Most UNDERRATED U.S. Commercially Released Madonna Singles

[Honey Little 4,488]

Keep It Together 

Causing a Commotion 

Who’s That Girl 

I’ll Remember 

Love Don’t Live Here Anymore 

Nothing Fails 

Hollywood 

Love Profusion 

Medellin 

Oh Father 

Hanky Panky 

Bad Girl/Fever

Rescue Me

 

 

[Honey Little 4,488]

1 minute ago, Honey Little said:

Keep It Together 

Causing a Commotion 

Who’s That Girl 

I’ll Remember 

Love Don’t Live Here Anymore 

Nothing Fails 

Hollywood 

Love Profusion 

Medellin 

Oh Father 

Hanky Panky 

Bad Girl/Fever

Rescue Me

 

 

Correct 

[Anapausis 6,761]

6 minutes ago, Honey Little said:

Correct 

Piojitx is ALWAYS correct

[androiduser 3,206]

If I had to pick one - Nothing Fails, not just in the US, but everywhere

 

[Would You Like To Try 9,682]

Human Nature 

Bedtime Story 

Hollywood 

Oh Father

Express Yourself - Shaded by the album version of Like A Prayer 

 

[musicinferno 3,945]

Causing A Commotion 

Keep It Together 

Rescue Me 

I'll Remember 

Bedtime Story 

Nothing Really Matters 

All Confessions singles 

Ghosttown 

Crave 

[newguy2001 51]

Love Profusion.  Deserved to be a hit, maybe a moderate one. Most who I have played it to liked it. Nothing Fails is also underrated but more of an album track, a great one, but doesn't have much appeal. 

[madonnaBG 1,260]

12 hours ago, Honey Little said:

Keep It Together 

Causing a Commotion 

Who’s That Girl 

I’ll Remember 

Love Don’t Live Here Anymore 

Nothing Fails 

Hollywood 

Love Profusion 

Medellin 

Oh Father 

Hanky Panky 

Bad Girl/Fever

Rescue Me

 

 

Who's That Girl UNDERRATED? It was No.1

[BoyToyMark 693]

Human Nature, Nothing Really Matters, Hollywood, Get Together and Give It 2 Me deserved a lot more love then they got in the US. 

[Bjonkers 1,750]

I think the poor marketing / sales strategy of Nothing Really Matters was criminal and has led to it being considered as not a strong piece of her catalogue. A flawless video to a gorgeous mid-life-crisis-bop with a live Grammy performance on the back of her biggest album in years and a plethora of remixes should have been a smash, and they fucked it up by not sending it to radio for weeks after the single CD hit the shops (or was it vice versa, I can't remember er exactly)...

Still salty about it tbh.

[DoneGone 16,806]

2 minutes ago, Bjonkers said:

I think the poor marketing / sales strategy of Nothing Really Matters was criminal and has led to it being considered to be not a strong part of her catalogue. A flawless video to a gorgeous mid-life-crisis-bop with a live Grammy performance on the back of her biggest album in years and a plethora of remixes should have been a smash, and they fucked it up by not sending it to radio for weeks after the single CD hit the shops (or was it vice versa, I can't remember er exactly)...

Still salty about it tbh.

Warner being Warner boycotting a good chart position for the single and driving people to buy the album instead. Album sales were always the main priority for them (can't blame them, it was business after all).

Talking about underrated singles I was always surprised "Hung Up" didn't do better in the US. I know it was #7, a respectable Top 10 hit, but it was a #1 monster smash everywhere else in the world.

[Gonzus 2,859]

Bedtime story

[Bjonkers 1,750]

2 minutes ago, Prayer said:

Warner being Warner boycotting a good chart position for the single and driving people to buy the album instead. Album sales were always the main priority for them (can't blame them, it was business after all).

Talking about underrated singles I was always surprised "Hung Up" didn't do better in the US. I know it was #7, a respectable Top 10 hit, but it was a #1 monster smash everywhere else in the world.

Nah, i don't buy that. I genuinely believe that they mis-managed the release somehow. A good-charting single is going to generate way more longevity for a song and more importantly consistent shelf space for her products in the record stores in the long-run.

[DoneGone 16,806]

8 minutes ago, Bjonkers said:

Nah, i don't buy that. I genuinely believe that they mis-managed the release somehow. A good-charting single is going to generate way more longevity for a song and more importantly consistent shelf space for her products in the record stores in the long-run.

They didn't care for good chart positions with "The Power", "Beautiful Stranger", "American Pie"... in the late 90s/early 00s, album sales were always first for them.

[Bjonkers 1,750]

2 minutes ago, Prayer said:

They didn't care for good chart positions with "The Power", "Beautiful Stranger", "American Pie"... in the late 90s/early 00s, album sales were always first for them.

The Power of Goodbye reached #11 on the Hot 100 which was great. Stranger and American Pie were both individual tracks on soundtrack albums and were not released commercially, so the impetus to push sales of their overall album made sense.

NRM flopped in at #99 on the Hot 100 and only rose to #93 the following week before dropping out because they didn't push it at radio and didn't release the actual maxi single until months after the rest of the rest of the marketing had already landed. Nobody benefitted from this, least of all the parent album Ray of Light.

Also, you can't really compare NRM to the other examples you listed A. because the other 3 actually did fairly well on the Hot 100 and B. because 2 of them were promo singles whose sole purpose was to push sales of a soundtrack album and to disallow Madonna fans from "just buying the single" instead. Nothing Really Matters on the other hand had no real push behind it, was left to flounder and so, to go back to the thread topic, is what I consider to be her most underrated single.

[DoneGone 16,806]

5 minutes ago, Bjonkers said:

NRM flopped in at #99 on the Hot 100 and only rose to #93 the following week before dropping out because they didn't push it at radio and didn't release the actual maxi single until months after the rest of the rest of the marketing had already landed. Nobody benefitted from this, least of all the parent album Ray of Light.

Do we have the full "Ray Of Light" album US chart run with dates? Cause checking if it got up in the US chart around the time of the "NRM" fiasco would be the only way of seeing if the album benefited from it or not.

A shame anyway, "NRM" deserved much more.

[Bjonkers 1,750]

3 minutes ago, Prayer said:

Do we have the full "Ray Of Light" album US chart run with dates? Cause checking if it got up in the US chart around the time of the "NRM" fiasco would be the only way of seeing if the album benefited from it or not.

A shame anyway, "NRM" deserved much more.

It's her only album without a listed chart run online that I could find alas. 

[DoneGone 16,806]

3 minutes ago, Bjonkers said:

It's her only album without a listed chart run online that I could find alas. 

I found this, no idea if it's legit (guess so?):

Ray Of Light
Date: 21/03/1998
US Run = *2*-2-5-4-4-9-8-13-14-18-23-24-16-14-17-20-22-25-28-35-41-46-55-56-31-31-42-36-32-38-40-50-41-43-39-47-50-61-70-69-67-65-65-69-53-70-65-66-64-68-60-37-49-58-71-83-92-98-100-103-115-125-132-135-133-142-153-155-160-171-178-187-186-x-x-x-194-195-200-184-196
Sales: 4,900,000
Certification: 4x Platinum
Weeks On Chart = 78/7wks

http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/Madonna-USA-Singles-Albums-Chart-Runs-t211181.html

It's hard without the actual dates but let's say "NRM" happened around 50 weeks after the album release? That would explain that little push from 68-60-37-49-57 and then down again.

Purely speculating xddd

[Bjonkers 1,750]

 

17 minutes ago, Prayer said:

I found this, no idea if it's legit (guess so?):

Ray Of Light
Date: 21/03/1998
US Run = *2*-2-5-4-4-9-8-13-14-18-23-24-16-14-17-20-22-25-28-35-41-46-55-56-31-31-42-36-32-38-40-50-41-43-39-47-50-61-70-69-67-65-65-69-53-70-65-66-64-68-60-37-49-58-71-83-92-98-100-103-115-125-132-135-133-142-153-155-160-171-178-187-186-x-x-x-194-195-200-184-196
Sales: 4,900,000
Certification: 4x Platinum
Weeks On Chart = 78/7wks

http://www.buzzjack.com/forums/Madonna-USA-Singles-Albums-Chart-Runs-t211181.html

It's hard without the actual dates but let's say "NRM" happened around 50 weeks after the album release? That would explain that little push from 68-60-37-49-57 and then down again.

Purely speculating xddd

When you say "happened", what are you referring to because the video came out in January, the Grammys and media blitz were in February and the single came out in mid April.

The single underperforming is down to it not being pushed to radio. If they had actually promoted it to radio properly at any time from January onwards, both album and single would have fared even better. The album having a 1 week spike at #37 after the Grammys was also fairly lame in retrospect, it should have easily bounced back to the top 20.

[Leona Helmsley 9,668]

21 hours ago, Honey Little said:

Hollywood 

Love Profusion 

Medellin 

 

21 hours ago, Honey Little said:

Causing a Commotion 

Who’s That Girl 

 

21 hours ago, Honey Little said:

Bad Girl/Fever

Rescue Me

agree

[Leona Helmsley 9,668]

14 hours ago, Would You Like To Try said:

Human Nature 

 

14 hours ago, Would You Like To Try said:

Hollywood

 

14 hours ago, Would You Like To Try said:

Express Yourself - Shaded by the album version of Like A Prayer 

same

[Honey Little 4,488]

Correct