MADONNA AND WARNER MUSIC GROUP ANNOUNCE MILESTONE, CAREER-SPANNING PARTNERSHIP!!

[maddy1111 1,954]

42 minutes ago, Aiwa08 said:

GMAYL and MDNA are better than American Life (album and Single). Period. 

[Boombox90 4,371]

6 minutes ago, Curator said:

Exactly.

MDNA has a couple of good songs, but it’s the first M album that doesn’t sound like an M album. It could be any pop wannabe.

I can understand why some prefer the dancey/electronic MDNA over the more Folktronica American Life.

I definitely prefer American Life. It’s pure Madonna.

[Aiwa08 18,457]

12 minutes ago, Curator said:

[Adonna 20,958]

2 hours ago, Curator said:

That doesn't ring true at all. It was number 1 in Canada, Denmark, Italy, and Switzerland, number 2 in Greece, Spain and UK and Top 10 in Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Sweden. 

It even charted the week before it was released in the UK on import sales alone. Clearly it 'flopped' in the US due to the controversy and backlash and I don't think they've ever forgiven her. Look at the hate 'Hanoi Jane' Fonda still gets 50 years later. 

This is very true. The U.S. was just over her.  We saw that with the acceptance of the Confessions singles. The album didn't do half bad, but the singles weren't given a chance in the U.S.  I think MTV probably was the only huge commercial outlet in the U.S., willing to play Hung Up.  That video got a lot of airplay.  Can't say the same for the song on the radio.  The big cities may have played it some, but nothing to what it should have been.  At this point, she was was internationally back on top, but in the U.S., it was still a bit lack luster considering how massive Confessions was. If anything, I think the general public in the U.S. enjoyed it more than they let on, but radio was just not giving her much of a chance.

[Prayer 16,691]

4 hours ago, deathproof said:

1) The Interscope deal ended back in 2020.

 

2) Because it was a 180 deal lol. LiveNation already covered partnerships, licensing deals, touring, and merch.

That doesn't mean that Interscope didn't have a say in the recording and release of the albums. They preselected the singles for MDNA. They rejected Madonna's suggestion of Falling Free being a single, even when Orbit commissioned remixes for it. They were the ones who gave Madonna free reign to pick the first single for Madame X, but opted to have Crave be the 2nd single. They put together the radio deals for Ghosttown & Crave at adult contemporary stations. They put together the Valentine's Day weekend deal for pop radio.

3) From Guy O's mouth: The original plan was to release a double album in April 2015, which was "half Rebel, half Heart". This plan changed due to the recent leaks. It will now be one album with 19 full tracks, no interludes, to be released on March 10th. The album is "almost finished. Needs a little more work in the new year."

Guy suggested Avicii, he even wanted M to work with him since MDNA. Numerous other producers and writters were hired by Interscope. A lot of them confirmed this. Including Ariel Pink, who he and both Guy confirmed that Interscope pushed that possible collaboration.

4) Billboard confirmed the deal first:

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/update-madonna-confirms-deal-with-live-nation-1048045/

While she is signed with Live Nation, the company’s CEO Irving Azoff reiterated to Billboard in February that it would partner with some other entity in releasing Madonna’s next album. Executives at the firm have stated repeatedly that they don’t intend to enter the record business full-tilt.

“Live Nation, prior to the merger, entered into some of these all-rights deals, so there are certain artists, Madonna being one of them, that there is a recorded music strategy,” Azoff said. “Once she gets the album recorded, we’ll sit down with her and her manager Guy Oseary and figure out what’s best for the record. It has to start with the music.”

1) She's had ownership of all the three 10s albums since day one. Again: Boy Toy Inc. exclusively licensed to Interscope Records. On every single album from 2012 to 2019. That's how a distribution deal works.

The deal has not ended yet. Warner had to license the 10s decade remixes for "Finally Enough Love" last year and "Back That Up To The Beat" had to be released under Interscope last December cause the deal it's indeed still on. The "MDNA" vinyl repressing this month is under... yes, Boy Toy Inc. licensed to Universal:

https://www.discogs.com/es/release/27665352-Madonna-MDNA

The deal is still on.

2) Who says Interscope preselected the "MDNA" singles and the "Rebel Heart" singles? The only proof of all those you mentioned is them helping with "Crave" cause from all the ones they offered Adult Radio it was the one they reacted better.

3) I posted an interview with Madonna saying from her own mouth the label rejected the double sided album idea, but you keep bringing out a Guy O tweet. OK.

4) OK. But the deal they ended up getting for her was s**t and her recording career was almost over thanks to that. She literally went from a worldwide smash still at 49 with "4 Minutes" in 2008 to nothing in the next few years. They left her on her own cause they only cared about the big fat live shows money. And maybe she wasn't smart enough to realize she would need the albums and the hits to keep going too. And as result of that she ended up not selling albums anymore but also not selling big stadiums anymore. It was a disaster.

[Adonna 20,958]

3 minutes ago, Prayer said:

1) She's had ownership of all the three 10s albums since day one. Again: Boy Toy Inc. exclusively licensed to Interscope Records. On every single album from 2012 to 2019. That's how a distribution deal works.

The deal has not ended yet. Warner had to license the 10s remixes for "Finally Enough Love" last year and "Back That Up To The Beat" had to be released under Interscope last December cause the deal it's still on.

2) Who says Interscope preselected the "MDNA" singles and the "Rebel Heart" singles? The only proof of all those you mentioned is them helping with "Crave" cause from all the ones they offered Adult Radio it was the one they reacted better.

3) I posted an interview with Madonna saying from her own moth the label rejected the idea, but you keep bringing out a Guy O tweet. OK.

4) OK. But the deal they ended up getting for her was s**t and her recording career was almost over thanks to that. She literally went from a worldwide smash still at 49 with "4 Minutes" in 2008 to nothing in the next few years. They left her on her own.

[MikeyK 971]

7 hours ago, Sultrysully said:

American Life was definitely the turning point for American radio.  I love the later albums but she was not even given a chance.  Americans really were pissed off... and have stayed that way.  Madonna was more issue based from that point on too and Americans overall prefer fluff to substance.  Americans wanna play, not think.  Madonna was asking people to think more and they really wanted to party.  Just my opinion.  

It was the turning point for sure but I think the idea that it was bc people here were offended isn’t entirely accurate. The song was mercilessly mocked upon release. It was less “how dare she push our buttons during this sensitive time”, and more “lol wtf is this”. I’ve grown to really like it over the years but even I cringed when it was first out. Like A Prayer had people more offended here.

From what I recall the story of the video being held back barely made a blip. I understand her being concerned for her family’s well being had it been released, but the song’s fate was sealed well before.

I think radio programmers just used it as an excuse to say “screw it. She’s done. Her renaissance is over.” 

[Would You Like To Try 9,433]

Madonna on a barbie album?

https://music.apple.com/cr/album/barbie-live-from-the-barbie-dream-house-dj-mix/1699273801

How did this go unnoticed.Just saw it on a reddit page and researched

[Aiwa08 18,457]

7 minutes ago, MikeyK said:

 Like A Prayer had people more offended here.

Well, in all fairness, ‘American Life’ only offended the USA, ‘Like A Prayer’ offended (theoretically) all Catholics around the world.

[Adonna 20,958]

4 minutes ago, Would You Like To Try said:

Madonna on a barbie album?

https://music.apple.com/cr/album/barbie-live-from-the-barbie-dream-house-dj-mix/1699273801

How did this go unnoticed.Just saw it on a reddit page and researched

This isn't the official Barbie album. It's just a DJ mixed streaming set.  But hey, it never hurts to see her included on the Barbie ride that is going on even if it's not official.

[adirondak 2,020]

I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but I know one of the Barbie producers and he is a huge die-hard Madonna fan. 

[ChrisK 8,982]

12 hours ago, Prayer said:

Not true. It was all about the lack of promo and pushing on radio. You can see how "Give Me All Your Luvin'" got a US Top 10 cause it had a radio deal. She was on her own after that. Interscope didn't care cause she wasn't their artist in the end, they just distributed her stuff. Why spending money on something you will lose after 15 years? Makes no sense really. So they did the bare minimum for her.

The deal was ill fated since the start and she should have known better.

Warner wasn't perfect was always guaranteed at least massive exposure for the first single. Even with "American Life", it was everywhere even with the infamous flags version.

"Ghosttown" would have been massive with proper radio pushing and "Bitch I'm Madonna" too, it was on YouTube on its own, imagine with proper promotion and a label behind caring.

I disagree here - Rebel Heart, she promoted the fuck out of that album - she was on Ellen for an entire week - she performed Ghosttown EVERYWHERE even with Taylor Swift - I don't know what else she could have done sans buying a hit. 

[MikeyK 971]

6 minutes ago, Aiwa08 said:

Well, in all fairness, ‘American Life’ only offended the USA, ‘Like A Prayer’ offended (theoretically) all Catholics around the world.

Oh for sure! But here it wasn’t just catholics that didn’t like it. It pushed ppl’s buttons for lots of reasons- the burning crosses, her being intimate w/a black saint, the storyline, etc. But it was a brilliant song! People who weren’t pearl clutchers were still able to enjoy tf out of it.

[Scottyx 9,258]

I've done worse things in churches than she did in Like A Prayer lol

[MikeyK 971]

3 minutes ago, Jackie said:

I disagree here - Rebel Heart, she promoted the fuck out of that album - she was on Ellen for an entire week - she performed Ghosttown EVERYWHERE even with Taylor Swift - I don't know what else she could have done sans buying a hit. 

This is true. She did everything she could. She got Terence Howard to be in the video bc of how huge Empire was. People just refused to connect with it.

[Prayer 16,691]

40 minutes ago, Jackie said:

I disagree here - Rebel Heart, she promoted the fuck out of that album - she was on Ellen for an entire week - she performed Ghosttown EVERYWHERE even with Taylor Swift - I don't know what else she could have done sans buying a hit. 

Agreed. She promoted the hell out of it and was everywhere. She did her part, but not the label. She was on her own cause the label wasn't helping at all with radio and also playlisting at that point, 2015 (Spotify was starting to be the main platform already by then).

It's not only about the artist and them being everywhere, there's a whole promotion system behind the scenes that needs to be going on for songs to gain traction and getting to people and she didn't have any of that since that US radio deal for "GMAYL". Interscope helped a little bit later with some of the singles on US Adult radio and that was it. Like I said before, with Warner the first single always got a minimum big exposure cause they had those kind of deals for her. Even "American Life" was a US Top 40 hit before being banned for every station. And in Europe it kept being played everywhere way after the video debacle.

"4 Minutes" was one of the worldwide hits of 2008 cause Warner did everything they could to support the song: even getting it used on series, TV shows, etc. All those are deals behind the scenes, it's not casual that suddenly a song starts to be played everywhere - except for rare viral hits.

She did everything she could for "Rebel Heart" but didn't have a good label support system behind, so there was only so much she could do in the end. The US Hot 100 chart entry of "Bitch I'm Madonna" was just her and the video.

We can only speculate if the age factor would have been an issue anyway even with a proper label support behind her, but the fact that she was still getting hits at 49 only four years before "MDNA" maybe it's an indicator that she could have at least gone on for at least a couple of big projects? There's no way to know, really.

[Adonna 20,958]

34 minutes ago, Jackie said:

I disagree here - Rebel Heart, she promoted the fuck out of that album - she was on Ellen for an entire week - she performed Ghosttown EVERYWHERE even with Taylor Swift - I don't know what else she could have done sans buying a hit. 

I think he was referring more to the label not helping and how it didn't get a real push to radio.  But you are correct, she promoted the hell out of it.  It was completely a total 180 compared to MDNA which she only relied on the Superbowl as the huge promotion before the album drop.  Then went straight on tour.

I know a lot of people who weren't really keeping up with Madonna who were aware of Rebel Heart release and "Ghosttown" specifically. The same goes for "Bitch I'm Madonna", but unfortunately there was still no one pushing these songs to radio.  I just can't accept that "Ghosttown" didn't grow to become a massive hit for her.  So many people like that song, beyond fans. Madonna was doing all she could to promote the hell out of her album, but it just proves if you don't have a record label behind you pushing it further, it most likely isn't going to hit.  It's unfortunate because Rebel Heart was a great album. It included a lot of infectious songs that I believe the general public would have enjoyed. It may have been a mixed bag of music, but for the most part, I thought it was a great mix.

[ChrisK 8,982]

47 minutes ago, tscott said:

I think he was referring more to the label not helping and how it didn't get a real push to radio.  But you are correct, she promoted the hell out of it.  It was completely a total 180 compared to MDNA which she only relied on the Superbowl as the huge promotion before the album drop.  Then went straight on tour.

I know a lot of people who weren't really keeping up with Madonna who were aware of Rebel Heart release and "Ghosttown" specifically. The same goes for "Bitch I'm Madonna", but unfortunately there was still no one pushing these songs to radio.  I just can't accept that "Ghosttown" didn't grow to become a massive hit for her.  So many people like that song, beyond fans. Madonna was doing all she could to promote the hell out of her album, but it just proves if you don't have a record label behind you pushing it further, it most likely isn't going to hit.  It's unfortunate because Rebel Heart was a great album. It included a lot of infectious songs that I believe the general public would have enjoyed. It may have been a mixed bag of music, but for the most part, I thought it was a great mix.

Yea, I get that also - but not sure about that either - BBC 1 said they didn't play living for love because it was a shit song - there words, not mine - so it was serviced and they chose not to play it. But, then Crave did really well on Radio 2 , which was great! 

I guess we'll never know! BUT it is true a good label can do wonders.  Look at Kylie, BMG have clearly got it right with Padam! 

She's still label'less at the moment? So will be interesting to see if she releases a new album and through which label.

 

[adirondak 2,020]

Padam Padam is a catchy song legitimately though.  While I love some Madonna songs from those years, none of her singles were nearly as suitable for radio as Padam was.

[Adonna 20,958]

47 minutes ago, Jackie said:

Yea, I get that also - but not sure about that either - BBC 1 said they didn't play living for love because it was a shit song - there words, not mine - so it was serviced and they chose not to play it. But, then Crave did really well on Radio 2 , which was great! 

I guess we'll never know! BUT it is true a good label can do wonders.  Look at Kylie, BMG have clearly got it right with Padam! 

She's still label'less at the moment? So will be interesting to see if she releases a new album and through which label.

 

I suspect, Warner will be behind her next new album.  They were behind releasing the MXtour digital release, so I suspect they are willing to release new material when that time comes.

Interscope was purely behind distribution.  That is because Live Nation failed to become a distribution for her.  So Interscope really didn't have any obligation to promote the album. It was up to Madonna and her management to do so.  And I think that is what @Prayerwas trying to point out. 

IMO, I'm not that impressed with Living for Love, so I can understand why BBC may not be impressed with that song, but for me "Ghosttown" was a classic Madonna type song.  If any new song by Madonna that should have hit specifically in U.S., Ghosttown would have been it.  It did manage to have some A/C success, so it's not like radio was completely opposed in playing the song, but top 40 wasn't touching it.  I would say that's because she didn't have a label or the right people to push it to top 40 radio globally. It's hard to believe after all these years, corporate radio would need someone to push a Madonna song, but I'm pretty convinced, top 40 is more about 'payola" then what is actually what the public wants to hear.  Radio 2 usually appeals to more of an older audience much like A/C does in the U.S..  They are more inclined to play older acts because that's where many older artists end up on the radio.

[Blue Jean 17,118]

11 hours ago, Aiwa08 said:

What are you talking about? I haven't insulted American Life. But MDNA is insulted by a few fans every day since 2012. Please, accept that some of us love MDNA over American Life.

Because it’s shit

[Blue Jean 17,118]

13 hours ago, tscott said:

Wow @PrayerThanks for all your input.  I agree the Interscope deal was for distribution only.  It was up to Madonna and her management to promote the albums.  Originally, Live Nation was going to distribute her work, but they failed to launch a record label to distribute, so Madonna was left scrambling for a distribution label.  If I recall Interscope made a three album deal for distribution and when she wanted to make Rebel Heart a double album, they weren't having it.  I assume they wanted to get another new project out of her as I suspect the double album could have completed their deal.

Anyway, thanks a lot.  You expressed her deal better than anyone else could.  Well done!

What about @deathproof’s input? No good?

[Blue Jean 17,118]

6 hours ago, adirondak said:

Padam Padam is a catchy song legitimately though.  While I love some Madonna songs from those years, none of her singles were nearly as suitable for radio as Padam was.

Exactly. The label did the bare minimum actually. The song was brilliant.

Living for Love was nothing special. I’ve said it many times but had she of released Bitch I’m Madonna first it could have been a hit.

[Blue Jean 17,118]

8 hours ago, ScottyX said:

I've done worse things in churches than she did in Like A Prayer lol

Details please

[Boombox90 4,371]

1 hour ago, Blue Jean said:

Exactly. The label did the bare minimum actually. The song was brilliant.

Living for Love was nothing special. I’ve said it many times but had she of released Bitch I’m Madonna first it could have been a hit.

I’ve said the same thing.

Living for Love isn’t bad, but it’s really not single worthy to me.

Bitch shoulda been the first single followed by Ghosttown.