Big-budget videos, a Superbowl Half-time performance, and a giant snowball of hype. All of the aforementioned preceded the release of Madonna‘s latest album ‘MDNA’. And yet the LP has gone on to become one of the star’s worst performing yet.
Indeed, after shifting an impressive 359,000 copies in its first week on sale in the US (a figure boosted by a tour ticket/album combo), the following seven days would see the set make history for all the wrong reasons – after sales dropped a whopping 86%. Since then, the ‘Give Me All Your Luvin” led collection hasn’t fared any better – disappearing from the upper, middle, and bottom echelons of the charts in many a country.
Naturally, then, the blame game begins and it seems first up on the podium is the album’s primary producer William Orbit. The 55 year old Pop maestro, who couldn’t stop professing the greatness of the LP before its arrival, has been rather vocal about why he thinks the album flopped into the fiery pits.
Check out his “interesting” rationale after the jump…
Via DM:
“(When creating ‘MDNA’) We were very pushed for time due to… various pressing commitment that took up the artist’s limited time such as perfume ranges and teen fashion contests and other such endeavors.
We had songs lined up that were breathtaking, you’ll hear some of them on Chris Brown’s new album, Kreayshawn’s (INCREDIBLE) new album and my own, recently completed Strange Cargo album.
Most of them, I believe, destined to become classics (let me know in a couple of months whether you concur with that). All of us fully committed to putting ourselves through extraordinary efforts to make MDNA the greatest album of the year, but alas the time wasn’t there.”
Orbit would days later back away from the comments (made to fans on Facebook), saying:
‘The MDNA comments. I should not have said them publicly. I see that and I regret that I said online. Not fair to M.”
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Orbit may feel bad for pouring out that Lipton, yet his comments provide a certain degree of clarity as to why an album hyped by so many (including he himself) would go on be so poor and consequently deliver such tragic sales.
Yes, the 53 year old has been unable to promote due to preparation for the lucrative tour she’s set to embark on this week. Yet, the strength of her name, together with her (arguable) Queen of Pop status, called for much better material and a much better chart trajectory than the one ‘MDNA’ enjoyed. In reading between the lines, it appears time contraints and creative differences marred what was supposed to be an epic masterpiece. Instead, the whole episode is just an epic mess.
Perhaps the project would have seen sunnier days had the apt time and effort gone into ensuring the material was tight and right, instead of releasing a half-baked, soggy mess for the sake of using it to push a tour; a tour which’ll see Madonna get a whole lot richer, while loyal fans are left out of pocket due to extortionate ticket prices. It really is high time the masses demand more from their “faves”, rather than willingly being taken for a ride. An expensive one at that.