http://www.showbiz411.com/2014/12/27/madonnas-rebel-heart-break-six-new-songs-fizzle-as-sales-collapse-within-days

Call it Rebel Heart-break. Last week Madonna released six tracks to iTunes, hoping to circumvent a spate of demos that were illegally posted on the web. At first, all six songs lodged right into the iTunes top 10 and it looked like Madonna had a success. The plan was to release the balance of the album, called “Rebel Heart,” in March.

But now, just a few days late, five of the six songs are gone from iTunes. Only one, “Bitch I’m Madonna,” featuring Nicki Minaj, remains at a lowly number 188. The album “Rebel Heart,” which lists seven songs (for some reason “Joan of Arc” is there but you can’t hear it) is at number 38 for pre-orders.

On amazon.com things are much much worse.. “Living for Love,” which was supposed to be the lead single, is at number 529 among digital singles. Five hundred twenty nine. And the “Rebel Heart” album is at 167. Ouch!

Madonna, like other legacy artists, has not been able to sell albums in the last decade. “MDNA,” “Hard Candy,” and “American Life” were all sales disasters. New fans are not forthcoming for a 56 year old artist. Old fans only to want to hear the hits. It’s a hard fact of life for everyone, not just Madonna.

This situation with “Rebel Heart” has been a real calamity. The leaked tracks, if Madonna’s peeps didn’t leak them, should have been ignored. Most of her fans wouldn’t have known how to find them anyway. Rushing them out as official releases, nearly a third of the new album, seems to have backfired. Radio didn’t pick anything up, and core fans mostly snubbed the tracks after Madonna admonished them in an Instagram video. Maybe just releasing one track officially would have worked. But a half dozen? With no promotion? No good.

Anyway, I like Madonna’s new songs. I think they’re her best work in years. Hopefully all of “Rebel Heart” will launch properly in March and this episode will have been just a distant nightmare.

dont know why this has to be on the main prince disscussion? Who cares, the music industry died when the internet was born. What else is new?

Oh well.

-

An artist like Madonna lives and dies by sales. Prince never has.

It's a stupid propoganda article.

I think the music biz in general, is essentially on hold, while Hollywood attempts to takeover the internet as it's new distribution platform. Everything gets turned into pay-per-view. Prince.org cost's $1 per post, lol.

lwr001 said:

http://www.showbiz411.com/2014/12/27/madonnas-rebel-heart-break-six-new-songs-fizzle-as-sales-collapse-within-days

Call it Rebel Heart-break. Last week Madonna released six tracks to iTunes, hoping to circumvent a spate of demos that were illegally posted on the web. At first, all six songs lodged right into the iTunes top 10 and it looked like Madonna had a success. The plan was to release the balance of the album, called “Rebel Heart,” in March.

But now, just a few days late, five of the six songs are gone from iTunes. Only one, “Bitch I’m Madonna,” featuring Nicki Minaj, remains at a lowly number 188. The album “Rebel Heart,” which lists seven songs (for some reason “Joan of Arc” is there but you can’t hear it) is at number 38 for pre-orders.

On amazon.com things are much much worse.. “Living for Love,” which was supposed to be the lead single, is at number 529 among digital singles. Five hundred twenty nine. And the “Rebel Heart” album is at 167. Ouch!

Madonna, like other legacy artists, has not been able to sell albums in the last decade. “MDNA,” “Hard Candy,” and “American Life” were all sales disasters. New fans are not forthcoming for a 56 year old artist. Old fans only to want to hear the hits. It’s a hard fact of life for everyone, not just Madonna.

This situation with “Rebel Heart” has been a real calamity. The leaked tracks, if Madonna’s peeps didn’t leak them, should have been ignored. Most of her fans wouldn’t have known how to find them anyway. Rushing them out as official releases, nearly a third of the new album, seems to have backfired. Radio didn’t pick anything up, and core fans mostly snubbed the tracks after Madonna admonished them in an Instagram video. Maybe just releasing one track officially would have worked. But a half dozen? With no promotion? No good.

Anyway, I like Madonna’s new songs. I think they’re her best work in years. Hopefully all of “Rebel Heart” will launch properly in March and this episode will have been just a distant nightmare.

What has this got to do with Prince, compared to any other artist????

thedoorkeeper said:

skywalker said:

thedoorkeeper said:

Read between the lines: "legacy artists" = Prince

- Psst. Everyone (even those with just a hit record or two)is a legacy artist. You go to a Lady Gaga concert to hear the new stuff or to hear "Just Dance"? - Also, the record industry is dead. Having a hit record used to mean something and made an artist money (sometimes ask TLC). - Taylor Swift's 1989 is the biggest selling thing right now. Compare it's sales to the biggest album of 2004, compare that to 1994, compare that to 1984. See a pattern? - Question: How much is Taylor Swift making from the sales of 1989? - Answer: Not as nearly as much as she does by touring. [Edited 12/27/14 20:54pm]

The force is strong in this one...

V10LETBLUES said:

Good music rises to the top, Madge and Prince's new albums with all their cache and star power have sunk to the bottom because that's where they belong. Simple physics. Dead weight sinks to the bottom regardless of how much people try to prop it up. The Internet has democratized voices. It's harder to manipulate via payola and power.

The music industry is not a meritocracy like the NBA or the NFL where an individual's talents determine how much they will reap in financial rewards. The music industry is the NBA or NFL where if you can walk and talk at the same time, your music will reach the widest exposure as possible. If by "good music risees to the top", you mean Taylor Swift, Lil Wayne and Drake, then I agree.

V10LETBLUES said:

skywalker said:

SquirrelMeat said:

lwr001 said:

http://www.showbiz411.com/2014/12/27/madonnas-rebel-heart-break-six-new-songs-fizzle-as-sales-collapse-within-days

Call it Rebel Heart-break. Last week Madonna released six tracks to iTunes, hoping to circumvent a spate of demos that were illegally posted on the web. At first, all six songs lodged right into the iTunes top 10 and it looked like Madonna had a success. The plan was to release the balance of the album, called “Rebel Heart,” in March.

But now, just a few days late, five of the six songs are gone from iTunes. Only one, “Bitch I’m Madonna,” featuring Nicki Minaj, remains at a lowly number 188. The album “Rebel Heart,” which lists seven songs (for some reason “Joan of Arc” is there but you can’t hear it) is at number 38 for pre-orders.

On amazon.com things are much much worse.. “Living for Love,” which was supposed to be the lead single, is at number 529 among digital singles. Five hundred twenty nine. And the “Rebel Heart” album is at 167. Ouch!

Madonna, like other legacy artists, has not been able to sell albums in the last decade. “MDNA,” “Hard Candy,” and “American Life” were all sales disasters. New fans are not forthcoming for a 56 year old artist. Old fans only to want to hear the hits. It’s a hard fact of life for everyone, not just Madonna.

This situation with “Rebel Heart” has been a real calamity. The leaked tracks, if Madonna’s peeps didn’t leak them, should have been ignored. Most of her fans wouldn’t have known how to find them anyway. Rushing them out as official releases, nearly a third of the new album, seems to have backfired. Radio didn’t pick anything up, and core fans mostly snubbed the tracks after Madonna admonished them in an Instagram video. Maybe just releasing one track officially would have worked. But a half dozen? With no promotion? No good.

Anyway, I like Madonna’s new songs. I think they’re her best work in years. Hopefully all of “Rebel Heart” will launch properly in March and this episode will have been just a distant nightmare.

What has this got to do with Prince, compared to any other artist????

same thing i'm wondering...

Please lock or move to music: non Prince forum. Putting Prince in the title of the thread to talk about another artist in the PRINCE forum?

Prince has nothing to do with this, BUT the leak situation made Madonna similar to Prince: neither of them understand the internet. Madonna has a prehistoric recording contract in effect even though some 5 years ago she talked about having to reinvent the wheel regarding music distribution. Unfortunately in relation to the internet topic, these two are the definition of "you can't teach an old dog new tricks".

The article is absurdly biaised when using the words "sales disaster" for AL (5M), HC (4M) and MDNA (2M) and conveniently ignores COEDF (12M): sure by Madonna's standards those albums sold modestly, however for the record I'm breathless and Eroica sold "only" 7M and BS 6M so it's not like all albums sold 25M until now, and in the absolute AND considering the global drop in album sales those figures are still highly respectable.

Now the fact that Madonna fucked-up her marketing strategy by releasing this semi-album to cover the leaks, without the usual big promo, is another matter, but I'm so tired to read that if u don't sell 15M u're a failure when so many professional, signed musicians are struggling to sell a few dozen thousand copies of their albums

If you think of it as a business model where, say (random figures), 5 out of 500 reach 50,000 and 1 out of 10,000 reach maybe a million, Madonna is still soing MORE THAN GOOD. If we were talking about any other professional field and you were part of the 1 on 10,000 making more than a million sales of whatever product you're selling, even if some others were selling 10 times what you sell, you'd still be considered part of the elite. The perception we have of the music industry is totally biaised

There was a piece on the guardian website where Madonna said (paraphrasing): "of course I don't go to clubs any more, so my kids bring songs to me" -- And I thought "yeah, I can hear that this latest batch of rudderless noise" - The first track was ok, it reminded of the AL era (which I liked), then it went into Bitch I'm Madonna which threw in every trick from pop music around the past couple of years in a desperate hope that one of them would work.

I don't see where the Prince implications are tbh. Prince and Madonna play the media in different ways. And as legacy artists they also have different standings imo.

SquirrelMeat said:

lwr001 said:

http://www.showbiz411.com/2014/12/27/madonnas-rebel-heart-break-six-new-songs-fizzle-as-sales-collapse-within-days

Call it Rebel Heart-break. Last week Madonna released six tracks to iTunes, hoping to circumvent a spate of demos that were illegally posted on the web. At first, all six songs lodged right into the iTunes top 10 and it looked like Madonna had a success. The plan was to release the balance of the album, called “Rebel Heart,” in March.

But now, just a few days late, five of the six songs are gone from iTunes. Only one, “Bitch I’m Madonna,” featuring Nicki Minaj, remains at a lowly number 188. The album “Rebel Heart,” which lists seven songs (for some reason “Joan of Arc” is there but you can’t hear it) is at number 38 for pre-orders.

On amazon.com things are much much worse.. “Living for Love,” which was supposed to be the lead single, is at number 529 among digital singles. Five hundred twenty nine. And the “Rebel Heart” album is at 167. Ouch!

Madonna, like other legacy artists, has not been able to sell albums in the last decade. “MDNA,” “Hard Candy,” and “American Life” were all sales disasters. New fans are not forthcoming for a 56 year old artist. Old fans only to want to hear the hits. It’s a hard fact of life for everyone, not just Madonna.

This situation with “Rebel Heart” has been a real calamity. The leaked tracks, if Madonna’s peeps didn’t leak them, should have been ignored. Most of her fans wouldn’t have known how to find them anyway. Rushing them out as official releases, nearly a third of the new album, seems to have backfired. Radio didn’t pick anything up, and core fans mostly snubbed the tracks after Madonna admonished them in an Instagram video. Maybe just releasing one track officially would have worked. But a half dozen? With no promotion? No good.

Anyway, I like Madonna’s new songs. I think they’re her best work in years. Hopefully all of “Rebel Heart” will launch properly in March and this episode will have been just a distant nightmare.

What has this got to do with Prince, compared to any other artist????

this is as all Madonna, like other legacy artists, has not been able to sell albums in the last decade.

not that serious, calm the fuck down

skywalker said:

thedoorkeeper said:

Read between the lines: "legacy artists" = Prince

- Psst. Everyone (even those with just a hit record or two)is a legacy artist. You go to a Lady Gaga concert to hear the new stuff or to hear "Just Dance"? - Also, the record industry is dead. Having a hit record used to mean something and made an artist money (sometimes ask TLC). - Taylor Swift's 1989 is the biggest selling thing right now. Compare it's sales to the biggest album of 2004, compare that to 1994, compare that to 1984. See a pattern? - Question: How much is Taylor Swift making from the sales of 1989? - Answer: Not as nearly as much as she does by touring. [Edited 12/27/14 20:54pm]

thank you

iZsaZsa said:

i started this thread with the sole purpose of rousing the masses as i sit here at work eating popcorn, drinking soda

LoL...You at it again?

yep, only this time I'm eating pie and drinking tea

The music industry is and has always been mostly young people and nostalgia driven. Young people buy the music, grow up and buy less, then get older and buy the same stuff they listen too as a kid. Young people for the most part don't wanna hear new Madonna or new Prince or any new music from Legacy acts, and most don't want to hear legacy acts at all unless its their big hit singles. And why should they? They can't relate to it anymore than the old folks constantly complaining about "back in the day music was better".

V10LETBLUES said:

skywalker said:

V10LETBLUES said:

^ AOA is at the bottom for good reason. Taylor Swift is at the top for good reason. No conspiracy.

If you believe that, then you think that Bing Crosby is a better artist than the Beatles and Stones, combined, that "My Heart Will Go On" is better than anything Marvin Gaye, Hendrix, Sly Stone, Johnny Cash or Carole King have written -- and that it's better than R.E.S.P.E.C.T. , Satisfaction, etc.

Mariah is better than The Beatles because one of her songs sold more than any of the Beatles' singles, but the Fab Four are slightly better than The Village People, since they outsold YMCA (but not Gloria Gaynor).

Next time, instead of doing some light thinking, do some light reading -- you'll sound smarter eventually.

[Edited 12/28/14 8:45am]

V10LETBLUES said:

^ Some of you scrub context to try and force a point. There are many factors at play, but in this instance Prince and Madonna are two well established veterans in the Internet age who have no problem bringing their music to the masses. The Masses, just as me, did not care for them. Fact. AOA is not a esoteric art album, it's crass corny commercial slop by someone out of touch created specifically to target the masses and failed miserably. [Edited 12/28/14 9:18am]

You made a stupid blanket statement to try and provoke, too late to start pretending "context" was scrubbed off it.