I know, I'm a big fan of Natalia Kills and her behaviour on the XFACTOR was inexcusable.

Iron Maiden (40 year career) last album went to number one in 28 countries - Including the UK. With no mainstream radio play, no mainstream promotion - and the album leaked 3 weeks before it was released. Not Bad

Any other week this would have been number 1. The fact Rebel Heart leaked three months early obviously has effected sales but not by much Madonna is still able to sell units many younger artists can't.

Anyway Rebel Heart joins Erotica in good company so its not like this is a bad thing and lets not forget she scored her 19th top 5 album and set a new record because of that.

She was awful. The poor guy looked close to tears.

Take A Bow saved Bedtime Stories in America to be fair and pretty much also saved Madonna's career. It sill remains her biggest US single yet oddly never caught on in the UK for some reason. It was the success of Take A Bow that saw Madonna slip into ballad mode for a few years with Something To Remember and Evita.

That's why Madonna is an exciting artist. She has annoyed so many people and at so many different points her career should have ended but she always managed to come back.

Sad to see how low Britney and Christina chart these days. Britney was untouchable at one point. What on earth happened?

I was never keen on Natalia Kills music as it is dreadfully produced, and her debut album is like a poor man's version of Gaga's The Fame. But as a person, i had zero opinion of until her recent firing on NZ XF.

But i did some looking into both her and her husband, and this isn't the first time they have been nasty to people. Natalia was on her final warning anyway as she had been in trouble for swearing at the XF audience, which contained young children. Plus her husband was verbally abusive to a woman and her two young girls when they became involved in a traffic dispute.

Anyway, that's my little view on that.

Didn't her and Madge do a few demo's together for this album? I recall a picture of them both in a studio.

Well the Iron Maiden I'm referring to sold just short of 50k in it's first week - so Madge wouldn't have been number one that week. Also the week Bowie (60 year career) went to number one with 94,000 sales she would have struggled

Also the Maiden album leaked 3 weeks early, not demo's but the full finished album. Bowie put his album up to stream for a day before release too.

Iron Maiden have a totally different market to Madonna so that comparison is silly and Bowie's album was his first in a decade and no one was expecting it.

Rebel Heart leaked at three different points. First batch of demo's in December, second batch of demos in early Jan and then finished album in full leaked on Jan 22nd.

MDNA was the most illegally downloaded album of 2012 with two million copies and it never leaked. I'm looking forward to seeing the stats at the end of the year showing how many people illegally downloaded Rebel Heart.

They did 6 songs but only one made the album.

Did Cheek To Cheek really only make 10? I thought it was number 1 for some reason. That's a shame. I always thought that style of music is where Gaga's future lays but it seems people don't want that from her afterall then.

I wish Britney could have success again. Rihanna is in her 10th year and is still unstoppable.

It's a shame, I actually really enjoy Natalia Kills' music, I have both her albums, such a shame that she seems to be a total egomaniac.

It only sold 10k first week. Lady Gaga's UK fanbase just deserted her. Ironic in many ways as the UK was the first place she became a success.

No it wasn't

Australia and Canada were her first two places she broke into.

I don't think it was that great of an album anyway and that's why I think it sold poorly.

Here's a neat way of getting people to buy Rebel Heart:

https://igcdn-videos-e-14-a.akamaihd...15038669_n.mp4

In case you’re wondering how exactly it’s going to work, the Official Charts Company has said it will be using its own formula, which takes the 12 most streamed tracks from the standard version of the album, and down-weights the top two songs in line with the average of the rest, which should ensure a popular single doesn’t artificially inflate the popularity of an album.



The above is a snippet from the UK Chart explanation as to how they calculate streaming, kindly supplied by Fanntastic.

Note the words "Standard Album". Well, who on earth is going to stream from the standard version of Rebel Heart when you would stream from the deluxe? Another reason as to why the standard version is utterly useless!

It does seem Madonna has been the victim of very bad timing but that standard version was always useless and it seems to be the version least people are buying.. since she joined Interscope everything she has released has been a farce! I hope after the next record is done she leaves them.

Away from the official chart Celebration is actually top of Tesco's own best sellers. Wonder what caused it to have such a massive boost? it can't have been Jonathan Ross because that didn't air until Saturday. I do wonder if people went looking for the grey cover version couldn't find it so opted to buy Celebration instead. Its the only thing I can think of unless it got a Mothers Day boost.

Anyway Rebel Heart is down to 7 in the early midweeks!

7 already? So much for week 2 retention then. Anyway, that asides, if Ghosttown can make some kind of impact, they can just relaunch the album by ditching the bloody standard version! They can then relaunch the Super deluxe as the "Deluxe" but include Queen and Auto-tune Baby on it too. This in addition to Ghosttown could be enough to give it a bit of a boost.

I just hope we get a 3rd single and I really hope its Joan Of Arc!

Haha, I did that in HMV last week.

News about Madonna's first full week of sales in France, https://francemusiccharts.wordpress....-albums-chart/

Oh dear. It really is severely under-performing everywhere isn't it?

I wonder what would have happened if nothing had leaked. She already said the album wouldn't have come out until after Ghosttown so an April release would have been most likely as she wanted to surprise us with Living For Love on Valentines Day.

Its a huge shame nothing went to plan. I hope she takes that hacker for millions in lost profits! ha

Such a massive shame. The leaks really effed up this whole campaign. Easily her best piece of work in over 10 years, and it really deserved it's moment.

I hope Ghosttown gets a bit of momentum. Such a beautiful piece of music.

Madonna is to feature on Kanye West's new album and there is now talk it might be his summer single. I know there has been a lot of talk about Madonna never getting another top 10 hit again and Radio 1 not playing her because of age so if all this is true its going to be interesting to see how it pans out! I'm excited to see if Radio 1 do snub it or not...

Edit, its a song they wrote together for Rebel Heart but its going on his album instead.