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If Madonna never left Warner...


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I think overall the promotion with Ray of Light was a masterpiece by Warners, Liz Rosenberg and Madonna herself  but the quality of the music backed it up. I agree they could have done things better with the promo timing for the singles that followed Frozen to get them to number 1 as the tracks with great videos and remixes to go with them were easily strong enough - they could have even released more singles from the album but suppose were already moving onto the next era with soundtracks for Austin Powers and Next Best Thing in the run up to Music

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19 hours ago, Sillynate said:

Was AL the reason why US radio boycotted her music? I’ve read that the boycott happened between Hung Up and Sorry and that’s why Sorry didn’t have any impact in the US. But I can’t think of anything she could’ve done in 2005 that would’ve caused the boycott… 2003 though… that makes sense 

in addition to some of the other answers you got already, Clear Channel (now rebranded as LastFM) which owns 90% of US radio stations, were huge GOP/republican supporters and Madonna had almost released her video depicting M throwing a bomb at George W Bush - they instantly blacklisted her meaning 90% of stations in the US stopped playing her instantly.

She hasnt easily been welcomed back to radio, Hung Up barely got any plays and im not sure about 4 mins - does anyone have any historicals on her radio spins.  The only exception is the time she purchased all the plays for Give Me All Your Luvin', every hour on the hour on every lastfm station in the US, which instantly got her a top 10 that week and as soon as that paid promo was over, the song dropped from the charts.

same situation happened months earlier with Janet at the super bowl - cbs/viacom blacklisted her - i dont know if she was blacklisted at radio per se, the industry is all connected - her label stopped promoting her though and she eventually left virgin.  Same with the [Dixie] Chicks.

Was a strange time in the US.

 

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1 hour ago, MDNA22 said:

I think overall the promotion with Ray of Light was a masterpiece by Warners, Liz Rosenberg and Madonna herself  but the quality of the music backed it up. I agree they could have done things better with the promo timing for the singles that followed Frozen to get them to number 1 as the tracks with great videos and remixes to go with them were easily strong enough - they could have even released more singles from the album but suppose were already moving onto the next era with soundtracks for Austin Powers and Next Best Thing in the run up to Music

ya i think were saying the same exact thing. While madonna was out doing a fantastic job getting back in the limelight, Warners timing in terms of releasing the singles for most Hot 100 impact were terrible though it seems like it was intentional to get more albums to move.

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6 hours ago, AModSquad said:

I believe ROL debuted at #5 without a physical single - by the time physical single came out, they lost that 1, 2 punch from both radio and sales at same time to get an easy #1.....OR....maybe they delayed the single release on purpose to get more album sales.  I really dont know but when the single finally physically came out, it was if not mistaken her 2nd discounted single ever up to that point. I bought 20 copies of the physical cassette single for 99 cents.

ROL first week on the charts was in July. I think Billboard rules still prevented a song without a physical release to chart at that point in 1998 because it changed by the end of that year. So that means the sales did the heavy lifting at getting it to #5 because airplay did probably taper off by that point. 

4 hours ago, AModSquad said:

She hasnt easily been welcomed back to radio, Hung Up barely got any plays and im not sure about 4 mins - does anyone have any historicals on her radio spins.  The only exception is the time she purchased all the plays for Give Me All Your Luvin', every hour on the hour on every lastfm station in the US, which instantly got her a top 10 that week and as soon as that paid promo was over, the song dropped from the charts.

same situation happened months earlier with Janet at the super bowl - cbs/viacom blacklisted her - i dont know if she was blacklisted at radio per se, the industry is all connected - her label stopped promoting her though and she eventually left virgin. 

I think 4 Minutes had better airplay I'm assuming probably because Justin was on the track and he was an industry darling at that point.

In terms of Janet, Clear Channel was owned by Viacom who owned MTV and CBS meaning she was also blacklisted at radio, specifically for Damita Jo. Her sales were still strong enough after that (Call on Me was #1 on the sales chart for six weeks even though the song tapped out at #25 on the Hot 100) but she never recovered. I mean the blacklist was largely lifted by the time Discipline was released but the damaged was already done. Damita Jo was originally set to outperform All for You but ended up doing half it's numbers, 20 Y.O was marred by interviews focusing on the Super Bowl and her weight and Feedback could've been a major hit if she didn't lose four years worth of airplay. 

It sucked that Virgin gave up on her after the incident. Especially since Richard Branson once joked that the Janet album paid for one of his private islands. She was to Virgin what Madonna was to Warner (their main seller) but despite the success, they treated her like shit. The fact that they cut the All for You era short in part because of the Mariah/Glitter fiasco was an insult to Janet. They gave her the time of day when she filled their bank accounts. As soon as the album/single sales slowed down, they put her out to pasture. 

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On 1/24/2022 at 9:27 AM, Sultrysully said:

Madonna has never lost "relevance".  People are confusing "trending" or "charting" with relevance.   So many current and major artists love Madonna and openly embrace her contribution to their craft.  Look at the charts... they are a pathetic mess.  We have a pay to play situation and most trending artists are indistinguishable from one another.  This standard and mindset of "irrelevance" would apply to a all legends.  Are the Beatles irrelevant?  Is Diana Ross irrelevant?  Are the Rolling Stones irrelevant?  Is Prince, Tupac or Nirvana irrelevant?  Is Whitney irrelevant?  Apparently, Beyonce, Gaga and Britney are all irrelevant too as the "hits" are not there.  So, George Michael, the Cure and Sting are irrelevant too?  Michael and Janet Jackson.... um.... I guess irrelevant too.  Good lord.  We cannot measure an artist's relevance in a moment in time.   Madonna offered tremendous contributions for decades and still shapes the industry through thoses contributions... but now she is "irrelevant" because of fucking made up "trending and charting" systems?   Wow!   

Who said anything about doubting her long term relevance? we are discussing how sudden and sharp her fall from popularity was from MDNA on. Obviously any real fan knows how important she is in the longrun Im just talking about the end of her being a currently relevant artist which I dont even think is some horrible thing because it happens to everyone eventually but with Madonna it seemed to happen so quickly after such a longtime of having the hits keep rolling in.

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On 1/23/2022 at 1:54 AM, Prince of Darkness said:

She still would have released the abomination that was MDNA, its just the monstrosity would have been promoted better.

now that MDNA is gonna be rereleased by warner by 2025 - i think both warner AND madonna will wanna change that album for the best. maybe some new songs, rerecordings -  the album might not feel as rushed and we might get some demos too.. honestly the album has too much potential and ill be quite upset if they keep it as it is

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On 1/24/2022 at 4:39 PM, MDNA22 said:

I think overall the promotion with Ray of Light was a masterpiece by Warners, Liz Rosenberg and Madonna herself  but the quality of the music backed it up. I agree they could have done things better with the promo timing for the singles that followed Frozen to get them to number 1 as the tracks with great videos and remixes to go with them were easily strong enough - they could have even released more singles from the album but suppose were already moving onto the next era with soundtracks for Austin Powers and Next Best Thing in the run up to Music

Let's not forget Q-Prime, the management team Madonna hired to launch Ray of Light. 

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Madonna had to leave Warner for herself.  It was a dysfunctional relationship at the time and the label was becoming too controlling.  Madonna needed to explore artistically in directions that Warner would not allow and was finally given a chance to breathe through the separation.  It seems that they missed her and are ready to treat her better and willing to embrace her legacy.  She appears eager to be back as well.  I enjoyed the Interscope years artistically, but am glad that her catalog will all be under one roof again soon.  I was worried about compilations being produced by multiple companies.  That would be such a mess.  I am also thrilled that she will control her reissues and not her estate.  Prince and Michael Jackson's families have let greed rule the day rather than artistry.  

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1 hour ago, Sultrysully said:

Madonna had to leave Warner for herself.  It was a dysfunctional relationship at the time and the label was becoming too controlling.  Madonna needed to explore artistically in directions that Warner would not allow and was finally given a chance to breathe through the separation.

I think the issues between them were about strategy, marketing and promotion - they also had a big issue with Maverick and money - but not artistic at all. Warned seemed to give lots of freedom to their artists to do whatever they wanted creatively, Prince always said that too, that his problems with them were about ownership of the masters but that's it, not about the music at all. Warner seemed to care about the freedom of their artists - but of course later looking for the best angle to sell it, in the end that's what their part and what they were good at.

Warner marketing campaigns of the 80s and 90s are truly genius.

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I don't think she's done anything in the Interscope years that would have been a "no" for Warner, except maybe the super long albums. Editing was always on point with Warner.

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5 hours ago, Prayer said:

I think the issues between them were about strategy, marketing and promotion - they also had a big issue with Maverick and money - but not artistic at all. Warned seemed to give lots of freedom to their artists to do whatever they wanted creatively, Prince always said that too, that his problems with them were about ownership of the masters but that's it, not about the music at all. Warner seemed to care about the freedom of their artists - but of course later looking for the best angle to sell it, in the end that's what their part and what they were good at.

Warner marketing campaigns of the 80s and 90s are truly genius.

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I don't think she's done anything in the Interscope years that would have been a "no" for Warner, except maybe the super long albums. Editing was always on point with Warner.

Agreed. Her contract came to a close. Touring became the big juggernaut for musicians. LiveNation offered $$$, she presented that to WBR, and they couldn’t match it. 

Look at how amazing Warner handled Confessions. You think Madonna would ignore that and just stick with petty things from the past? It was all about money. I think not being tied down to a label and getting a chance to focus on other projects (film & charities) without music deadlines was very alluring to her.

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15 hours ago, Prayer said:

Didn't know about this! What else do we know? It was a marketing team, I guess?

I'll quote some articles:

  • Caresse Henry managed Madonna alongside the Q-Prime company from 1997 through 1999, when she became the artist’s sole manager.
  • Madonna has picked Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch of Q-Prime as her new managers. The deal came together through Maverick Records executive Guy Oseary, who set up a meeting among Madonna, Burnstein and Mensch. "We hit it off, we had another meeting, and that was it," Burnstein says. The deal does not include her movie work. Caresse Norman, who had co-managed Madonna with Freddy DeMann, remains co-manager, although she is not joining Q-Prime. In August, DeMann decided to devote his time to running Maverick Records, which he and Madonna started five years ago. The first order of business for Burnstein and Mensch will be setting up Madonna's new, still-untitled album that comes out on Warner Bros. in March. Burnstein says the dance-oriented album is "unlike anything else on the radio." While Madonna's album sales have diminished in recent years, Burnstein thinks that if her audience is willing to follow Madonna's explorations on the new album, her numbers could soar. "Given the nature of the record as groundbreaking, I think it's going to take a lot of work. She's gone out on a limb and made a much more artistic record than before," he says.

Sources:

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Yes it was AL because after AL (specifically that original video), none of the other singles from the album managed to chart. Even Me Against the Music would've been a bigger hit if Britney wasn't at the tail end of her radio blacklist and Madonna wasn't at the beginning of her's. At least with Confessions she was able to chart two singles but all four could've impacted the Hot 100 if Madonna's relationship with US radio was better. 

MATM would’ve been a bigger hit without M’s corny feature on it, imo.
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From a fans POV, warner made some strange mistakes with the ROL rollout.
Frozen and the Album both got stuck behind Titanic.
The ROL single was rolled out really badly - so the song landed on radio maybe in April, I cant remember, and then she did also this cool promo, like Oprah and stuff, but you couldnt buy the single till I think late July.

Labels used to do that as a strategy to buy the album instead.
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8 hours ago, captainjay said:

I'll quote some articles:

  • Caresse Henry managed Madonna alongside the Q-Prime company from 1997 through 1999, when she became the artist’s sole manager.
  • Madonna has picked Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch of Q-Prime as her new managers. The deal came together through Maverick Records executive Guy Oseary, who set up a meeting among Madonna, Burnstein and Mensch. "We hit it off, we had another meeting, and that was it," Burnstein says. The deal does not include her movie work. Caresse Norman, who had co-managed Madonna with Freddy DeMann, remains co-manager, although she is not joining Q-Prime. In August, DeMann decided to devote his time to running Maverick Records, which he and Madonna started five years ago. The first order of business for Burnstein and Mensch will be setting up Madonna's new, still-untitled album that comes out on Warner Bros. in March. Burnstein says the dance-oriented album is "unlike anything else on the radio." While Madonna's album sales have diminished in recent years, Burnstein thinks that if her audience is willing to follow Madonna's explorations on the new album, her numbers could soar. "Given the nature of the record as groundbreaking, I think it's going to take a lot of work. She's gone out on a limb and made a much more artistic record than before," he says.

Sources:

Amazing! Thank you so much. It's obvious there was a clear new start with "Ray Of Light", I thought it was only Caresse but great to know there was also another great press team involved. They did an amazing job.

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21 hours ago, Sultrysully said:

Madonna had to leave Warner for herself.  It was a dysfunctional relationship at the time and the label was becoming too controlling.  Madonna needed to explore artistically in directions that Warner would not allow and was finally given a chance to breathe through the separation.  It seems that they missed her and are ready to treat her better and willing to embrace her legacy.  She appears eager to be back as well.  I enjoyed the Interscope years artistically, but am glad that her catalog will all be under one roof again soon.  I was worried about compilations being produced by multiple companies.  That would be such a mess.  I am also thrilled that she will control her reissues and not her estate.  Prince and Michael Jackson's families have let greed rule the day rather than artistry.  

 Im really happy that Madonna is back with Warner also, Interscope did not treat her legacy well at all. Michael Jackson estate has already run out of stuff to put out because MJ was not very prolific. Prince estate could release an already finished album that he threw in the vault every year for the next 500 years and this is not including all the unreleased videos  demos and songs he never put on an album. Supposedly there are something like 8,000 unheard tracks at Paisley Park. Prince basically wrote more music in one year than most artists do in their entire careers. Anyone who thinks Michael Jackson was even half the songwriter Prince was are either ignorant or stupid. The fact that Madonna has always been prolific and active her entire career is also something I really like about being a fan of hers.

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On 1/27/2022 at 2:20 AM, Prince of Darkness said:

 Im really happy that Madonna is back with Warner also, Interscope did not treat her legacy well at all. Michael Jackson estate has already run out of stuff to put out because MJ was not very prolific. Prince estate could release an already finished album that he threw in the vault every year for the next 500 years and this is not including all the unreleased videos  demos and songs he never put on an album. Supposedly there are something like 8,000 unheard tracks at Paisley Park. Prince basically wrote more music in one year than most artists do in their entire careers. Anyone who thinks Michael Jackson was even half the songwriter Prince was are either ignorant or stupid. The fact that Madonna has always been prolific and active her entire career is also something I really like about being a fan of hers.

I agree with all of this 99% but want to highlight that Interscope had no control or stake in Madonna's legacy.   Warner  cotrolled that and probably could have acted on everything from Celebration backwards but chose not to engage.  I am not an insider ir expert..... Maybe it was M's choice???  But the engagement was definitely there.  

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On 1/25/2022 at 1:16 PM, rypalow said:

now that MDNA is gonna be rereleased by warner by 2025 - i think both warner AND madonna will wanna change that album for the best. maybe some new songs, rerecordings -  the album might not feel as rushed and we might get some demos too.. honestly the album has too much potential and ill be quite upset if they keep it as it is

I certainly hope you are right, I would love to see it improved for the better.

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