France Album Sales: Madonna
Ray Of Light (1998) Era
From Like A Virgin to Like A Prayer, Madonna had four consecutive studio albums shifting well over half a million units. From I’m Breathless to Evita, she had four albums in a row selling around 200,000 copies a piece. At the same time various divas, both local and international, issued million selling albums. Being close to 40, the American artist seemed truly a star from the past.
In early 1998, Celine Dion with My Heart Will Go On, Janet Jackson with Together Again and Hélène Ségara in duet with Andrea Bocelli with Vivo Per Lei were occupying spots 1-2-3 in the Singles Chart for many weeks. Lower down the Top 10 huge female hits like Natalie Imbruglia Torn or Lara Fabian Je T’Aime were there as well. Female artists were dominating just as strongly in the album front.
That’s the context on which Madonna released her Ray Of Light album as well as lead single Frozen. This era proved to be incredibly successful for the artist, even more considering how unlikely the singer was to take the crown again on such a competitive background. The single peaked at #2 behind Celine Dion ground-breaking hit while the album did exactly the same with Titanic Soundtrack overshadowing its success. Ray Of Light remained the runner up for as much as seven weeks, shifting huge amounts of copies every week.
Drowned World (Substitute For Love), The Power Of Good-Bye, Nothing Really Matters and Beautiful Stranger all missed the Top 10 but all for the very good reason of helping the album rather than selling by themselves. With 52 weeks inside the Top 30 and 73 weeks Top 50 the album went on to become Madonna most successful record since True Blue. It peaked at #2 in 1998, #13 in 1999, an unreal #10 in 2000 and #61 in 2001 showing outstanding resistance. It passed 900,000 units sales during the latter year.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- Frozen – 13,626,000
- Ray Of Light – 8,827,000
- The Power Of Good-Bye – 4,716,000