Madonna was looking for new dancers

[mtzlplk]

I think she can be looking for new dancers, just because she is helding auditions doesnt mean she will tour without a new album.

that would be illogical and expensive, looking for dancers now and not touring within the year...

unless they are put into a house and be on tight watch to stay fit until the tour rehearsals start...

if ever there is this Celebration GH tour, they better not be too ambitious in holding this in an all-stadium venue...

[Guest Danny86]

She was named World's Highest Earning Musician for 2009. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?

But you are right, she should sign a 120 million deal with a touring company and take the focus off touring because you didn't have a good tour experience. That makes a lot of sense.

Apparently for some her success is still measured by spins on radio, the amount of remixes played in their local club and BUZZ coming from passive aggressive music blogs. Yeah, I'm sure Madonna would trade them for her LN contract in a heartbeat if she had the chance.

[karbatal]

if ever there is this Celebration GH tour, they better not be too ambitious in holding this in an all-stadium venue...

oh, but acording to people here, she's such big and succesfull nowadays that she could fill anything she wants. Masses of people are dying to watch her life and sing along her recent superhits Celebration, Revolver, Miles Away and Give it To Me. Why does she need a new album to get more people to her music?

[jonski43]

I just wish she'd get a new choreorgrapher.

[Kurt420]

oh, but acording to people here, she's such big and succesfull nowadays that she could fill anything she wants. Masses of people are dying to watch her life and sing along her recent superhits Celebration, Revolver, Miles Away and Give it To Me. Why does she need a new album to get more people to her music?

What indication do you have that a tour by her would fail right now? The last tour was not only her most successful tour, but one of the most successful projects she's ever done in her entire career. What is YOUR assumption based on...other than your own personal opinion of her the last few years?

Madonna is NEVER going to get the radio play she once did in the US. Nor is EVERY single song she releases going to be a HU/4M/DTM/Music sized hit either worldwide. I don't care if she releases a LAP caliber track. This isn't 1989. You want her to be the "it" girl like she used to be and score hit after hit, back to back, but that will not happen. Again, you ignore the facts. You mention songs that YOU KNOW weren't promoted or properly released the way songs like HU, 4M and Sorry were so your argument is pretty baseless in this particular post. Not to mention half of the songs you mentioned in your post were actually moderate hits. Again, I posted stats....check them out. Inform yourself.

I don't think anybody is saying she should NEVER record music again either so let's not get all dramatic about it. Some fans just can't take that she's switching up the formula after all these years by possibly touring WITHOUT a new album release. OH WELL. Save your coins (and a seat for someone who will REALLY enjoy themselves) if you are overwhelmed with Madonna shows.

[Crystal Coffin]

The last time Madonna was the "it" girl was like 1985

[Supernatural]

oh, but acording to people here, she's such big and succesfull nowadays that she could fill anything she wants. Masses of people are dying to watch her life and sing along her recent superhits Celebration, Revolver, Miles Away and Give it To Me. Why does she need a new album to get more people to her music?

No one said any of that. It was pointed out to you that she is coming off a tremendously successful year- THE MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR OF ANYONE IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS. As a 51 year old pop star. You don't have to like any of it but you're out of your mind if you think she's doing something wrong.

[karbatal]

Babes, Madonna released just some months ago an incredible collection of great hits, well marketed and with proper promotion, she even had 2 new songs of it and neither the song nor the album have done well in charts. You can be like the ostrich and put your head in the sand, but Madonna needs a hot new track that goes around the globe like Hung Up did. You can be thrilled because that tour was so big, of course it was, but simply because she toured like crazy, in so many countries and she went on tour again next year, not because she was the favourit artist of the moment.

If you think that going on tour instead of releasing an album is a good idea, up to you. I hope you don't get as embarrassed for her as i felt when she came to my city last year and couldn't even sell a third of the tickets and at the end more than half of people there in the venue had entered either for free or paying less than half of the price. The main reason for that dissaster was that she had perform before in 4 other cities in the country, that's why my opinion is that public is saturated of live concerts of Madonna and need something new, specially when her last releases have made zero impact and that has never happened with Madonna before.

[Guest sanctuary]

Babes, Madonna released just some months ago an incredible collection of great hits, well marketed and with proper promotion, she even had 2 new songs of it and neither the song nor the album have done well in charts. You can be like the ostrich and put your head in the sand, but Madonna needs a hot new track that goes around the globe like Hung Up did. You can be thrilled because that tour was so big, of course it was, but simply because she toured like crazy, in so many countries and she went on tour again next year, not because she was the favourit artist of the moment.

If you think that going on tour instead of releasing an album is a good idea, up to you. I hope you don't get as embarrassed for her as i felt when she came to my city last year and couldn't even sell a third of the tickets and at the end more than half of people there in the venue had entered either for free or paying less than half of the price. The main reason for that dissaster was that she had perform before in 4 other cities in the country, that's why my opinion is that public is saturated of live concerts of Madonna and need something new, specially when her last releases have made zero impact and that has never happened with Madonna before.

sorry but how could Madonna have a great hit if radio (because of her age) don't play her anymore? Now she's a legend like other artists (Rolling Stones, U2, Tina Turner etc) but she won't be "the artist of the moment" anymore.

Do you think that in 15 years Lady GaGa or Beyoncè will be "the artist of the moment"?

sorry for my english.

[SkyHigh76]

She's going to be 52 this year. A tour can't wait, albums can. We all know she's not going to do a standing in the middle of the stage type of tour. Wake up.

I understand that she will be 52 this year,but that's still no reason to rush out another tour so soon after the last one.Cher and Tina Turner are in their 60s,if I'm not mistaken,and they're still performing.Madonna has plenty of time to do several more tours.A tour can wait another year or so.

Record the album right now.

Release it in late fall (October or November).

Start a world tour in the spring of 2011.

I really don't see a problem with that scenario.If she waited,she would have a fresh,new set of songs to build a tour around.And WE would have a new album later this year.Everyone wins.Let's face it...if she were to tour without a new album,it would be a predictable "greatest hits tour" and we all know that's not her style.She's bored with many of those old songs,and it shows.In a recent Rolling Stone interview,she described "Into The Groove" (one of her biggest hits) as "retarded".

[Guest Danny86]

If you think that going on tour instead of releasing an album is a good idea, up to you. I hope you don't get as embarrassed for her as i felt when she came to my city last year and couldn't even sell a third of the tickets and at the end more than half of people there in the venue had entered either for free or paying less than half of the price. The main reason for that dissaster was that she had perform before in 4 other cities in the country, that's why my opinion is that public is saturated of live concerts of Madonna and need something new, specially when her last releases have made zero impact and that has never happened with Madonna before.

It's also up to you if you refuse to go see her when she performs in your city, and if you think releasing an album can make a bigger impact than a tour in the 2010s by a pop star who started nearly 30 years ago. BTW, just saying that arguably Madonna made proportionally more impact with the Celebration project in Europe than she did in 1994 or 2003. Your country is the only one that jumped on the US/Australia bandwagon and refuses to play her on the radio since the post-COADF era. That's hardly her fault. Celebration sold the multiple amount of what other female GHs do these days and the single was #1 on European Airplay. That's not what I call as "zero impact."

Oh and you have absolutely no idea that ANY English-singing female artist (probably solo males too) would KILL for that so-called disaster of performing 5 stadium shows in 10 months and having problems with HALF of the tickets on the FIFTH show. But yeah, she's the one who's over and no longer relevant, she should stick to small venues Lady Gaga/Mariah Carey/Kylie Minogue perform so all the tickets would sell out within 10 minutes and you'd be happy she's not saturated.

[karbatal]

Your country is the only one that jumped on the US/Australia bandwagon and refuses to play her on the radio since the post-COADF era.

UH???? 4 Minutes was played a lot and it reached number 1 in main radiostations. And Celebration have been played in Spain very often, it reached top 10, i guess. It's been people who didn't rush to buy Hard Candy, but that's because r'n'b is not very appreciated here in a general way. Maybe you are talking about another country.

I agree with Skyhigh76: that way of doing things would be the best one right now. What i don't understand is why she says that ITG is 'retard', and she didn't have any problem to sing a song with the same meaning but far worse: Heartbeat.

[cosmic_system]

Hard Candy was one of the best selling albums in 2008 WITH NO REAL PROMOTION.

And since when Celebration was well promoted?

[Guest]

ahhhaaaaaaaaahahhahahaha at people reading into this bullshit. She hired new dancers before mastering/releasing COADF.

[Supernatural]

Babes, Madonna released just some months ago an incredible collection of great hits, well marketed and with proper promotion, she even had 2 new songs of it and neither the song nor the album have done well in charts. You can be like the ostrich and put your head in the sand, but Madonna needs a hot new track that goes around the globe like Hung Up did. You can be thrilled because that tour was so big, of course it was, but simply because she toured like crazy, in so many countries and she went on tour again next year, not because she was the favourit artist of the moment.

Celebration had hardly any promotion and was her 4th collection of hits. And if touring endlessly with Sticky & Sweet is the only reason the tour did well (which makes no sense but we'll go with that) then wouldn't that be incentive for her to go right back on tour? In reality she earned more than performers who did twice as many shows.

[peter]

As has been pointed out in other threads/posts multiple times now, there ARE markets that Madonna has not hit -- in the case of Australia, for instance, she's gone three tours (or 3.5 if you count S&S as version 2.0 of the same tour) without taking it "Down Under." I doubt she'd re-mount S&S, but no matter what she performed in Australia, I'm sure it would sell. Asia missed out on S&S, as well, and really she only hit Japan for CT. So, doing Australia/Asia with a GS-esque road map (i.e., only a few gigs in a half-dozen or so major cities) for the rest of the world could certainly work for the next tour. With or without a new album -- although I find it unlikely she'd tour without new material in some form.

Her business model may be changing, though. She could put the 'cart before the horse' (so to speak) by touring and THEN releasing the DVD/CD of the performance, and perhaps fulfill her contract that way (depending on how live audio recordings count in her contract).

Not to mention there are secondary markets in the U.S. which haven't seen her since RIT or even since the Virgin Tour (!). Maybe she'll never condescend to hitting the secondary U.S. markets, but I'm sure there are folks who'd be willing to go see her in their own town, though they may not have been able to afford to travel (to a nearby bigger market) *and* buy the tickets to the show. She hasn't been to Pittsburgh since the Virgin Tour, but I've been able to travel to DC or NYC to see her for DWT, RIT, CT, and S&ST. (I'm hoping the new arena they're building will entice bigger musical acts like Madonna to come. Our older arena was aging and acts of a certain size refused to come because the structure couldn't accommodate their jumbotrons, etc.)

At the end of the day, I'm not worried about it. I do hope she makes amends with the Australian public a bit by including them in the next go-round. (It mightn't be so bad if she and Guy Oseary hadn't 'promised' to tour there several times now.)

[Guest Danny86]

UH???? 4 Minutes was played a lot and it reached number 1 in main radiostations. And Celebration have been played in Spain very often, it reached top 10, i guess. It's been people who didn't rush to buy Hard Candy, but that's because r'n'b is not very appreciated here in a general way. Maybe you are talking about another country.

I do remember reading complaints about how Spain treated her since 2008, I think even Promise To Try said she wasn't played as much on radio as she used to be.

HC was hardly "R&B", and I'm sure they loved the single (once again, it's not the 1990s when 1-2 singles make millions buy a full album) and Nelly Furtado musta been huge with Timbaland as well, just that Spain is now one of the weakest music markets proportionally compared to its population, I don't remember any reports about Madonna doing worse than any international acts there. You don't seem to get that no matter who she works with, or what sound she takes, her next album is destined to be doing worse than HC and no "buzz" and "impact" is gonna make people invest in CDs.

[karbatal]

I don't agree, if she releases a good song, she has enough power to have a hit, at least outside USA (and maybe even USA, because Hung Up was top 10 there). In my opinion (surely very few agree, we seem to live in 2 different universes) Hard Candy was a weak effort and uninspired, both in imaginery and in sound and that took its toll. But she can recover easily, simply if she composes some decent songs and bother to promote them. That's why i say that focusing her efforts into a new tour would be wrong: she'd better focus on bringing back the magic, as she did with Hung Up, because she really made it good then.

[Flip The Switch]

I don't agree, if she releases a good song, she has enough power to have a hit, at least outside USA (and maybe even USA, because Hung Up was top 10 there). In my opinion (surely very few agree, we seem to live in 2 different universes) Hard Candy was a weak effort and uninspired, both in imaginery and in sound and that took its toll. But she can recover easily, simply if she composes some decent songs and bother to promote them. That's why i say that focusing her efforts into a new tour would be wrong: she'd better focus on bringing back the magic, as she did with Hung Up, because she really made it good then.

I absolutely AGREE. That's the truth.

[Guest Danny86]

I don't agree, if she releases a good song, she has enough power to have a hit, at least outside USA (and maybe even USA, because Hung Up was top 10 there). In my opinion (surely very few agree, we seem to live in 2 different universes) Hard Candy was a weak effort and uninspired, both in imaginery and in sound and that took its toll. But she can recover easily, simply if she composes some decent songs and bother to promote them. That's why i say that focusing her efforts into a new tour would be wrong: she'd better focus on bringing back the magic, as she did with Hung Up, because she really made it good then.

A good "song" yes (even though what's good or bad is a matter of opinion and I can't understand the arguments of radio only wanting to play GOOD songs because surely nobody likes every single song that hits the top 10 airplay) but that won't give her a hit album. It happened with HU and COADF but one big song like that won't create album buzz anymore. 1 song gets the attention and the 11 other songs can either be garbage, either more of the same, either brilliance, it does not matter. Madonna is a singles artist, just that in the past hit singles moved albums. This is not gonna change, it will only make artists to record LESS songs in the future.

As for the rest, she does not need to "recover" and just because you found it weak and uninspired, you can tell she didn't, because she performed the majority of album to death on tour. She won't recover as in she won't be "promoting" and she's gonna be conceiving the tour during making of the album itself (which means the focus is on both). My theory is that she might end up making a 9-10 track album and ALL of the songs will be in the setlist. If the lead off single does not become a megahit, it's not like they are gonna cancel her tour, re-release the album or anything. She's not following the old business model you've got used to anymore, no matter if a group of fans think it makes her a "hasbeen"...

[Glindathegood]

I agree that Hard Candy was a weak and uninspired effort and her worst album. However, I don't think that if she made a great album it would necessarily be a hit or sell more than HC. I don't think there's necessarily a connection between the quality of the music and the commercial success of it. If only great music could be hits, Beyonce wouldn't be having hit after hit. Conversely, there are so many artists who I think make great music but their songs flop.

But I do wish she would put more effort into her music and make a more artistic kind of music. But that is for my own personal satisfaction and because I"d like her to get more critical acclaim. If she did that, it most likely wouldn't result in a huge selling album because of how the music business has changed and her age.

People are very contradictory here. On the one hand, they say Madonna is too interested in having a hit and too money and hit focused, following trends and should be more artistic. But on the other hand, they say she should make better music to get more commercial success. I would like her to be more artistic and deeper in her music, but I have no illusions that in this point in her career that would lead to this gigantic success commercially.

I think that the fact she will always be in demand as a live performer should actually free her up to take more chances artistically because her singles or albums aren't going to be huge hits anyway. To me, HC and to a lesser extent Confessions while they both had their moments were too safe and I'd like to see her take a step outside of her comfort zone of dance/electronic music. I think the fact that everything is about touring now should lead her to feel free to do that, although she hasn't taken that leap yet.

[karbatal]

Nowadays, a big song can be translated into big album sales. What makes you think that it won't happen anymore?

And @Glindathegood: I think Madonna is able to release a song that is good and commercial at the same time. Or at least she was able for 20 years. Last 5 years have been kind of weird with her lyrics and her way of promoting and developing an album. But she is clever enough to know that she needs a good song and album right now, as she was after Erotica and after American Life.

[Supernatural]

Nowadays, a big song can be translated into big album sales. What makes you think that it won't happen anymore?

And @Glindathegood: I think Madonna is able to release a song that is good and commercial at the same time. Or at least she was able for 20 years. Last 5 years have been kind of weird with her lyrics and her way of promoting and developing an album. But she is clever enough to know that she needs a good song and album right now, as she was after Erotica and after American Life.

4M was that song, it just didn't cater to her fan base.

[rafter69]

I would love it if she had another Confessions-style era where you could sense that the entire project was put together at the same time. At least i felt that way, I could tell when that cd hit, the tour and everything around it was all inspired at the same time. i didnt feel like Hard Candy and the tour that followed had that sense of 'era' to it. Maybe it did and i missed it, but i loved the Confessions project and felt like a lot of work went into everything from the record, to the tour, the look she had, the photos....everything.

[lasky]

for a new song perhaps?

[Guest Danny86]

Nowadays, a big song can be translated into big album sales. What makes you think that it won't happen anymore?

When was the last time it happened? There aren't even "big" album sales anymore. Don't know if you're aware of it, but since the release of COADF, there were like 5-6 albums to reach the same level in worldwide sales and only 1 album since 2004 sold above 10 million (Amy Winehouse). Madonna's Music was the last time she sold 10-11 million worldwide but at the time there were acts who sold that much in the US alone (Britney, Eminem, Norah Jones etc...). So expecting Madonna to sell that much in the 2010s, seems like waiting for a miracle. Nowadays artists with several hit singles fizzle out with 6-7 million which is what Erotica & BS sold, so...

But she is clever enough to know that she needs a good song and album right now, as she was after Erotica and after American Life.

Sorry but you're really delusional if you think Madonna is in the same place now as she was after Erotica or AL. If anything, Madonna/Guy/LN are thinking about how to outdo S&ST and not about how to pour millions of cash into music promo only to outsell albums by Susan Boyle.

[Glindathegood]

I understand the music business has changed and albums don't sell. But I think there has to be a way Madonna can promote her music better than was done with HC. I don't think promotion necessarily has to cost millions. Obviously, it wouldn't make sense for her to spend a lot on promotion when most likely it won't sell as much as in the past. But I don't see why she can't do a few magazine articles and tv performances to get people excited about her new music and seeing her on tour.

[Guest Danny86]

^She did have several magazine articles in 2008 and radio interviews. She had one of the promo gigs broadcast online, another on UK tv. The tour did not need any more promo, but I can see LN doing more tour promo in the future but what some seem to want is what Madonna did in 1998, as in going to 7-8 tv programs and do a simple (lipsynched?) performance of the first single till no end. That just won't be happening anymore, Mariah and Shakira clearly proved that does not pay off. In 2008 Madonna spent the weeks around the album for rehearsal and tour preparation and that paid off. Remember the tour was announced 10 days after the album came out and within a few days, the tickets were on sale and the cash was coming in, so there was no need to invest any more on album promo.

[peter]

^ For HC she was on the cover of Vanity Fair and Elle. She did several sit-down TV interviews with music 'journalists' (Fuse, the BET show) and she also had the Cynthia McFadden interview. Plus, she performed a free promo concert which was broadcast on the Internet. Oh and there were radio interviews, too. (Ryan Seacrest -- and that guy in Texas I think it is who's got a large multi-state audience.)

Okay, she didn't visit Oprah or Ellen or any of the late-night shows. But other than those, I don't see us getting much more out of her.

[Glindathegood]

I know she did promo, but she didn't seem to be as into the album and music as she had in the past. She didn't seem to have that many amazing pictures or anything that fascinating to say. I guess part of it had to do with her going through a divorce at the time. It must have been hard for her to face the media.