On February 22 1991, Madonna’s controversial Justify My Love music video single was certified 8x platinum for shipment of 400,000 units in the USA.
Despite MTV and other similar video channels around the world banning the Justify My Love music video, the financial advantages of the ban were not lost on Madonna:
“It may seem like it was a publicity stunt, and I was very lucky, I must say. But I did not plan on selling this video. The controversy just happened. It wasn’t planned. So lucky me.”
On February 9 1995, Madonna’s Like A Virgin album was certified 9x platinum by the Record Industry Association of America in the USA for shipment of 9-million units.
Previous certifications for Like A Virgin included:
On January 5 1995, the lead single from Madonna’s Bedtime Stories album, Secret, was certified gold in the USA for shipment of 500,000 units.
The images in this post are for the UK Secret cassette single.
On December 10 1992, Madonna’s Erotica single was certified gold in the USA for the shipment of 500,000 units.
In 2011, Slant Magazine listed Erotica at number thirty-four on their list “The 100 Best Singles of the 1990s”, stating that Madonna’s “throaty” delivery throughout the song was effective in making the lyrics “incredibly honest”. The magazine went on to say that Madonna’s “invitation to the dance, a slithering, sinister snake rising from a gaudily ornate chalice. The beats are, by design, hypnotic—at once alluring and devious. With Erotica, Madonna promises to get you off, but not without giving you something”.
On November 18 1986, Madonna’s True Blue album was certified 3x platinum, for sales of 3 million units in the United States. The album was released on June 30 1986.
Here’s what Madonna had to say about the album track, Where’s The Party?
“It’s my ultimate statement about what it’s like to be in the middle of this Press stuff with everybody on my back, my world about to cave in. Whenever I feel like that – and it does get to me sometimes – I say ‘Wait a minute, I’m supposed to be having a good time here, so where’s the party?’ It doesn’t have to be this way. I can still enjoy life.”
On August 11 1989, Madonna’s Express Yourself single was certified Gold by the R.I.A.A. for shipment of over 500,000 units in the U.S.
On May 25 1985, Madonna performed The Virgin Tour at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. The show was filmed by Daniel Kleinman, and released by Warner Music Video and Sire Records on November 13 1985.
Here is the dialog from Madonna’s famous Virgin Tour introduction (filmed by James Foley for the video release, it was not present during the concerts):
“I went to New York. I had a dream. I wanted to be a big star, I didn’t know anybody, I wanted to dance, I wanted to sing, I wanted to do all those things, I wanted to make people happy, I wanted to be famous, I wanted everybody to love me. I wanted to be a star. I worked really hard, and my dream came true.”
Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour was an enormous success. The home video release was the top selling music video cassette of 1986 in the USA, and the video was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipment of 100,000 copies.
