France Album Sales: Madonna
Hard Candy (2008) Era
Duets between two superstars are often successful. Successful as singles. The issue with them is that the public doesn’t necessarily relate it to the album of one of those two artists, indeed the main reason why those kind of releases tend to perform well in the single side is because they are weak for supporting albums.
That’s exactly what happened with 4 Minutes, a duet with Justin Timberlake. The song was seven weeks #2 in the physical chart and five weeks #1 in the digital chart. Such a smash from such a big artist should conclude into gigantic album sales. Granted, Hard Candy debuted at #1 and remained there for three weeks. But it did so with under 38,000 copies, a mere 26% of its predecessor debut and 22% lower than even American Life. Obviously, released in the middle of the week hasn’t help but it was still a mark of a huge step down in the artist popularity. Its second week was quite similar at 37,000 units after what weekly sales tumbled severely.
Second single Give It 2 Me reached #5 thanks to the lack of competition at that point but was unable to boost Hard Candy despite summer months being the most favorable one to feature in the Top 10 Album chart with a successful single. If those first months were nowhere near the level of success of her previous album, what came next wasn’t any better. Additional singles had no impact at all and from September to November with new releases coming in Hard Candy dropped from #39 to #197. The album left charts at the end of 2008 with 209,000 sales over the counter.
In September 2009, a career spanning compilation was released, Celebration. While the single of the same name went #2 in the singles chart, the set debuted at #1 in the Compilation Chart as it had to be expected. The level of sales is much lower in this chart yet and despite the run seemed very good, by the end of the year sales were on 93,000 copies only.
In March 2010, one more live album was released, Sticky & Sweet Tour. It debuted and peaked at #6, selling 41,000 units in 2010.
Top 3 Most Streamed Tracks on Spotify
- 4 Minutes feat. Justin Timberlake – 30,829,000
- Give It 2 Me – 5,560,000
- Miles Away– 4,015,000