On November 13 2001, Madonna’s Drowned World Tour 2001 was released on home video and DVD.
The DVD/VHS release included the concert that was broadcast live on HBO from The Palace of Auburn Hills in Auburn Hills, Michigan on August 26, 2001.
A photo gallery was included as a bonus feature. Like the original airing of the show, the DVD received very good reviews. The photographs used on the DVD packaging were taken by Rosie O’Donnell.
Were you able to see the Drowned World Tour live in person?
On November 4 2001, Madonna was named Britain’s highest-earning woman with an annual income of 30 million pounds ($43.8 million). The Sunday Times newspaper placed Madonna above J.K. Rowling, creator of the Harry Potter books. Rowling earned 24.8 million pounds ($36.2 million) in the year ending October 1 2001.
On October 11 2001, Madonna’s The Immaculate Collection was certified 10x platinum (10 million units) in the USA – the best-selling greatest hits album by a female artist.
On October 5 2001, Warner Bros Records announced that Madonna would release GHV2 – a new greatest hits album of 15 songs from 1991-2001.
Designed as a follow-up to her massively successful 1990 hits compilation, The Immaculate Collection, it featured no new songs – reportedly due to Madonna’s hectic schedule – although residual tensions between Madonna and her label at the time may have also played into the decision. Instead, various remix artists were commissioned to create a series of promotional mega-mixes to promote the release.
On September 18 2001, Impressive Instant was released as a promotional club single to DJs in the US. Written and produced by Madonna & Mirwais Ahmadzaï, the track is bright and uplifting in its content and composition. Originally intended to be the fourth single of the Music album, a commercial release was cancelled due to a disagreement between Madonna and her recording company.
Potentially fearing the track as being too experimental to garner significant airplay, Warner had instead showed interest in releasing Amazing as the fourth single. If hopes were that it would replicate the airplay success of her similar-sounding summertime hit Beautiful Stranger several years prior, Madonna was reportedly less enthusiastic about repeating herself. Promotional copies of Amazing were issued in Germany, Spain, Columbia and Israel before Warner seemingly pulled the plug on pushing the song – perhaps at Madonna’s insistence. In the end, the rift reportedly resulted in neither track being released commercially, making Music her first studio album (excluding I’m Breathless) to spawn only three commercial singles.
Remixes that had been commissioned for Impressive Instant by the late Peter Rauhofer were finally released to clubs as a promotional single at the tail end of her successful Drowned World Tour.
Official Peter Rauhofer promotional remixes of Impressive Instant :
On September 15 2001 Madonna ended her Drowned World Tour at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.
The September 15 show was originally scheduled to take place on September 11 but was postponed due to the September 11 terrorist attacks.
On September 11 2001, Madonna postponed a scheduled Drowned World Tour concert at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California due to terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The concert was re-scheduled for September 15.
“Violence begets violence,” Madonna told the Staples Center crowd of nearly 20,000 fans on September 14th, “and I don’t know about you, but I want to live a long and happy life. I want my kids to live a long and happy life.”
“What happened was horrible, but I’d like to think of it as a wake-up call. There’s terrorism every day all over the world.”
“Last night, we had a minute of prayer for everybody who died on Tuesday. Tonight I’d like to say a prayer for peace.”
“I said it last night and I’ll say it again: If you want to change the world, change yourself.”
Madonna pledged that proceeds from the final shows on the tour would go to relief funds for victims of the attacks and their families.
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