The Queen of Pop joins the Beatles as the only artists with 10 No. 1s on the Billboard 200, Billboard Hot 100, U.K. official albums chart and U.K. official singles chart
Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage
NEED TO KNOW
- Madonna’s Confessions II debuted with over 134,000 first-week sales, earning critical acclaim and sparking Grammy buzz
- The album explores themes of loss, healing, and resilience, including tributes to her late brother and a duet with her daughter
- Madonna promoted the release with surprise performances, a short film debut and pop-up Club Confessions appearances
Madonna is continuing her reign as the Queen of Pop.
The seven-time Grammy winner, 67, has officially shattered records with her latest album, Confessions II, marking her tenth No. 1 release on the Billboard 200 chart.
According to a release, first-week sales for the critically acclaimed body of work surpassed 134,000 units in the U.S., putting her alongside The Beatles as the only artists to score 10 No. 1s on the Billboard 200 and the U.K. Official Albums Chart.
Following the drop of the long-awaited follow-up to her 2005 album Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna — who made a surprise Club Confessions appearance on July 11 at the Knockdown Center in her beloved Brooklyn after pop-ups in West Hollywood, Paris and London— amassed acclaim from fans and sparked Grammy buzz amongst critics who touted the release as her best work since its predecessor.
The vulnerable album explores loss (she pays tender tribute to her late brother Christopher on “Fragile”), healing (she apologizes to her firstborn, daughter Lola Leon, on their duet “The Test”) and grit (“Danceteria” name-checks friends who came up alongside her in her early days as a struggling artist).
During an appearance on BBC’s The Graham Norton Show late last month, Madonna shared snippets from her time in the studio recording Confessions II.
“It’s kind of like I get possessed. The ideas come when I don’t try too hard,” she said, telling Norton that tracks like “One Step Away” came “from her soul.”
In the lead-up to its highly anticipated release, the superstar has remained the ultimate provocateur, performing a surprise concert in N.Y.C.’s Times Square and appearing at the Tribeca Festival to debut a wild short film that follows her on “a transcendent journey that catapults the viewer through a f—ed-up night out.”
The star told the audience that her longtime manager Guy Oseary inspired her to make the short movie and revealed that she and her directors had worked on the project for six months.
Her advice to fans at this stage of her career? “Take risks, be curious, be observant, and put your f—ing phones down and connect!”
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