On November 2 1999, the Madonna: The Video Collection 1993-99 was released on home video and DVD.
Madonna: The Video Collection 1993-99 was released as a collection of Madonna’s favourite videos from 1993-1999. The collection contains 14 videos: Bad Girl, Fever, Rain, Secret, Take A Bow, Bedtime Story, Human Nature, Love Don’t Live Here Anymore, Frozen, Ray Of Light, Drowned World, The Power of Goodbye, Nothing Really Matters, and Beautiful Stranger.
On September 30 1999, Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour was named The Greatest Concert Of The 1990s by Rolling Stone magazine.
On August 30 1999, Madonna appeared on the cover of Télé Star magazine.
On April 5 1999, Madonna was voted the Most Positive & Influential Sexual Voice Of The Past 35 Years in a USA Today online survey.
On March 17 1999, Madonna won Best Dance Artist – Solo and Best Dance Video (Ray Of Light) at the 14th annual International Dance Music Awards at the Winter Music Conference in Miami, Florida.
On March 13 1999, Nothing Really Matters spent the first of two weeks at #1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Club Play chart in the U.S.
Despite being a successful club hit, many have cited Warner’s unusual marketing choices for the single as the primary reason for its poor placement on the Hot 100, where its peak of #93 remains the lowest of her charting singles.
The delayed release of the commercial single – which came long after the song had peaked at radio – was clearly a blunder, while other aspects of the song’s promotion seemingly started too early. After declining to release the experimental remixes for The Power Of Good-Bye in the U.S. (the remixes were issued commercially in Canada & abroad), Warner jumped the gun by beginning to service remixes of Nothing Really Matters promotionally to clubs as early as September of 1998 – over six months ahead of the maxi-single release.
An alternative might have been to service the Sky Fits Heaven remixes promotionally in the U.S. during the interim, considering that it managed to enter the Dance/Club Play chart based solely on spins from the imported Drowned World/Substitute For Love single, with no push from the label domestically.
Chart positions and marketing decisions aside, the maxi-single for Nothing Really Matters, with its wonderfully varied set of remixes by Peter Rauhofer, Kruder & Dorfmeister and Talvin Singh, remains one of Madonna’s best, in our opinion. Together with its visually stunning music video, the single marked an artistically pleasing closing chapter to the epic Ray Of Light era.
On February 20 1999, Madonna began rehearsals for her performance of Nothing Really Matters at the Grammys with Donna De Lory and Niki Haris. It marked their first live performance together since The Girlie Show Tour in 1993.
