50. Madonna: ‘Hard Candy’ Hard Candy is the eleventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna and was first released on April 25, 2008 by Warner Bros. Records. This release is the final studio album with Warner Bros., her record company for the past 25 years. The album, overall, has an urban vibe, while remaining a dance-pop record at heart. In the early stages of recording, Stuart Price, the producer of Confessions on a Dance Floor, described the new album as moving in an urban direction. It had initially been defined as having "a lot of producers from a lot of genres in there.", The Sun proclaiming that "it could be her most ambitious project yet.”
Timbaland, one of the featured producers of the record, referred to the album as being "like 'Holiday' with an R&B groove." Justin Timberlake also defined the album as being "an R&B/pop/dance record." Upon release, The New York Times reviewed the album as "a set of catchy, easily digestible, mass-appeal songs."
The album features vocal appearances from Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Kanye West along with production credits from Timbaland, Timberlake, The Neptunes, and Nate "Danja" Hills as well as co-production from Madonna. Additionally, Hard Candy includes a guest appearance of American guitarist and singer-songwriter Wendy Melvoin, best known for her work with Prince, contributing guitars on the song "She's Not Me", on which she is mentioned.
The album peaked at number one in twenty-seven countries worldwide, including United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Germany, Turkey, Austria, Canada, the United States, Italy, France, Greece, Japan, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Portugal, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Finland, Hungary, Belgium, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Singapore and Slovakia.
During its first day of release in the Netherlands, Hard Candy sold over 60,000 copies, earning a platinum certification. The album also received a Gold certification on its first day of release, selling over 15,000 copies. Furthermore, after only two days of release, Hard Candy debuted at number one on the French albums chart, selling 38.000 copies. It also debuted at number one on the Oricon weekly album chart in Japan, selling about 55,462 copies.
Hard Candy also debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, where Madonna joined a selected group of artists to achieve ten number one albums, behind Elvis Presley, with eleven, and The Beatles, with fifteen. Madonna achieved a similar feat in Australia, where it became her seventh album to reach number one on the ARIA Albums Chart. The album was certified gold in its first week. "4 Minutes" has also remained in the Australian Top Ten for over eleven weeks.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, Hard Candy sold 100,000 copies in the United States upon its first day of release. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with over 280,000 copies sold. Hard Candy became her seventh number one album, making her the female artist with the second most number one albums, behind only Barbra Streisand. It was certified Gold on June 4, 2008, a month after its release.
In Latin America the album was also well-received, reaching number nineteen on the Mexican Top 100 Albums chart based on three-day sales alone, and after three weeks in the chart, the album has peaked at number four. In Argentina, after debuting at number-four based on shipments, it climbed to number one.
In New Zealand Hard Candy debuted and peaked at number five and stayed on the chart for nine weeks.
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/
2 comments:
Madonna's certainly used sex to the utmost throughout her career.
I linked to her "Vogue" video in my post about sex selling.
Peace.
I admire Madonna, she is an expert at marketing herself and her music. Whether it be by controversial remarks, questionable lyrical content or sex appeal, she has certainly made her mark in the music industry. Thx for your comment Daniel
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