On March 24 2005, Madonna completed a photoshoot at Farley’s Prop House in London with photographer Lorenzo Agius. The photos later appeared in Ladies Home Journal.
According to Agius, the concept of the shoot was “to see the subject steeped in the mystery and magic of an old world library where one can get lost in the discovery of knowledge.”
On January 3 2005, Madonna was ranked #5 on the list of 100 most successful recording artists of all time in the UK. The list, published by the Guinness British Hit Singles and Albums book, ranked artists according to how many weeks they spent in the UK singles and albums charts.
Madonna was the only female act to make it into the top ten (at the time) with a score of 1,653 weeks, right behind Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, The Beatles and Queen.
On December 14 2005, Madonna’s Confessions On A Dancefloor was certified Gold and Platinum by the RIAA for sales of 500,000 and 1,000,000 in the USA.
On December 3 2005, Confessions On A Dance Floor entered the Billboard 200 album chart at number-one with sales of of over 350,000. It was her third consecutive studio album to reach the top and her sixth chart-topping album overall in the US.
Internationally the album hit number-one in 40 countries, including Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Brazil and Australia.
On November 27 2005, Confessions Of Madonna – a one-hour interview conducted by Dermot O’Leary which focused mainly on promoting the television broadcast of I’m Going To Tell You A Secret – aired on Channel 4 in the UK.
On November 8 2005, Madonna recorded an interview with Michael Parkinson for an episode of the British television series Parkinson, for broadcast on November 12th.
Madonna was in great spirits during the appearance, which also included performances of two songs from her soon-to-be-released album, Confessions On A Dance Floor: lead single Hung Up along with the very first live performance of Get Together.
(Thanks Amalio for sharing the video!)
On October 17 2005, Hung Up was released by Warner Brothers Records as the lead single from the album Confessions On A Dance Floor.
Written & produced by Madonna & Stuart Price (with additional sampling credits to ABBA’s Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus), Hung Up had initially been previewed instrumentally in a September 2005 commercial for Motorola’s ROKR mobile phone. Price had also teased a dub remix of the track to unknowing audiences during his DJ sets throughout the previous year.
The single was Madonna’s first to be released digitally through iTunes.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph from October 2005, Benny Andersson spoke about their decision to allow Madonna to sample ABBA’s 1979 hit, Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight):
We get so many requests from people wanting to use our tracks but we normally say ‘no’. This is only the second time we have given permission. We said ‘yes’ this time because we admire Madonna so much and always have done. She has got guts and has been around for 21 years. That is not bad going.”
Today In Madonna History 