how well do you think it would be doing?
It left the U.S. Billboard 200 after ten weeks and dropped to #95 on the U.K. Top 100 last week in its twelfth week. The only major market that it’s still charting in is Germany. The album has sold an estimated 700,000 copies worldwide to date making it the third highest selling album of 2015 by a female artist. As good as this is, it proves how dire record sales are in the music industry. It has sold 72,000 copies in the U.K. and nearly 190,000 copies in the U.S.
I spoke to four fans on a Madonna forum last week who think that Rebel Heart would have been a big hit had it not leaked, but I don't really agree with them. It’s Madonna’s strongest album for ten years (that's the saddest thing about the leak), but some people forget that she’s not as popular as she once was. It's not like someone her age is going to sell 8.6 million copies of an album in seven months like 1989 by Taylor Swift. Of course, there’s no way of knowing for sure what the album would have sold had it not leaked, but I think it would have sold about one million copies worldwide, a good figure for a singer 32 years into her career. If you look back at Hard Candy and MDNA neither of them had a lot of stability on the Billboard 200 and the U.K. Top 100:
Hard Candy
Billboard 200
1-3-8-9-11-14-31-36-46-57-63-69-85-95-110-116-130-118-146-148-160-178-183-153-149-156-166-156-171-0-184
U.K. Top 100
1-2-5-7-13-22-26-24-20-24-14-10-15-16-18-23-28-31-35-35-29-39-51-56-67-89-111-130-159
MDNA
Billboard 200
1-8-18-34-45-65-77-81-105-140-94-142-181
U.K. Top 100
1-7-13-13-28-38-39-36-56-50-59-129-177-170-143-110-59-112-193
Even without a leak I doubt Rebel Heart would have altered a pattern that has been occurring since 2008. Madonna needs a hit single to sell an album, and Rebel Heart didn't have one. Plus, older artists rarely have stability on the chart with a new album. Rebel Heart will probably re-enter the chart when the tour starts (MDNA did), but the effect won't be very big.
Rebel Heart
Billboard 200
2-21-34-57-41-77-130-155-169
U.K. Top 100
2-7-21-22-28-41-37-40-40-70-75-95
It left the U.S. Billboard 200 after ten weeks and dropped to #95 on the U.K. Top 100 last week in its twelfth week. The only major market that it’s still charting in is Germany. The album has sold an estimated 700,000 copies worldwide to date making it the third highest selling album of 2015 by a female artist. As good as this is, it proves how dire record sales are in the music industry. It has sold 72,000 copies in the U.K. and nearly 190,000 copies in the U.S.
I spoke to four fans on a Madonna forum last week who think that Rebel Heart would have been a big hit had it not leaked, but I don't really agree with them. It’s Madonna’s strongest album for ten years (that's the saddest thing about the leak), but some people forget that she’s not as popular as she once was. It's not like someone her age is going to sell 8.6 million copies of an album in seven months like 1989 by Taylor Swift. Of course, there’s no way of knowing for sure what the album would have sold had it not leaked, but I think it would have sold about one million copies worldwide, a good figure for a singer 32 years into her career. If you look back at Hard Candy and MDNA neither of them had a lot of stability on the Billboard 200 and the U.K. Top 100:
Hard Candy
Billboard 200
1-3-8-9-11-14-31-36-46-57-63-69-85-95-110-116-130-118-146-148-160-178-183-153-149-156-166-156-171-0-184
U.K. Top 100
1-2-5-7-13-22-26-24-20-24-14-10-15-16-18-23-28-31-35-35-29-39-51-56-67-89-111-130-159
MDNA
Billboard 200
1-8-18-34-45-65-77-81-105-140-94-142-181
U.K. Top 100
1-7-13-13-28-38-39-36-56-50-59-129-177-170-143-110-59-112-193
Even without a leak I doubt Rebel Heart would have altered a pattern that has been occurring since 2008. Madonna needs a hit single to sell an album, and Rebel Heart didn't have one. Plus, older artists rarely have stability on the chart with a new album. Rebel Heart will probably re-enter the chart when the tour starts (MDNA did), but the effect won't be very big.
Rebel Heart
Billboard 200
2-21-34-57-41-77-130-155-169
U.K. Top 100
2-7-21-22-28-41-37-40-40-70-75-95
LOL