Prayer

It should. Traditionally double albums count as a double sale, so...

Anyone should listen to their artists in the way they like best. But it's true streaming is very important now and Madonna (as many other older artists with older fan bases) faces this problem. But she also enjoys the larger profits that the physical sales give to legacy artists, so it's not all bad. The main issue here is the lack of a new generation streaming her (except for the "Frozen" Sickick remix or trend things like "Material Girl"). But Warner is working on that and her numbers are increasing a lot since last year. "Finally Enough Love" update from today: Healthy. Most of the tracks could have at least 100.000 streams at the end of its 1st week, that's good.

Those pictures... She was perfect in the live show all natural. Ricardo needs to be out for sure.

Money is money in the end. They probably will lose a little help into the 1st week positions but gain old school fans streaming a Madonna album mainly for the 1st time (cause they don't have another option yet!). It's risky but I think it will pay off.

Nope, all the streams from now until then won't count to its 1st week chart debut, only the streams from August 19th to 25th, let's say - but of course they will generate profit to Warner and that's what matters.

As one. They're both versions of the same album, just like "Celebration" Standard and Deluxe.

The "Finally Enough Love" version released now won't chart yet, it doesn't have a chance. Streams are count from Friday to Thursday, I think (depending on the country), but anyway she won't have enough streams to enter the charts. Legacy artists like her rely heavily on the physical sales still. This strategy is weird and there's no way a now popular artist like, let's say Taylor, Adele, any of the biggest, would do this now, cause they generate enough streams to have a proper impact on their first week chart position, so they need the streaming + physical sales to have a great first week. On Madonna's case, streaming is going to be a small piece of the 1st week pie anyway, so it's a good strategy having the Standard edition released a month a half previous to the general release, to try to bring some old school fans into streaming until August 19 is here. She's not losing anything - in any case she can only win in trying to get more fans into streaming and that way increase her numbers.

It depends on the person and the audio system used. But on A/B tests most of the people can't tell the difference between the standard highest audio quality now on services like iTunes/Apple Music (I mean iTunes Plus, not Lossless of course) or Spotify versus CD quality. Once you reach a decent quality you can go higher but it won't be much of a difference to the human ear. I'm not a purist per se, but I care about audio and generally can differentiate, but when it's iTunes Plus (256 AAC) versus CD, I always have a hard time, so iTunes Plus is my format to go generally (I also like to buy digital music still). Of course if you have a good stereo system like @Aiwa08said it's easier to tell the difference. But it really depends on the person. Just enjoy the music, audio purist or not! It is important for some of us but also not that important for almost everyone else.

It's definitely more complicated than the old physical system where 1 copy = 1 sale. Also, there are two levels to understand streaming: - 1st: worldwide, the most important thing now is that it is worldwide and the profit is the goal, not the charts. Of course the mega hits are going to chart anyway cause charts are supposed to reflect what's popular. Just like before, of course, but now you don't need to separate markets: the whole world is your market. - 2nd: of course, each country has their own charts and a song can be a hit in a country but not in others. And each country has their own system of how to count streaming into their national charts (most of the time is a points system where a number of streams equals the value of a 1 sale). Do you have to listen to the whole album for it to count as a stream? No. Total streams of an album that week are added to the album and X number of streams on each country equal 1 sale. The album with more sales (physical plus equivalent from streaming) is the #1 on the country that week. How long do you have to listen to a song for it to count? 30 seconds at least. When you listen to a song for 30 sec. at least is considered 1 stream. That's why popular songs got shorter and shorter with time, the shorter your song is, more chances for having it streamed more times and make more money. Example: "Frozen" Sickick, 2:00. What if you only play an individual song, does it count towards the album or as a single? Both. If you play it from an album, it will count to that album but also to the song. I always stream on Spotify and YouTube, but I have no clue how it works. It's hard! I don't even get it completely, to be honest, hahaha. Just stream (or listened to your physical media, every format is cool) and be happy ^^

In the end the final say is always Madonna. So the interview would have to be with her and she’d kill us, so no.

Sadly, and we all know that, this is not rare in the music industry. There are tons of examples, Janet and even Prince come to mind right now. They use whatever they have available and if the rest of the collection is HQ, they fake it. Now the Apple Digital Master (previously know as Mastered For iTunes) is quite popular and most of the big label artists usually have that. That version is converted from the original files and they need to be 24 bits so the label has to provide Apple with those HQ masters so they can convert them into Apple Digital Master AAC files... in collections like this one where not every source is HQ they just fake it cause you can't have some songs on an album being Apple Digital Master and not others, you need the whole album or nothing at all. It's sad, I know, but we also know 99,9% of the people listening to it don't care, mind, notice. I usually care and I didn't even notice anything weird with the "Living For Love" remix, to be honest, I wouldn't know if it wasn't for you. But I agree is not the perfect situation.

Disappointing that they use MP3 files as a source but I guess is just the best one they had available for that? That's the only reason I can think of when the rest of the collection we can see is tastefully and carefully done, from the remastering to the release, physical editions, promotion, etc. Not trying to justify that, just trying to understand. That said, I prefer to have this remix even if it's sourced from MP3, that not having it at all. I love it so much.

And here we go with "FEL" debut numbers on Spotify. Status before the release: And update today, after its first 24 hours: Healthy debut, around 20.000 estimated listeners on its first day we can assume. Stream it, b*****s!

Today's update: 22.052.379 monthly listeners and #154 worldwide. "Material Girl" (Celebration Version) is now 260 M and "Frozen" Sickick 73 M. "Finally Enough Love" debut numbers coming next...

This remix should be called TIVING FOR LOVE. I can't accept any other title now. Good news: All the songs on "Finally Enough Love" (except "Girl Gone Wild" for some reason) now have canvas videos on Spotify, with the red vs black and white them that Warner is using for promoting this album (quite clever in my opinion), similar to the album trailer: A canvas video on Spotify is a little mini-video of 8 seconds maximum that repeats in loop on the player when the song is being played (if the option is activated on Settings). That way when you play the song you see the canvas instead of the cover. Go check them! They're cool and each canvas is made with scenes from the original music video of the song. It only works on smartphones, not on the desktop version of Spotify. It's a little detail that helps building a theme for the album and I'm very happy that people at Warner now take care of even these small - but also important - details! Can't wait to see the back cover and the booklets of the physical releases now.