It's a way to get everything but has weights. Just a slight change on the weight of something and numbers run totally different.
I love the method they use but I still believe download tracks have too much weight (are worth 1,5/10 albums when cost $0.99 each and most albums average 12 or more tracks). Also think Streaming weight should be less (like in Germany where 2000 streams is 1 album, instead of 1500 being 1 album). The Record label still needs an album to be streamed at least 20k to make as much as it makes from 1 pure sale album. Maxi-singles are not differentiated from other physical singles (though sometimes costed almost as much as an album and had as many as 10 tracks). I understand that they can't probably get proper data for most artists (they do estimate data when they don't have - sometimes they estimate more, others less than reality). Most physical single sales are lower real sales due to lack of data. Especially sales before 2000's have lower estimates (when no accurate reports exists) for the majority of artists.
Also video streams taken into account are the ones that exist now. Yet some artists channels were changed and even deleted old videos that had millions of views. Sometimes because there were half a dozen versions of each song because record labels had them worldwide on their regional channels for each countries (with country restrictions). That happened to most Warner Artists (Just Madonna lost over 1 billion views in total but many others had a similar faith).
Guinness World Records says both Elvis Presley and The Beatles sold over 1 billion records (not albums alone but all formats - albums + singles + EPs + downloads) yet sales reported on this website for them are way lower than that. You do know that Guinness World Records needs proofs to certify something so the over 1 billion is real. Just like the 335 million for Madonna was real ( Warner Music Sales verified by Guinness Offices until 2009 releases only).
Thus, Queen do not even have a Grammy. And inside the top 100 artists of Rolling Stone, Madonna ranked 36th(Michael ranked 35th). Their music is not at the same level. And no female singles outsold Madonna in CSPC in total. Maybe never.
Grammy is an American reward, just as Rolling Stone is an American magazine, and as everything American, it's highly biased towards Queen.
Besides, like mentioned earlier, Rolling Stone is a joke. Didn't they put Bob Dylan in the top 10 singers of all time, while Freddie and Robert Plant didn't even make it to top 15? Like i said, a joke.
Check out the Brit awards (UK equivalent of Grammys) and you'll find plenty of Queen, with such rewards as "Outstanding Contribution to Music".
Nuno, pure sales are only a part of it, the bigger and more relevant picture is EAS which Queen blow Madonna out of the water. Once again it's not all about America!! Queen are bigger than the Beatles across Europe. If you were to take American sales out of the equesion and just go by the rest of the world sales Queen would still be at the top with the Beatles not Madonna. Queen have done it globally without much help from America. The other artists haven't.
When it comes to awards, Queen have won loads across Europe, but once again not in America. Ivor Novello award being just one of them.
Regarding Madonna and MJ movies, if there ever filmed they won't be as big as Queens. Just look at the theatre productions as a guide. We will rock you has grossed far more around the world than MJs production. That is usually a good indicator. Mama Mia has also grossed more.
Rolling Stone is not a joke. You are being absurd. It is academic authority for music industry. Many good international artists from other parts of the world are all included in their rankings. It has nothing to do with American biase. Also, the Brit award is no better than Grammys. Grammy is the world's number one music award, always the top, just like the Oscar of the music industry. Not Brit. Adele from UK won several Grammys, too. You are speaking non sense.
Madonna sold 51 million albums outside of US and Europe. Queen sold 48 million albums outside of US and Europe. All figures are detailed into the CSPC articles.
No need to argue over who is better. Just merge Queen and Madonna, and you get the one mega star 'QUEEN MADONNA'. 🙂
Nonsense. Queen songs are much more well known around the world and had more hits as well.
Pat,
Her career is not based on shock value. She has multiple massive hits. And people dont buy albums based on shock value. Miley Cyrus is no stranger to shocking people herself. But shes not even pulling 20% of Madonnas sales. Like who would purchase an album of which they dont like any of the songs in that album but just buy it bcoz its shocking? If anybody bought it for that reason, it would be kind of dumb. And I honestly dont understand what this pitting against Madonna vs Queen is all about. I mean, they are both legends. Get over it already.
Rolling Stone is an American magazine, it never claimed to be a international one there's a reason it got local versions for other countries. And if their lists are so international, why isn't there a single non-English speaking artist on their list except Santana? (even he still got most of his hit songs in English) It's quite simple, because there's hardly any non-English speaking artists that did too well in the US.
Also with American bias no one means a bias towards American artists, but rather artists who did well commercially in the US, something Queen did but definitely far from as good as other British bands from their era like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones. Unlike the rest of the world where they outdid all of these bands!
NUNO, Mentioning Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift etc raving about madonna, just loses it for me. There all from the same rubbish (in my opinion ) popy stuff that is not real music just written by loads of different writers making big bucks. Its not real music. Hey but if you think thats good stuff then thats your right. all those artists are hyped up by the american media and music industry regardless of the quality in the music.
Remember its not all about america or sales!!!!
To the dowters out there Nuno, djdj etc;
The figure which sums it all is 264,269,000, the total number of equivalent album sales for Queen.
With this score, they fly over Madonna in the all-time ranking. They move from 2 million behind to 23 million ahead! Even if her get updated, the American diva has little chances of ever catching back the British band.
In fact, the rise of Queen is so spectacular that if we want to see movement in the future we better look higher. Next up is no other than Elvis Presley at 314 million.
50 million is still a very long way to go, especially since the King continues to rack up significant sales year after year, but if the Queen bonanza doesn’t go away who knows where they can stop.
End of this debate I think!!!!
Hey MJD, will there be a Global Heatmap for Queen please?
Great job on this by the way. Thanks.
Dear Nuno
Worldwide (today), Queen is more popular than Madonna, and they were even before the movie. Do you hear Madonna’s songs in stadiums as much as Queen’s songs? You will never hear Madonna’s songs every time a team wins a trophy (i’m talking from Ecuador, a LATIN country, non-english speaker; and even though, when teams win a trophy, We Are The Champions stars playing). Madonna’s best selling digital song is Like a Prayer, which has 2.1 million downloads and ringtones; KILLER QUEEN has the same, or a little less; and this was said in the 2017 CSPC. Remember, KILLER QUEEN, that was just #12 in the US. Talking about their active time, Queen is the only BAND and the second act to have +100 million EAS in two or more decades. The first one? ELVIS PRESLEY. Madonna did that? Queen had the best performance of all music history (voted by PUBLIC) in Live Aid, and 2 billion people watched it, something that Madonna cannot presume. Queen has only 2 number 1 singles and 1 number 1 album in the US, and even though, they have 47 million album sales, which is a VERY BIG number for their chart results. And for talking worldwide, imagine that even though they have 47 million albums in the US, they have 192 million album sales worldwide. Madonna may have a little more, she has 24 million more US sales than Queen, but even though: Madonna’s worldwide album sales excluding the US: 130 million. Queen’s worldwide album sales excluding the US (with 10 million album sales less): 150 million. Also Queen is the best album seller in Europe with 97 million. Queen was the first BAND to have a show in a Communist country (Bulgaria) in 1986. Only Elton John did that in 1979 in Moscow. Well getting back to today, at least here in Latin America, every children knows We Will Rock You or We Are The Champions (at least ALL my known friends and classmates did), but i’m pretty sure few kids will know even a single song from Madonna. Now i’m a teen, so i am talking about times before the movie. Imagine with the movie.
