Madonna’s CD Sales In A Tailspin

She’s been called The Queen of POP… but the sales nosedive of Madonna’s latest album MDNA has tarnished the crown.

As Forbes’s Roger Friedman put it last week:

Madonna’s “MDNA” album is dead. It’s really quite amazing. Amazon.comhas dropped the price of downloading “MDNA” to five dollars. On iTunes, the only version of the album on the chart is the explicit one, selling for $14.99. It’s at number 46 on their chart. On hitsdailydouble.com, “MDNA” dropped to number 8 from number 1, with an 87% fall off from the previous week.

A five dollar pricetag for an album just two weeks after release is never a good thing. While it’s debut landed at #1, it didn’t last long. And while the numbers listed above already improved after they were posted on Drudgereport, (fans showing their support, perhaps?) it doesn’t help that Amazon is selling NINE different versions of the album: Deluxe, Explicit, Clean, Vinyl, the options go on.) But no matter how you slice it, the numbers aren’t good. Even at five dollars, the discounted CD isn’t topping the charts:

Says Forbes:

The point: even at $5, competing among similarly price-dropped albums, Madonna is only registering at number 17. She’s being beaten not only by new groups, but by Carole King’s 1971 classic, “Tapestry.”

Mind you, Madonna is not going to go broke, but it must be a reality check for Madge to see Adele well ahead of her even after  59 weeks on the charts. She also falls behind Lionel Richie, (I loves me some Lionel Richie, BTW) who released his latest album Tuskegee the same week she released MDNA.

So what’s the reason for MDNA’s failure? Says Forbes’ Friedman:

…those songs. They weren’t uplifting, and weren’t danceable. There’s no humor. Her competitor and successor, Lady Gaga, speaks to kids with hope and faith. And a beat. The kids could relate to it.  Lady Gaga created a community. “MDNA” was like a foreign object from another planet.

What to do now: who knows? “MDNA” has turned into “DOA.”

I like Madonna, I really do. I’m not a die-hard fan, no am I an opponent. When she’s great – she phenomenal. But when she’s just so-so, it’s a huge disappointment. When she performed at the Super Bowl, I was cheering her on proudly. But sometimes I think she has made such an effort to grow and change and keep up that she has forgotten the sound that her fans originally fell in love with. (And frankly I get a little tired of the flexing and the bodysuits, but that’s another issue.) I’d like to see her go back to her beginnings with some of her original songwriters (Shep Pettibone!  He was awesome!) And remind us what we all fell in love with.

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