Was Rebel Heart Madonna’s Last Album? No Gold Record as Total Sales Came to 179,000
“Rebel Heart” may have been Madonna’s last pop album of new music. Released in March, the collection failed to catch on no matter what Madonna did for it. The total sales were 179,000, according to Nielsen. She could never get a single going from the album. All together, there were only 312,000 purchases of individual tracks from the album, like “Bitch I’m Madonna” or “Living for Love.” The album was streamed a lot on line for free– about 14 million times including video and audio from YouTube and places like that.
Madonna worked hard to promote “Rebel Heart” too. She was everywhere, and even had the calamitous fall during a promo appearance in London. She spent a week on “Ellen,” which was supposed to connect her to the young mothers audience. She also did what she could to connect to the teen crowd: she horsed around with Taylor Swift, kissed Drake on stage one TV show.
Her best moment was on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight show, which actually gave the album and the single a momentary jolt. But “Rebel Heart” never caught fire. It’s the fourth time in a row that the former chart star was unable to cause a commotion. She can’t get her very vocal fans to buy albums of new material, a problem now for most legacy pop stars.
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The next step? A duets album using her classic hits is probably being considered. One issue for Madonna is that she has few past collaborations. She’s used contemporary stars to bolster her up– like Justin Timberlake or Nicki Minaj– but Madonna really hasn’t appeared on other people’s albums. She’s an outsider in many ways, without a lot of ties to the musical community. But maybe we’ll be hearing Michael Buble on a new rendition of “Frozen.”
Madonna’s big business is still live shows. Her tour in the fall will do well, and if there’s a future tour, she can always make a record that serves as a commercial tie in. But her days of selling CDs (or whatever) are done, I’m afraid, unless she can figure out a new hook.
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Everyone is jumping on the writers back, rather than take a moment to think maybe he is making a good point Regardless of where her new video premieres, Madonna is forgetting who she is because she ONLY seems to care about being liked this This generation” of music consumers. Unfortunately which is she’s failing to recognized. The “younger” generation think of her as old. NOTHING is going to change that. They didn’t grow up with Madonna’ brilliance in the form of her music and videos. They dont care. yet she is still trying to remain relevant to “them” but infusing her work with hip hop beats and the latest up and coming rappers.
WHAT NO ONE SEEMS TO BE PAYING ATTENTION TO IS MADONNA IS ALIENATING HER LONGTIME HARD CORE FANS! The fans who like when she did pop/rock/ dance music.
And pop/rock/dance music isn’t dead. Far from it. Yet Madonna’s camp seem to think if she creates music with hip hop infused beats, they will blend well with the classic Madonna sound and still update her to the “current” sound. IT ISNT WORKING!!!!!
Granted MDNA got slammed, but it is certainly better than her current album. it leaked, I heard it and it is AWFUL. When the demo leaks came out, I had HOPE. I didn’t like the Diplo tracks AT ALL and I still dont. . But the Avicii produced tracks were brilliant. Classic Madonna. The Avicii produced demo of “Rebel heart” has a great beat, great percussion and an impact. The album version is bland and lacks melody. Same with “Beautiful Scars” the Avicii version has a pulsating electric guitar, house drum machine punch. The album version is generic dull & lifeless.
So disappointed that the artist who ive admired for 30 years has and continues to decline so steadily. WHY?
Just for the sake of staying relevant to the younger generation of music. A generation that has no interest in her at all.
The videos, no matter where they come out are slickly produced and fun to watch. I actually like Living for Love, one of the few tracks produced by Diplo that aren’t terrible. But overall Madonna wasted an entire year and created another dud of an album.
Go back to what worked. Her last great album was Confessions on a dancefloor. I am not saying she she call up Stuart Price and book studio time with him (although it certainly wouldn’t hurt) But last year at this time, Madonna made headlines by saying she was “just waiting for (Daft Punk) to return her call”
WHAT HAPPENED to THAT collaboration? That is the one we want! THAT colaboration will put her back on Top. Rebel Heart with some random rappers no one cares about, Nicki Minaj, Kanye and Diplo wont do it.
.I’ve loved Madonna from the beginning and always will, however this persistence to follow trends is tiring….It seems like most of the fans say the exact same thing everytime she releases a new album, “it’s the best since…” No, it’s not….even the reviewer (whom I love and have respect for), gave an outstanding review to MDNA and now seems to diss it as dated while seemingly loving this. It seems rare that many Madonna fans are actually honest with themselves and will automatically love anything she releases. Confessions was a cohesive, brilliant dance record from beginning to end..not a mishmash of current producers in a desperate attempt to sound current & relevant. The Ray of Light and American Life, along with Confessions era, were true Madonna, setting trends, not following them. How many more times do we need to be reminded that she’s Madonna, bitch? We get it and we’re all aware, again. More Nicki? Please, fuck no. Kayne? Can’t think of a bigger piece of shit for her to work with. While I’m sad with these tracks, I’ll remain hopeful that there are better tracks in the unreleased material. And I’ll remain even more hopeful that the next album will be a more cohesive, well thought-out journey, a la Confessions or Ray of Light that sounds nothing like current trends.
But Madonna needs to remember that her LONG time fans are still here Impatiently waiting for her to come back to us.
With each studio album we are hoping she found herself again. The wait continues…..
PS. Madonna’s age shoudlnt matter, What should matter is the QUALITY of the music and unfortunately with her new release. it isnt there.
I am a Huge fan of Madonna. She is my single favorite artist of all time. HOWEVER, that being said, Her Album just isn’t very good. It’s actually her worst. It’s unfair really because she did what she was supposed to do in the begining. She wrote some really good solid songs. She did put alot of effort into making this album but she shifted the album’s direction and made a poor choice in choosing Diplo as the top producer. Choosing Kayne didnt help much either.
As much as her hardcore fans don’t want to face the fact that the leak had not much to do with this album’s poor performance. Madonna is forgetting who she is because she ONLY seems to care about being liked this This generation” of music consumers. Unfortunately which is she’s failing to recognized. The “younger” generation think of her as old. NOTHING is going to change that. They didn’t grow up with Madonna’ brilliance in the form of her music and videos. They dont care. yet she is still trying to remain relevant to “them” but infusing her work with hip hop beats and the latest up and coming rappers.
WHAT NO ONE SEEMS TO BE PAYING ATTENTION TO IS MADONNA IS ALIENATING HER LONGTIME HARD CORE FANS! The fans who like when she did pop/rock/ dance music.
And pop/rock/dance music isn’t dead. Far from it. Yet Madonna’s camp seem to think if she creates music with hip hop infused beats, they will blend well with the classic Madonna sound and still update her to the “current” sound. IT ISNT WORKING!!!!!
Granted MDNA got slammed, but it is certainly better than her current album. When the demo leaks came out, I had HOPE. I didn’t like the Diplo tracks AT ALL and I still dont. . But the Avicii produced tracks were brilliant. Classic Madonna. The Avicii produced demo of “Rebel heart” has a great beat, great percussion and an impact. The album version is bland and lacks melody. Same with “Beautiful Scars” the Avicii version has a pulsating electric guitar, house drum machine punch. The album version is generic dull & lifeless.
So disappointed that the artist who ive admired for 30 years has and continues to decline so steadily. WHY?
Just for the sake of staying relevant to the younger generation of music. A generation that has no interest in her at all.
Go back to what worked. Her last great album was Confessions on a dancefloor. I am not saying she she call up Stuart Price and book studio time with him (although it certainly wouldn’t hurt) But last year at this time, Madonna made headlines by saying she was “just waiting for (Daft Punk) to return her call”
WHAT HAPPENED to THAT collaboration? That is the one we want! THAT colaboration will put her back on Top. Rebel Heart with some random rappers no one cares about, Nicki Minaj, Kanye and Diplo wont do it.
She needs to stop taking advice from her kids about who she should work with. Just because Rocco likes Diplo & just because Lola likes Nicki Minaj doesnt mean it’s gonna work for Madonna’s music. It seems rare that many Madonna fans are actually honest with themselves and will automatically love anything she releases.
I think this writer is a hater and an idiot. This fan still buys her albums-all three Cd’s, the vinyl, and three versions of the online album as well. Just like I always have and always will. If people like this jerk would stop using ageism and verbally attacking people in print, people would still want to buy her stuff. It’s jerks like this writer that convince people that it isn’t worth their time, and the unappreciative, spoiled, younger generation who wouldn’t know good music any more than they know how to pull their damn pants up.
No Roger, as much as youd like it to be her last. Its not! You are forgetting that the album in its entirety leaked. A lot of people got a hold of the leaked version so they didnt buy it anymore. No, yup, sorry, she will continue to make good music so choke on that.
Here, we see the fundamental problem with pop music and any type of music where people don’t play their instruments nor write their own music nor generate their own choreography. A performer who totally depends on other people’s talents but their own and just serve as a vessel (i.e. they’re the good looking one so it’s them we see): It’s a young person’s sport.
Nobody wants to see an aging artist attempt to be young, attempt to dance sexily, perform a young choreographer’s move, pretend to that the polished, heavily processed voice track in the background is their own or being performed live.
Today’s popstars can all expect the same drop in sales and interest if they don’t genuinely learn to be real performers who can sing live, move naturally and play instruments. The pop music behemoth can only do so much for its vessels but it can’t make aging performers look good.
And if Madonna can’t convince her audience to be vested in her before she’s even reached her 60 and 70s, as in the age group of members of the Rolling Stones, then no pop star after her can or will.
This woman needs to realize her career is done. There are 7 billion people on this planet, and if this woman can’t even sell a million records that’s pretty sad. I know everyone steals music now and all, but this album isn’t even good enough to steal. All these pop stars, musicians need to realize that their days are numbered as artists who sell records. Soon the only way they’ll be able to make money is performing live. They’ll actually have to work for it. Madonna is a good touring artist I must admit, and she’ll aleays be a draw because she has a 30 year back catalogue, but it must be very difficult for a woman who is advancing in age who once used to sell 27 million records and now can’t even crack 200,000 in DIGITAL sales. I mean the people don’t even have to go to the store to buy an album. Sad!
It should have probably been mentioned that this album was available via leaks for over a month before it’s release date. If you think that didn’t impact her sales, your being dishonest. Not getting a single to launch has nothing to do with Madonna, but with radio. You also fail to mention that your basing this on U.S. sales only, and that on the International stage form what I understand her album at the moment is 21st best seller of the year so far. Surely that number will drop as the year continues, but that is hardly someone who can’t sell music anymore. No one is selling music anymore. Even these newer artists that have constant airplay are having a hard time reaching platinum status with their respective albums. Can we just be more honest about all of this please?
I loved this album. Thought it was one of her best and I’m just a casual fan…I don’t track her every move.