Prayer

She's never had it better in the last... 15 years? for releasing new music and actually making an impact. She's just been universally praised after Rio. The world is rooting for her like never before in ages. If she has a KILLER track and Warner throws some good money on promo she can do it again. Take over the world again, mama.

Among other things, including the old digital singles release strategy, which is now quite dead but was consistent and worked quite well during 2021 and the first months of 2022, when they were released as new to maximize reach and streams. "Popular" and "Frozen" Sickick helped A LOT but she would have gone down again already if it only was for those two, yet she's still at 40M monthly listeners.

Someone commented in this forum it is actually the vocal of her studio version of "Like A Virgin" from The Confessions Tour and it certainly sounds like it. At first I thought it was a different singer or her but pitched down.

WTF https://ultimateclassicrock.com/john-fogerty-george-thorogood-tour-2024/ Her IMPACT!

Thanks for the info from your friend. I don't know, I haven't seen any backlash about the audio anywhere, not even on X, which is usually the place with more hate towards her (and anyone else xd). Literally we're the only ones commenting that - good for her in any case. I found the live editing quite simple to be honest, I even thought it couldn't be Madonna's team but Globo TV. It missed key moments, like someone who doesn't know the concert inside out trying to catch up with everything happening on stage. That's why I'm not completely sure about the delay being for editing reasons. We should have had a final product much better if that was the case? Don't get me wrong, I love it the way they presented it, it was refreshing to have a professional minimal edit of one of her shows after so many years. Maybe they're saving the great editing for her release with the Mexico shows as base concert, and didn't want this one to be too perfect, so they can sell the other one later to Netflix or whatever platform interested. Who knows! Edit: gotta say the kissing in "In This Life", while a great message there, looked weird at first sight like "who the hell goes for a steamy kiss like that after a performance like "Live To Tell"?". Now I understand it didn't belong to that proper moment, makes sense.

Cindy Lauper has three mega-hits on Spotify: - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun: 1.111M - Time After Time: 787M - True Colors: 255M All the rest of her hits are below 55M ("I Drove All Night" is 53M). Madonna has 13 songs above the +100M mark (soon 14, "Bitch I'm Madonna" is about to reach that figure too). Playlisting (payed by the label or not) surely played a big factor for Cindy. Spotify editorial playlists are kinda on the low side at the moment (still important and key but less than 5 years ago), but they were huge in the late 10s and early 20s. Madonna biggest hits were with Warner but she wasn't with them during playlisting explosion, so maybe that's part of the reason why her biggest numbers are not that big as others. Why would Warner bother promoting her if she wasn't their artist anymore? When she came back to Warner in 2021 they had to play catch up somehow but results improved vastly in these years. She's in a very healthy position at the moment.

Honestly I still think the 10 minute delay was probably more due to security reasons (even with countless security there, imagine something terrible would have happened, on stage or in the audience) than live retouching of each song. I think the backing track was completed pre-show for it to be used on it and probably there were live image adjustments applied, but that was it.

What? Madonna and Stephen Bray are both credited as writers on "Into The Groove" since day one:

Please do! Mad'Ame X

I had COMPLETELY forgotten this one! I remember watching it on my local TV show and half of me thinking WTF and the other half "cool!". Same feeling two decades after. I was checking and this was a respectable #22 in the UK charts in August 2000. She walked so Mad'House could run two years later: their cover of "Like A Prayer" was #3 (!!!!) in UK in July 2002, while "Holiday" was #24 in November.

Mad'House's "Like A Prayer" cover was so HUGE in Europe that they ended up releasing a whole album of Madonna covers: CHEAP but fun!

The rapper thing using "Into The Groove" was a sample, not a cover, that's why she was mad - cause he was getting a lot of streams too, so he was making money with her creation. With Mad'House... gosh I will never forget Summer 2002 and the endless cheap dance covers they released xd (To be fair they filled the long gap between "What It Feels Like For A Girl" and "Die Another Day", which felt like FOREVER back then and helped new generations to know her old songs when she was so against her old hits still, this cover was EVERYWHERE in Europe that year). Madonna could not like it, but couldn't do anything about it, since they were simple plain covers, not samples used on new creations. Same as the countless tribute albums released along the years (some posted by @EgoRod), or the lullaby cover versions albums, the orchestral wedding type covers, etc. etc. There are tons of them! She maybe didn't like it, but she didn't have any power to stop them - just talking bad about them to minimize their impact, I remember she trashed "Virgin Voices" back in the day.

All this talk made me want to update her "flop" numbers, so here we go xd - All Time Top 50 updated (Official, not merged): 01. Popular (The Weeknd, Playboi Carti & Madonna): 756M 02. Material Girl ("Celebration"/Digital Single Version): 432M 02. Hung Up: 420M 04. La Isla Bonita: 365M 05. Like A Prayer ("Celebration" Version): 336M 06. 4 Minutes ("Celebration"/Edit Version): 308M 07. Like A Virgin ("Like A Virgin" Album Version): 277M 08. Vogue ("Celebration"/"Immaculate" Version): 225M 09. Frozen (Sickick Remix): 167M 10. Crazy For You: 131M 11. Papa Don't Preach: 129M 12. Into The Groove: 123M 13. Holiday ("Madonna" Digital Album Edit Version): 106M 14. Like A Prayer ("Like A Prayer" Album Version): 101M 15. Bitch I'm Madonna: 99M 16. Frozen ("Ray Of Light" Album Version): 82M 17. Music: 80M 18. Holiday ("Celebration"/Original Album Version): 80M 19. Medellín: 71M 20. Me Against The Music (Britney Spears Feat. Madonna): 64M 21. Sorry ("Confessions" Album Version): 64M 22. Levitating (Dua Lipa Remix): 62M 23. Take A Bow: 58M 24. Live To Tell: 57M 25. American Pie: 55M 26. Material Girl ("Like A Virgin" Album Version): 53M 27. 4 Minutes ("Hard Candy" Album Version): 52M 28. Ray Of Light ("Ray Of Light" Album Version): 51M 29. Girl Gone Wild: 51M 30. Like A Virgin ("Celebration"/"Immaculate" Version): 51M 31. True Blue: 50M 32. The Power Of Good-Bye: 49M 33. Give It 2 Me: 47M 34. Faz Gostoso: 46M 35. Jump: 43M 36. Express Yourself ("Celebration" Version): 42M 37. Die Another Day: 42M 38. Borderline ("Celebration" Version): 40M 39. Celebration ("Celebration" Album Version): 38M 40. Ghosttown: 38M 41. Give Me All Your Luvin': 37M 42. Living For Love: 36M 43. Who's That Girl: 36M 44. Frozen ("Celebration" Extended Version): 34M 45. Don't Tell Me (Album Version): 32M 46. Open Your Heart ("Celebration"/"Immaculate" Version): 32M 47. Lucky Star ("Madonna" Album Version): 32M 48. Beautiful Stranger ("Celebration"/OST Album Version): 26M 49. Get Together: 26M 50. Vogue ("I'm Breathless" Album Edit): 26M

But they're not opinions when they're claiming things as facts and are not actually true. Also, an "expert" should know Madonna's current label situation or at least do some research about it. Again, fans will always know more, of course, but it's sad to read those kinds of articles, feels like undermining a little bit her victory in Rio. "Yeah, she can still gather people BUT...". Just my take on it, of course I don't claim to be the right voice about it. :-)

That article has many wrong points, don't know exactly what they're trying to get across with it. Madonna does have a label, she came back to Warner in 2021. She's not on her own now. Also, the angle of her not having good numbers on Spotify... I would understand trying to do that two years ago, not now. She's doubled her monthly listeners since then and kept steady. 40M monthly listeners, for reference, if we're trying to compare, Michael Jackson is 41M at the moment and Prince 11M. Besides, if you're really interested in telling the story, then add all the facts, as you @nito84bcnpointed out in your last post: she may not have the 1 or 2 monster figures songs, but she has more big numbers hits than the usual big names of her era. Plus, some of her numbers and divided between different versions, if they merged them it would be different. But of course all of this is more boring to explain and to read later that a clickbait headline claiming she ruled in Rio but she's a flop on Spotify - which is completely false. But it's sad cause that's what the average folk will take from it. Journalists should know - and do - better and not try to do her dirty for a couple hundred more views, especially the day after one of her biggest accomplishments ever.