 |
|
Madonna news - December 2024
← July 2024 | Dec. 2024 →
‘Like a Prayer’ Cover From ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Reigns on TikTok Billboard Top 50
Source: Billboard - 22 December 2024Thirty-five years after Madonna's “Like a Prayer” topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989, a cover of the song from Deadpool & Wolverine rules the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated Dec. 21.
The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Dec. 9 to 15. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
The I’ll Take You There Choir version of “Like a Prayer,” heard in the 2024 Marvel/Disney superhero film originally released in July, lifts 2-1 to rule the chart in its second week.
The choir-led rendition of the song, arranged and recorded by Rob Simonsen (who also helmed the film’s score), has earned TikTok prominence thanks most recently to a trend in which creators tell a long text-based story (often one that’s embarrassing for the user), accompanied by a photo of Pepe from The Muppets.
This version of “Like a Prayer” earned 1.5 million official U.S. streams in the week ending Dec. 12, a gain of 37%, according to Luminate. Madonna’s original, meanwhile, has received auxiliary attention of its own: 1.6 million streams, up 12%.
“Like a Prayer” leads a change at the top of the TikTok Billboard Top 50, as M.I.A.'s “Paper Planes” and Malcolm Todd's “Chest Pain (I Love)” follow at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively, both songs’ first time in the top five.
Madonna reveals sad reason behind being AIDS advocate
Source: Geo News - 21 December 2024Madonna's friends' tragic deaths inspired her to become an AIDS activist.
The 66-year-old music legend and LGBTQ+ icon's late brother Christopher Ciccone - who passed away in October 2024 from prostate cancer - has been heard on uncovered tapes of how the loss of her homosexual friends at the height of the AIDS epidemic made her help and support those who contracted the disease.
It included paying for British artist Martin Burgoyne's medication before he died aged 23 in 1986 and convincing her then-husband Sean Penn to jet out to Mexico to buy a drug that was thought to possibly cure the disease.
Madonna was quoted by The Times saying about her pal’s death: "What could I do? I loved him. And people with Aids are treated like they’re lepers or something.
"If they contract Aids, all their friends disappear.
"That’s not a friend. How could I desert him? He was really my best friend.”
Martin introduced the 'Cherish' hitmaker to the New York club scene after they met at a club in East Village where he worked as a bartender.
They later shared an apartment, and he went on to manage her first club tour and design the 'Burning Up' single cover in 1983.
In the unearthed tapes from Madonna's brother - which are going to be used as part of a 90-minute Sky documentary called 'Becoming Madonna' - Christopher remembered his sister putting on the 1987 'Who's That Girl?' tour in memory of Martin, and generating $400,000 for the American Foundation for Aids Research.
He was quoted by The Times saying: "The AIDS benefit that we did at Madison Square Garden was emotionally taxing for everybody.
“Especially for [Madonna], because of Martin. There had been so many friends of ours who had Aids.”
Christopher - who also directed videos for Tony Bennett and Dolly Parton, as well as working as an interior designer - fell out with his superstar sibling when he released his 2008 best-selling book 'Life With My Sister Madonna'.
The two eventually reconciled, and in 2012, Christopher released his own footwear line.
After the 63-year-old visual artist's death - which came just a few weeks after Madonna's stepmother Joan Ciccone died from a "very aggressive cancer" - she said: “He had impeccable taste and a sharp tongue which he sometimes used against me.
"But I always forgave him.”
Trailer revealed for 'Becoming Madonna’ documentary
Source: Variety - 19 December 2024Sky Documentaries UK, Optomen and All3Media Intl. have revealed the trailer (above and below) for original feature documentary “Becoming Madonna,” which premieres on Dec. 30 on pay TV platform Sky in the U.K.
“Becoming Madonna” is an immersive and archive built film around recently uncovered audio tapes in which a young Madonna reflects on her life and career. The film shows the star as “we’ve never seen her before,” according to a statement, with rare footage, unseen photos and intimate recordings with those close to her during her rise to fame, some of whom have never spoken in a documentary before.
When Madonna arrived in New York City from Michigan with dreams of becoming a professional dancer, it was the start of an epic journey. The film charts the period 1978-1992 as Madonna transformed herself from insecure 19-year-old outsider to the most controversial pop star in the world, with the publication of her erotic photography book “Sex.”
These were the years “during which Madonna came of age as a person and an uncompromising artist,” the statement explained. “Through her conflicts with the conservative establishment in the 80s and 90s, the film evokes a time where traditional views on sexuality and gender roles were being challenged and Madonna was at the vanguard.”
Previously unseen archive sheds new light on the personal tragedies that fuelled Madonna’s drive, re-examining the early death of her mother and those of her dance teacher Christopher Flynn and close friend Martin Burgoyne who died during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. “Through their stories, we see Madonna in a new light: smarter, more radical and more vulnerable than anyone at the time gave her credit for,” the statement concluded.
“Becoming Madonna” is produced by Optomen in association with All3Media Intl., and was commissioned for Sky Documentaries by Poppy Dixon, director of documentaries and factual at Sky. Executive producers for Sky are Tom Barry, Bruce Fletcher and Gilberte Phanor. Michael Ogden serves as director. Executive producers for Optomen are Eliana Capitani, Tina Flintoff and Nick Hornby.
All3Media Intl. is looking after international sales for the title. The distributor will now be closing licenses for the documentary, which has been attracting global interest since its recent announcement.
Rachel Job, senior VP unscripted at All3Media Intl., said: “We’re thrilled to reveal the first trailer for Optomen’s powerful, absorbing insight into Madonna’s astonishing career, life and talent. With Sky UK’s commissioning team as creative partner, the show has delivered an utterly compelling view of the early years of someone who has become a cultural icon across the world.”
Madonna confirms new music for 2025
Source: Billboard - 16 December 2024New year, new Madonna music! The Queen of Pop took to Instagram on Monday (Dec. 16) to reveal that she’s been in the studio with DJ, songwriter and producer Stuart Price.
“Working on new music with Stuart Price. these past few months has been medicine for my SOUL,” the “Material Girl” singer wrote alongside a video of the duo having fun in the studio, getting creative together. “Songwriting and making music is the one area where I don't need to ask anyone for their permission.. i'm so excited to share it with you. Who wants to hear new music in 2025!”
Price has been a longtime collaborator for Madonna, taking on the role as her musical direct for her 2001 Drowned World Tour, 2004 Re-Invention World Tour, 2006 Confessions Tour and her most recent Celebration Tour. He has remixed and co-wrote countless tracks with the superstar, and is best known for working on her 10th album, 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor.
Madonna hasn’t released a full-length album since 2019’s Madame X. The project debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking her ninth chart leader. Madame X‘s lead single, “Medellín” with Maluma, topped Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart and hit No. 18 on Hot Latin Songs, and was followed by three more singles: “Crave,” “I Rise” and “I Don't Search I Find.”
Beyond music, Madonna has also stayed creative as she works on her long-awaited biopic. Last month, she reflected on the difficulties of making the project, with “producers and agents” telling her that the film will be hard to make, forcing her to “think outside the box.”
“I did not have a normal life. I cannot make this in the normal way,” she wrote on Instagram. She also asked fans for their input, wondering if she should make the “story of my life into a series or a feature film.”
Madonna's historic 'Celebration Tour' smashes records with all-time Grandest Grand Finale
Source: Pollstar - 16 December 20242024 Top 10 Worldwide Tours
No. 10 Madonna
Gross: $178,816,423.50
Average Ticket Price: $208.85
Average Tickets Sold Per Show: 13,378
Total Tickets: 856,247
Average Gross: $2,794,007
Madonna’s “Celebration Tour” was a career milestone unlike anything the live industry has ever before seen. A career retrospective, the run celebrated her 40th year in the business with Madge’s classic catalog of megahits with wildly creative production, choreography and costuming, members of her family, special guests, Bob The Drag Queen and the grandest grand finale in the history of live. Its impressive $178.8M gross over the course of Pollstar’s 2024 chart year sold 856,247 tickets with an average gross of $2.79 million per show, making it one of Pollstar’s Top Ten Tours of 2024. All that, however, is just a small part of what made the tour so profoundly and deeply meaningful.
On June 24, 2023, three weeks before “The Celebration Tour” was set to kick off on July 15 in Vancouver, Madonna was admitted to the ICU with a life-threatening illness. Twenty-three North American arena dates would be postponed or canceled, including two Madison Square Garden dates and nights at Chicago’s United Center and L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena. The tour instead kicked off in Europe in mid-October 2023. When it got to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in December, she candidly told the audience that she had “woke up in the ICU” and been “in an induced coma for 48 hours…”
“For me, every day with [Madonna] in it is a blessing,” her longtime manager Guy Oseary told Pollstar a day before the tour’s grand finale on May 3 in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
“The tour is called ‘The Celebration Tour,’ so we’re celebrating her career, but we’re also celebrating her life. It’s perfect that it aligned already with celebrating her 40 years and then something like this happens. It isn’t like you had to shift anything, it just added extra meaning. It didn’t change the run of the show necessarily, it just brought more emotion to it. Everything is already a blessing, but it’s an even more meaningful blessing after what she endured and came back from.”
“The Celebration Tour,” in total, would gross an astronomical $227.2 million and sell 1.1 million tickets over the course of 80 shows between Oct. 14, 2023 and May 4, 2024, according to Pollstar Boxoffice Reports. “The Celebration Tour” crowned Pollstar’s mid-year Worldwide Top 100 Tours tally.
“It was totally gratifying,” her longtime promoter Arthur Fogel, president of Global Touring at Live Nation, recently told Pollstar, “particularly given the circumstances surrounding the start of the tour, or the non-start of her tour, with the delay, her illness and recovery and the fact that it went on to be so momentous a run in her career – that was gratifying. In the macro, it is a privilege to work with an artist like Madonna, who’s had such a profound impact on music and live performance in so many ways – really, it is a real privilege.”
It was only fitting, then, that the “The Celebration Tour” grand finale went out with a maximalist bang on May 4 in Rio De Janeiro.
There, the Queen of Pop, and really all else, performed a free concert before a record-setting 1.6 million-strong swath of humanity blanketing the city’s gorgeous Copacabana Beach – the highest ever for a stand-alone concert – making it, as Pollstar wrote at the time, “the grandest grand finale ever.”
Even the Brazilian navy was involved, parking off the Atlantic coast to make sure it went off without a hitch, which it did.“It was an amazing exclamation point to the tour, particularly this tour,” Fogel says when asked about the record-setting finale.
“It was really an incredible event, magical really, that it was so well attended, everything went pretty flawlessly and to be able to get back to your Brazilian fans, and really fans from around the world, who attended was really something special,” Fogel said. “This doesn’t happen all the time, it doesn’t happen often, but It was momentous and to be a part of it was really pretty amazing.”
↑ Back to top of page