On October 7 1989, Madonna’s Cherish single hit #2 on the USA Billboard Hot 100 chart.
With the success of Cherish, Madonna overtook The Beatles on the list of all-time consecutive top 5 singles in US (16 singles) and also tied with Michael Jackson for the artist with the most consecutive top 10 singles in the 1980s (17 singles).
On June 3 1989, Madonna’s Like A Prayer earned its 11th week at #1, and its 12th week in the Top 10 of the United World Chart (tracks).
On April 15 1989, Madonna’s Like A Prayer became the number one dance single on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.
Like A Prayer remained number one for the week of April 22.
On March 22 2001, Madonna’s What It Feels Like For A Girl music video premiered.
The video was directed by Madonna’s then-husband, Guy Ritchie, and was deemed to be “Too Hot for TV” by MTV and VH1 because the video depicted gunplay, assault and suicide.
MTV released this statement about the video and their decision to ban it:
It’s been some time since Madonna ruffled the feathers of MTV or VH1 execs with a controversial video — perhaps not since 1992’s Erotica clip — so just under a decade later, the first lady of shock pop is out to prove she can still make ’em sweat.
Unlike the steamy segments of Erotica, 1990’s Justify My Love, and the one that started it all, Like a Prayer, it’s not the sexual content of What It Feels Like for a Girl that raises the red flag, it’s the violence — a concerted no-no in the post-Columbine, and more recently post-Santana, decision-making process.
The music in the video, it should be noted, is a dance remix of the version found on Madonna’s latest album, Music. The album cut will serve as the LP’s third single.
The video “shows my character acting out a fantasy and doing things girls are not allowed to do,” Madonna said in a written statement distributed by her record label, Warner Bros. “This is an angry song and I wanted a matching visual with an edgy dance mix.”
Although What It Feels Like for a Girl won’t be added to the music channel’s regular rotation, MTV and VH1 will air the clip just once.
On February 24 2016, Madonna performed in the Philippines for the very first time. Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour made a stop at the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila, performing for a sold out crowd of 15,710 fans.
Ticket prices were above average and ranged from $70 to $1300.
Madonna added Like A Prayer to the set during the first show and added Crazy For You during the second show (February 25).
On January 30 2020, glowing reviews of Madonna’s first Madame X show in London were published:
Music critic Neil McCormick (The Telegraph) had this to say: Anarchic and experimental – her best show ever? 5 STARS (out of 5)
I’m not sure who was having more fun at the opening of Madonna’s London residency, the audience or the star. She sang, she danced, she joked and she beamed with almost childlike glee at the crowd’s adoring response.
“How happy I am to have made it this far,” she declared, calling London “my second home”.
Madonna first played the city in 1983 to 1,500 early adopters at the Camden Palace. Her next London gig was Wembley Stadium. She was clearly delighted to be back in a venue where she could not just reach out and touch the audience, she could descend from the stage and sit in their laps. “It’s so intimate. It’s gorgeous and a thrill for me to be able to see all your faces.”
David Smyth of the Evening Standard gave the show 4 STARS (out of 5): Madame X is tireless, imaginative and powerfully intimate.
Such drama before Madonna could even take to the stage for her first theatre tour since 1985! Would she arrive drastically late? Would she cancel at the last minute? Tenterhooks all round.
Monday was supposed to be the first of a planned 15 nights at the Palladium, cancelled on doctor’s orders. It was the 10th dropped concert of the Madame X Tour, which began in New York in September and gathered complaints for its late start times.
But tonight at 8.45pm, there she was, dressed as a bloodstained, eyepatch-wearing revolutionary soldier. She was also a spy, a protest marcher and a Portuguese fado singer in the course of a tireless, imaginative show that was far from shrunken arena pop. Thanks especially to an extraordinary troupe of dancers, it was a spectacle that felt more powerful up close.
Like Bruce Springsteen, who showed a different side of himself in his recent Broadway run, and Kate Bush, whose live comeback was more theatre than concert, the 61-year-old has unearthed something new late in her career. The Madame X album may have plummeted out of the charts in an instant, but here its songs dominated and found their purpose.
Batuka, tuneless on record, was euphoric when performed with a mass of smiling, rump-shaking Batuque drummers from Cape Verde. I Rise was far more powerful when backed by footage of anti-gun protests and gay pride marches.
Alexis Petridis of The Guardian, also gave the show 4 STARS (out of 5) and noted: London residency short on hits but big on British banter.
She sings the bare minimum of big hits – Vogue, Like a Prayer, Human Nature – with Express Yourself and La Isla Bonita reduced to interstitial roles (the former performed as a sweet, but brief a cappella duet with her daughter Mercy), and American Life performed in full.
Still, it occasionally serves to remind you that some of Madame X is better than its relatively muted commercial response might suggest – Medellín sounds like the hit single it wasn’t, as does the gorgeous album track Crazy. This is presumably part of the point – the other part being a certain screw-you intransigence designed to underline that we are in the presence of an artiste, not a pop star.
And the BBC had a few fun notes to add in their review:
The audience were required to store mobile phones in sealed pouches as “an intervention for us all”. However, Madonna admitted that even she was getting anxious without a phone nearby.
“I’m having little panic attacks,” she joked. “I’m like, ‘Why is no-one taking my picture?'”
But the gambit worked: Freed from distractions, the audience gave the concert their undiluted attention; while Madonna seemed to relax and have fun without a phalanx of tiny cameras recording her every move.
At one point, she slipped into a British accent and recalled how she’d been ridiculed for developing similarly plummy vowels during her marriage to Guy Ritchie.
“I didn’t know what anyone was talking about until I heard old interviews of myself,” she said. “And then I was horrified and flabbergasted. Why did you let me do that to myself? I’m from Michigan!”
“It’s all Guy Ritchie’s fault,” she decided. “He made me to it.”
On January 22 2010, Madonna participated in the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief charity telethon. The telethon was the most widely distributed telethon in history. The event was broadcast from Los Angeles, New York and London. There were also live reports from Haiti.
Madonna endorsed the relief efforts of the charity organization Partners in Health, donating $250,000 toward their work with victims of the Haitian earthquake. Partners in Health works to bring modern medical care to the world’s poorest communities and it has had a presence in Haiti for 20 years.
“My prayers are with the people of Haiti,” she said in a statement on her web site. “I can’t imagine the terrible pain and suffering they are experiencing. Sadly the depths of the tragedy are just becoming known and the need for our support grows more urgent with every passing moment.
“I urge all of my friends and fans around the world to join me collectively to match my contribution or give in any way you can,” she continued. “We must act now.”
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