The reason for the (apparently) slower sales of Like a Prayer?

[androiduser 2,426]

So I watched this really interesting video detailing the sales of Madonna's albums (posting it below the text), and I was surprised that the sales of Like a Prayer were much slower than the other hit albums, and it took quite some time to achieve the sales of 15 million, whereas the other albums did huge numbers right away.

Could it be because The Immaculate Collection was released the next year, and since it featured all the singles, it slowed down Like a Prayer for a few years? I don't think that the video controversy did that much damage to the album sales? I mean, sure, it probably didn't help, but the controversy certainly didn't damage the lead single.

And then there is a huge surge in sales in the 2000s. Was it because The Immaculate Collection had slowed down by then? At one point, Like a Prayer almost surpassed Ray of Light in the 2010s.

Does anyone have more insight?

 

[Drownedboy 1,676]

True Blue had several hit singles, LAP not so much? I mean: I was too little at that time to remember, but after Cheris, were the other singles huge? I think she was probably into the Dick tracy movie, blonde ambition tour, vogue thing and so the album popularity probably decreased.

 

But maybe as the album is legendary and called one of her best ever, her sales have been regular since it came. I´m guessing.

[wtg1987 10,158]

I think the lap video controversy hurt the sales of the album and musically it was a radical departure from true blue - this was also the year when Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson had much bigger hits than Madonna so they probably took away some of her success mainly in the USA - Madonna only had 1 number one single whereas they had 3 or 4 I think ( hard to believe Paula Abdul sold more but there you go ) 

[Askeroff 8,088]

of course the main and only reason is too small a break between album releases.

TB 1986

LAP1989

TIC1990

In the physical era, sales of the current release literally stopped when a new release came out.
especially since TIC contained all the hits. 

 

[GregVsMatt 3,697]

I wouldn't rely on videos like that for accuracy in terms of sales timelines

Like A Prayer was a brief campaign - less than 12 months, 6 singles around the world and a second promo campaign in the UK circa Christmas 1989 along with the Artist Of The Decade promo in the USA. The remixed versions of Like A Prayer and Express Yourself on the Immaculate Collection did become definitive versions for a while due to the huge success of the album. Post early 1990, there was no campaigns to promo LAP further so yeah not confident that videos timelines are accurate, suspect mostly for illustrative purposes 

[GregVsMatt 3,697]

1 hour ago, wtg1987 said:

I think the lap video controversy hurt the sales of the album and musically it was a radical departure from true blue - this was also the year when Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson had much bigger hits than Madonna so they probably took away some of her success mainly in the USA - Madonna only had 1 number one single whereas they had 3 or 4 I think ( hard to believe Paula Abdul sold more but there you go ) 

I don't think LAP sales were impacted by the video. 

In 1989 Janet released only 2 singles from RN1814 (which was a 3 year campaign) and by comparison Madonna had 3 big hits - 1 x #1 and 2 x #2 and Paula released 3 x #1 singles that year - the LAP album was very well received in the USA 

[Prayer 14,329]

2 hours ago, wtg1987 said:

I think the lap video controversy hurt the sales of the album and musically it was a radical departure from true blue - this was also the year when Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson had much bigger hits than Madonna so they probably took away some of her success mainly in the USA - Madonna only had 1 number one single whereas they had 3 or 4 I think ( hard to believe Paula Abdul sold more but there you go ) 

This. Madonna was still a top pop figure, of course, but in 1989 the whole pop landscape had changed. Janet and Paula were hip and fresh (and... safe), she wasn't the new girl anymore. In the UK, Kylie had also exploded in 1988, another fresh and safer option for the parents. There was a lot of female pop competition.

With "Like A Prayer", Madonna entered a more adult territory. She quickly had "Express Yourself" remixed for the single release, to make it more up to date with the rest of the charts. "Cherish" was another hit single, but after that the campaign derailed, with all the different local releases and not that good chart results. "Oh Father" as a single was her first single not to enter the Top 10 in the US since "Holiday" in 1984.

She wasn't in trouble in 1989-1990 but I'd say she was having a hard time battling all the new pop girls in the charts. She was older, an 80s superstar and the world was entering a new decade...

...But then "Vogue" came and changed everything for her. She was fresh, new and hip again. "Vogue" was her "Hung Up" of the 90s. It revitalized her career.

[Blue Jean 15,189]

21 minutes ago, Prayer said:

This. Madonna was still a top pop figure, of course, but in 1989 the whole pop landscape had changed. Janet and Paula were hip and fresh (and... safe), she wasn't the new girl anymore. In the UK, Kylie had also exploded in 1988, another fresh and safer option for the parents. There was a lot of female pop competition.

I think that is true. Like a Prayer was definitely a success but it was not as big as Like a Virgin or True Blue because she wasn't appealing to the teen audience as much. However, I think the critical acclaim it received really helped cement her as a serious artist and was the moment where people started to accept she wasn't a flash in the pan. So that is why the album was regarded as a big success.

[Blue Jean 15,189]

And yes TIC did slow it down a bit. But if you look at that video you can see both True Blue and Like a Virgin were much faster sellers and had sold significantly more at the 1 year mark.

[Drownedboy 1,676]

She releasing Oh Father as a single is an stament for me that she wanted to become more than just a pop sensation of the moment. And LAP is not so easy to ear as True Blue was, is much darker, rich and complex. 

[wtg1987 10,158]

2 hours ago, Drownedboy said:

She releasing Oh Father as a single is an stament for me that she wanted to become more than just a pop sensation of the moment. And LAP is not so easy to ear as True Blue was, is much darker, rich and complex. 

I think she only released oh father because fincher persuaded her to make a video for it but sadly it bombed - even though it’s a masterpiece of a music video and like everything else from LAP was ignored from Grammys which still pisses me off to this day 🥹

[A. A. Aardvark 4,836]

diana ross' working overtime is her lowest selling album ever i keep hearing
while it wasn't selling in the uk
that side of things bunged out a 'greatest hits live' album
that one
i saw everywhere

oh father happened because prince said no i thought
''leave something on the album''

' female pop competition '
your all talking like lazy tabloid writers

''oh, you don't have the new madge single......gimme two cathy dennis then......"

 

[Dj Garrido 1,689]

In Rolling Stone, reviewer J. D. Considine wrote that with Like a Prayer Madonna was asking, successfully, to be taken seriously; "Daring in its lyrics, ambitious in its sonics, this is far and away the most self-consciously serious album she's made. There are no punches pulled, anywhere". Considine concluded his review by hailing the album "as close to art as pop music gets ... proof not only that Madonna should be taken seriously as an artist but that hers is one of the most compelling voices of the Eighties".

LAP was the first big watershed in Madonna´s carrer, when she turned from pop sensation into an artist to be taken seriously. Though the sales were not as big as its predecessors, it has an giant importance in her legacy. 

[Blue Jean 15,189]

38 minutes ago, A. A. Aardvark said:

oh father happened because prince said no i thought
''leave something on the album''

Wasnt it because David Fincher begged to do a video for it?

[Blue Jean 15,189]

Also this video really highlights what an amazing comeback Ray of Light truly was

[kesiak 3,036]

To be fair, the kind of sales that True Blue album had are an anomaly, few artists can boast a big-seller like that. And even with 3 #1 singles it still sold less in US than Like A Virgin so go figure. As for Like A Prayer, the album campaign was very short indeed and perhaps Warners messed up some of the later single releases (like weird, limited formats for Oh Father in the US).

[Bjonkers 1,572]

She also didn't do a whole lot of promotion for it as she was filming Dick Tracy when the album came out. A few interviews here and there, but she largely let the music videos do the work. The MTV awards in September '89 was the first and only tv performance until the tour. Then when Blond Ambition kicked off she went into promo overdrive for all of 1990. 

[Alfalfa_HampusFL 1,138]

To be honest I remember Like a prayer as being at least as huge as her other albums... if not bigger.... but might depend on where you lived... here it for sure was huge, and also very acclaimed for being pretty much deeper than her earlier albums...

[TheGoth 498]

Production wise, LAP, as an album, felt outdated by 1990. Trends shifted so much with dance, rock, hip-hop, rave etc that the songs didn't really have anywhere to go. It's a great album, but the remixes that TIC offered made it feel left behind aside from perhaps Oh Father and Promise To Try which have a timeless quality to them. 

As well as that, so much else was happening in her world; Bloodhounds of Broadway, Dick Tracy, Blond Ambition, Vogue, I'm Breathless, Justify My Love, Truth or Dare, A League of their Own... 1989-1991 was a rollercoaster.

Whilst Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson took their time to continually keep selling their respective albums (Bad and 1814), Madonna, for lack of a better term, "sped the plow" 😮

It's great that the numbers did eventually catch up and the album cemented its status as a masterpiece, especially with the songwriting that showed an artist maturing and developing her craft for confessional storytelling through song.

 

[Drownedboy 1,676]

The brunette concept itself did not lasted very much either. I think she could have done much more with LAP but she was busy, and still being super succesful and rich, so it did not mattered. Imagine if she had done that LAP tour.

[Aiwa08 16,205]

3 hours ago, HampusFL said:

To be honest I remember Like a prayer as being at least as huge as her other albums... if not bigger.... but might depend on where you lived... here it for sure was huge, and also very acclaimed for being pretty much deeper than her earlier albums...

Don't forget something important. Many classic fans (specially macho men) started to hate Madonna with "Like A Prayer" (too gay friendly for them?)

[Prayer 14,329]

35 minutes ago, Drownedboy said:

The brunette concept itself did not lasted very much either. I think she could have done much more with LAP but she was busy, and still being super succesful and rich, so it did not mattered. Imagine if she had done that LAP tour.

The thing is, after the debut era, she never did a huge amount of promotion for "Like A Virgin" or "True Blue" either - apart from the tours, of course. She was not the kind of artist in those eras to do a million TV interviews and performances, cause she didn't need to - and she was selling loads and loads of records with just two or three big music videos and the odd interview here and there. The "Like A Prayer" era was no different in that (1 big promo interview - the one with the white suit -, 3 big videos, 1 big VMAs performance)... except for the sales.

In that sense, all the other girls were working their asses off in 1988-1989 with relentless promo and TV performances and maybe she took some notes from that. That promotion was needed to have good results. She started promoting again in 1992 with "Erotica" cause she knew she was going to need all the help she could with that album. And she heavily promoted every album after, except for "MDNA".

Of course the "Like A Prayer Tour" would have been promo for the album...

[Drownedboy 1,676]

I think in the good old days a good clip was A LOT. Today a good clip can be sooo overlooked if you re not hot..see Ghostown.

[A. A. Aardvark 4,836]

8 hours ago, Dj Garrido said:

In Rolling Stone, reviewer J. D. Considine wrote that with Like a Prayer Madonna was asking, successfully, to be taken seriously; "Daring in its lyrics, ambitious in its sonics, this is far and away the most self-consciously serious album she's made. There are no punches pulled, anywhere". Considine concluded his review by hailing the album "as close to art as pop music gets ... proof not only that Madonna should be taken seriously as an artist but that hers is one of the most compelling voices of the Eighties".

LAP was the first big watershed in Madonna´s carrer, when she turned from pop sensation into an artist to be taken seriously. Though the sales were not as big as its predecessors, it has an giant importance in her legacy. 

Music Journalism
Military Intelligence

[A. A. Aardvark 4,836]

40 minutes ago, Drownedboy said:

I think in the good old days a good clip was A LOT. Today a good clip can be sooo overlooked if you re not hot..see Ghostown.

videos used to be part of the promotion for a product

tik tok likes only have a currency if you believe in the platform