65 incredible Madonna chart facts, feats and trivia

It's time to celebrate the Queen of Pop's birthday the only way we know how - with a bunch of chart facts.
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Madonna has had one of the most successful music careers of all time. Fact.

And now, to celebrate the anniversary of her seminal Ray of Light album, and to recognise her place as the queen of pop, we delved into the archives and put together some amazing chart facts that no self-respecting Madonna devotee would be without.

Don't just stand there – let's get to it.

1. Madonna has scored an incredible 71 Top 40 singles. Of those, 63 hits went Top 10. Look at Madonna's complete Official UK Chart history here.

2. From Like A Virgin in December 1984 to Secret in August 1994, Madonna logged a run of 36 consecutive Top 10 hits – no artist has bettered that since. Take a Bow broke the run in December 1994. She had another run of 17 consecutive Top 10s from You Must Love Me in Feb 1996 until Me Against The Music in November 2003. Blame Love Profusion for that one.

3. Madonna has scored 13 UK Number 1 singles – a chart record for a female solo artist. They are: Into The Groove, Papa Don't Preach, True Blue, La Isla Bonita, Who's That Girl, Like A Prayer, Vogue, Frozen, American Pie, Music, Hung Up, Sorry, 4 Minutes.

Madonna's Top 40 best-selling singles on the Official Chart

4. She’s spent 29 weeks at the top of the Official Singles Chart across her career.

5. Madonna singles have spent 516 weeks in the Top 40 since her first hit in 1984 – that’s nearly 10 years!!

 

6. Madonna’s first ever single was Everybody, the cover of which didn’t even feature a picture of the star. It didn’t chart in the UK.

7. Madonna’s first UK chart entry was Holiday, which was also her first Top 10, peaking at Number 6 – although it wouldn’t be the last we saw of Madonna’s signature song…

8. Holiday was rereleased in 1985 during the height of Madonna fever – she could’ve released an album of burps and gone Top 10 at that time tbh – and reached Number 2.

9. On its second release in 1985, Holiday was stopped going to Number 1 by Madonna herself, making her one of the few artists in chart history to occupy the Top 2 at the same time. And the song that kept Holiday off? See below!

10. Into The Groove was Madonna’s first Number 1 in the UK, spending a month there in summer 1985, and totally top-blocked Holiday from Number 1 – coincidentally, this was the same week of Madonna’s 27th birthday (and married Sean Penn, but let’s not dwell).

 

11. Into The Groove is also Madonna’s biggest selling single in the UK, helped in part by featuring in a hit movie – Desperately Seeking Susan, in which Madonna starred – and that it wasn’t available on any Madonna album. It was added to a reissue of Like A Virgin that year.

12. Madonna, surprisingly, does not have a million-selling single. Into The Groove is closest, as her top seller, with 881,000 copies shifted. Into The Groove is tied for Madonna’s longest stint at Number 1, equalled by the four weeks Vogue managed at the top from April 1990.

Look back at Madonna's single covers from over three decades of pop marvellousness:

[Gallery Module]

13. Interestingly, Madonna’s two hugest Number 1s started life as B-sides. Into The Groove was the B-side to Angel in the US (Angel got a full release here too) and Vogue was originally meant to be the B-side to Like A Prayer album track Keep it Together but the record label heard it and realised it was a smash.

14. Holiday was released for a third time, by the way, to commemorate her first greatest hits album The Immaculate Collection (more on that later) – this version reached Number 5 in 1991.

15. Borderline has been out twice too! Not many people realise it was originally released in 1984 and became Madonna’s first single to miss the Top 40, stalling at 52. Two years later, it was back! And reached Number 2!

 

16. Her big ballad Crazy For You also came out twice, first in 1985 and then again in 1991, reaching Number 2 both times.

17. Madonna was very prolific in 1985, scoring seven Top 10 hits in that calendar year.

18. Not content with having the most Number 1 singles of any female artist, Madge also has the most Number 2 hits of *any* artist – clocking up 12 of them.

19. Artists who prevented her from getting to Number 1? Sister Sledge, Billy Ocean, Falco, Partners in Kryme, Vanilla Ice, The Simpsons, The Clash, All Saints, S Club 7, Room 5 feat Oliver Cheatham, Beyoncé, and Busted! Quite an eclectic lineup!

20. Madonna holds the record for most Number 1 albums by a female artist – 12 so far! They are: Like A Virgin, True Blue, Like A Prayer, The Immaculate Collection, Evita, Ray of Light, Music, American Life, Confessions on a Dance Floor, Hard Candy, Celebration, MDNA.

21. Second album Like A Virgin took 44 weeks to climb to Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart All subsequent chart-topping albums went straight in at Number 1, with the exception of 1996’s Evita, which took 13 weeks to get there.

22. With third album True Blue, Madonna was actually the first US artist ever to go straight in at the top of the Official Albums Chart.

 

1986: Madonna - True Blue

Featuring some of her most iconic hits including Papa Don't Preach, La Isla Bonita and Open Your Heart, True Blue entered the Official Albums Chart at Number 1 - the first US artist ever to do so - and spent six weeks at the top, shifting just shy of two million by the end of the year.

Check out Madonna's full Official UK Chart history 

23. Madonna’s True Blue was the biggest selling album of 1986. True Blue spent six weeks at Number 1 and in just under six months on release, sold just shy of two million that year.

24. True Blue is Madonna’s top selling album in the UK, going platinum seven times. In the US, however, Like A Virgin is her big one.

25. Of all Madonna’s albums, True Blue yielded the most Number 1 hits. It has three: Papa Don’t Preach, the title track, and La Isla Bonita.

26. Greatest hits set The Immaculate Collection landed nine straight weeks at Number 1 from November 1990 – her longest stint at the top for any of her albums.

27. The Immaculate Collection is Madonna’s best selling album – and is indeed one of the biggest selling of all time – with 3.73 million copies sold. It’s currently the 13th best selling album ever in the UK

 

28. 1994’s Bedtime Stories – her sixth studio set – was her first album since her debut to produce a single that missed the Top 10. The song in question was Take A Bow, which peaked at 16 but, ironically, is her longest running Number 1 in the US, topping the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks!

29. After Vogue in 1990, Madonna had to wait eight years before her next Number 1 – the comeback ballad Frozen in 1998.

30. Frozen was Madonna’s first single to debut at Number 1.

31. Her most recent Number 1 was 4 Minutes in 2008, meaning this is the longest Madonna has gone without a chart-topper in her entire career.

32. Madonna has had Number 1 albums across four decades – '80s, '90s, '00s, and the '10s.

33. Across her 12 Number 1 albums, Madonna has spent 30 weeks at the top of the Official Albums Chart. This was a record until Adele overtook her in 2016

 

34. Madonna has never missed the Top 10 with a studio album, and only one didn’t make the Top 5: her self-titled debut, which peaked at 6 when it was reissued as “The First Album” in 1985.

35. Madonna's longest gaps in between studio albums occurred quite late into her career; four years and three months passed between the release of Rebel Heart (2015) and Madame X (2019). Currently, it's been three years and two months since Madame X's release, and we're still no closer to Madge's 15th studio album, although she has hinted she's thinking of releasing new music following the completion of her biopic and catalogue re-issues.

36. For the first 19 years of her career, Madonna was credited as sole artist on all her singles – she broke that spell with a cameo on Britney’s Me Against the Music in 2002. Another of her Number 2 hits.

37. Funnily enough, it would be over five years before she allowed another artist to take a feature credit on one of her singles for the first time – 4 Minutes featured Justin Timberlake.

38. Madonna’s lowest selling Number 1 is 2006’s Sorry.

39. Her biggest selling single to miss the top is actually her second biggest selling single of all time: Like A Virgin peaked at 3 in 1984.

 

40. Madonna’s top selling Number 2 single is Crazy For You.

41. Madonna doesn’t have many cover versions under her belt. She first had a hit with one in 1993, when she reimagined the old-school Peggy Lee classic Fever as a ‘90s house banger. When appearing in Evita, she released two covers of songs from the classic musical, going Top 10 with both.

42. Madonna’s most successful cover version was her do-over of Don McLean’s American Pie – she took it to Number 1 in 2000.

43. Hung Up is Madonna’s longest-running single on the Official Charts, notching up 40 weeks in the Top 100.

44. 2007 was the first year since Madonna’s career began that she didn’t have a single appear on the chart at all – 23 years after her first hit. She’d previously had years without any new entries – 1988 and 2004 – but there had been a couple of songs lingering in the Top 40 from the previous year.

45. Madonna’s most downloaded song is her most recent Number 1, 4 Minutes, which sold 458,000 downloads.

46. Madonna’s most streamed tune – since we started counting in 2014 – is Like A Prayer.

47. Her most streamed video – by a huge margin – is La Isla Bonita.

 

48. Twelve of Madonna’s hits have featured in films in which she also starred: Crazy For You, Gambler (both from Vision Quest, later renamed Crazy For You for obvious reasons); Into The Groove (Desperately Seeking Susan); Who’s That Girl, Causing a Commotion, The Look of Love (Who’s That Girl); This Used to be my Playground (A League of Their Own); You Must Love Me, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, Another Suitcase in Another Hall (Evita); American Pie (The Next Best Thing); and Die Another Day (that Bond theme!). Trick question for a pub quiz: Hanky Panky was on the I’m Breathless album which served as a partial soundtrack to Dick Tracy, which Madonna starred in, but the song wasn’t in the film itself.

49. Additionally, four of Madonna’s hits have been recorded for movies she didn’t star in: Live To Tell (At Close Range, starring then-husband Sean Penn); I’ll Remember (With Honors); Beautiful Stranger (Austin Powers 2); Masterpiece (W.E. which Madonna actually directed)

50. 1987’s The Look of Love was Madonna’s first single to miss the Top 5 since her early days.

51. Hung Up contained a sample of ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! and managed to outchart it – Hung Up was a Number 1 but Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! peaked at 3.

52. Madonna has seen three of her singles peak at Number 10. Spookily, the first one and the last were each the third single off their parent album: Bad Girl (Erotica, 1993) and Drowned World/Substitute for Love (Ray of Light, 1998). You Must Love Me is the other one, lead single off the Evita soundtrack

53. When Confessions on a Dancefloor singles Hung Up and Sorry went to Number 1, it was the first time Madonna had topped the charts with the first two singles from an album. Pub quiz trick question: In theory, she did this with American Pie and Music, from the Music album, but American Pie was never part of the Music campaign and only added to European editions of the album – and Madonna was raging about it, let me tell you.

54. Madonna had three Top 10 albums in 1990: Like A Prayer (released in 1989 but still big), I’m Breathless, and The Immaculate Collection.

55. Madonna’s most recent Number 1 album was 2012’s MDNA. Rebel Heart was her first studio album to miss the top spot since Bedtime Stories in 1994.

 

56. Madonna has released live albums of every tour since her Re-Invention jaunt in 2004. Only one has reached the Top 10: The Confessions Tour peaked at 7 in 2007.

57. Madonna’s music has been covered many times, but few of these new versions have made an impression on the charts. Of the most notable: Dutch dance outfit MadHouse reached Number 3 with Like A Prayer in 2002 and Number 24 with Holiday the same year. Kelly Osbourne managed a Top 3 hit with a punky cover of Papa Don’t Preach in 2002, and the cast of Glee hit Number 16 with their version of Like A Prayer in 2010.

58. Madonna is one of very few artists to have peaked at every position in the Top 10. It took her 11 years to do. Here’s how:

59. She has 13 Number 1s, 12 Number 2s, 9 Number 3s, Five Number 4s, Seven Number 5s, Four Number 6s, Seven Number 7s, One Number 8 – Human Nature, which completed her set, Two Number 9s, and Three Number 10s.

60. As is very fitting for a huge star who has been very good at getting everyone’s attention for over 30 years, the most common word to crop up in the titles of Madonna’s hits is “me”, with seven songs. They are: Rescue Me, You Must Love Me, Don’t Cry For Me Argentina, Don’t Tell Me, Me Against the Music, Give it 2 Me, Give Me All Your Luvin’. She also referred to “my playground” and “my love” that she expected you to justify. It is ALL about Madge, and quite right too. Girl is second, with five Top 100 mentions.

61. Madonna's 14th studio album Madame X peaked at Number 2  – beaten to the top by fellow music icon Bruce Springsteen. It was her sixth album to stall in runner-up spot. The others? I'm Breathless (1990), Erotica (1992), Bedtime Stories (1994), GHV2 (2001), Rebel Heart (2015).

62. Madonna's forthcoming new greatest hits compilation, Finally Enough Love, is the first in a series of releases which sees Madonna re-issue her entire back catalogue with original label, Warner. Her last greatest hits collection, Celebration, hit Number 1.

63. Madonna has been ambitiously re-visiting some of her greatest hits over the past year, too. UK Number 1 single Frozen was given a TikTok friendly overhaul with Sickick and Fireboy DML, while Material Girl got a suitably queer update as MATERIAL GWORLLLLLLLLL! featuring Saucy Santana.

64. Beyoncé recently sampled Madonna's classic single Vogue in a remix for Break My Soul, crediting Madonna has a featured artists. It's the first time the two pop queens have collaborated, and BREAK MY SOUL (THE QUEENS REMIX) helped the track rebound to Number 2 on the Official Singles Chart the week of RENAISSANCE's release (although Madonna was not credited on the charting single). 

65. This year, Madonna will embark on her first-ever greatest hits tour, The Celebration Tour. But this doesn't mean the pop superstar is resting on her laurels - she's recently been in the studio with Swedish svengali Max Martin for the first time, the man behind Number 1 hits for the likes of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and The Weeknd. 

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Jack fitsy

1

At least 4 of her singles have now passed the 1 million mark when factoring in streaming and paid downloads. That'll be Into The Groove, Like A Virgin, Holiday & Like A Prayer

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Norb Peti

7

Queen Of Pop for a reason!

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Bengy

6

27. The Immaculate Collection is Madonna’s best selling album – and is indeed one of the biggest selling of all time – with 3.73 million copies sold.

With streams added its sales are 3.9m as it was awarded 13 times platinum by BPI last Friday.

NN

Nu No

3

Actually it was certifed for 3.6 Million in 2003 when Official Chart was saying it had sold 3 Million.
Official Chart sale are like US soundscan not couinting music club sales and others.
Recently TIC was certified for 3.9M automatically for sales from 2013 to 2022 but it was aleady due for a new Platinum in 2013.

The real sales number is over 4.3 Million and is ready to receive a 14xPlatinum as soon as Warner Music asks for it.

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de Sascha

1

That's quite a big number.
Thanx for the info.

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Bengy

-1

... for sales from 2013 to 2022. What?

As I understand,
BPI uses OCC sales figures which go back to 1994 (automatic updates since July 2013).
Use Record Company shipment figures for period 12/11/1990 to February 1994.

I don't know where the 4.3 million figure comes from.
If updates are now automatic, why would Warner Music request an upgrade?

NN

Nu No

0

I guess you need to get your facts straight.

Sales used for BPI are shippments until 2013 and not until 1994!
1994 was the year when retail sales started being used for charts but as Soundscan in US they never covered the whole market. During the 90's and 2000's many outlets, concert shops and music clubs failed to report their sales meaning that albums would sell bigger number than the ones repported by the OCC (as it happened in US with Soundscan/Billboard and the real sales reported to the RIAA).

The automatic figures that go direct to BPI are from streams and digital sales since 2008 and for ALL sales since 2013. This means ALL physical sales (and some digital sales) before July 2013 are not taken into account. TIC sales from 2003 to 2013 are mostly physical sales as even now Madonna have usually over 90% of her new records weekly sales as physical sales.

According to OCC TIC sold well over 800k from 2003 to 2022 as they had the album at 3 million in 2003 (when it was certified 12 platinum for sales over 3.6 million) and at 3.77 million in 2017 on their article about Madonna album sales (the increase is based on sales increase of 770k). UK shops have at most 15k to 30k physical units of this album in stock (and those are already huge numbers).

We also know that the album have been returning to the charts now and then during the past 3 years based mostly on digital sales and streams having sold over 150k sales units during the past 3 years according to NME info.

Looking at Warner Music history they never ask for certification of just 1 Madonna album so this was an automatic cerfitication update meaning all sales from 2003 to 2013 were not taken into account (so this album real total shipments are around 4.3/4.4 million)

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Bengy

0

According to a poster at Haven music forum you are mixed up with how the automatic certification scheme works and what sales are included and from when.

Sales for certifications were based on shipments until July 2013 at which point they switched to sales which are held in the OCC product database and certifications began to be awarded automatically. However, once the switch to automatic certifications happened, sales used were everything the OCC hold in their database back to February 1994. Digital (download) sales kick in from November 2004 and streaming data from January 2014.

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nunno

0

Exactly! Even more!

The 3.73 million is a pure sales number quite old indeed!

The album already crossed the 4 million taking streams and tracks equivalents into account.

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de Sascha

4

La isla Madonna

C

Cloudbuster

6

The one and only Queen of Pop. Love her so much and can't wait for her new album.

GA

Gerardo Amador

2

I am a huge fan of Madonna´s music...and she as a woman, an artist, a singer, etc...I loved when she was "Billboard Woman of the year" in 2016...she delivered the best and most dramatic speech I have ever heard from any artist!! I gotta love her!!! 😍🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡

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Neil Prince

2

15. Borderline stalled at no.56, not no.52!

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chicagary

4

I hope her new album has some certified radio singles. If she gets no airplay on radio I doubt she will get anymore #1's because people still do listen to radio in their cars and there was a time when that was how new music broke. She has certainly been cheated by radio on her last couple albums. Let's hope programmers give her a shot this time around. No matter what happens I always buy 2 copies of her new CD's. Can we all agree "Living for Love" & "Ghost town" should have been big on radio? It actually gained some radio traction here in Chicago for a few weeks but not nationally. Europe still gives her radio time because age is not such a big deal there. Personally, I think if a song is good, play it. Let the listeners decide....but to not play an artist because of their age is a sin.

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James Masterton

1

It remains a fun bit of historical revisionism to list the Evita soundtrack as a Madonna album. It was never promoted as such and listed on the published charts back in 96/97 as a Various Artists release. However, as Madonna appears on all but a handful of the tracks it was eligible for the main artists album chart and not the compilations countdown. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cef9861c621e294a56d7b140756c3add664d9266ba629b4e4017b6c5efb8f562.png

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Carta

1

James, your own post contains the evidence for the inclusion of the "Evita" soundtrack in Madonna's tally, since, as you pointed out, her presence on "all but a handful of the tracks" meant that it was considered an "artist" album, rather than a "compilation". If Madonna wasn't the "artist", then who was? Semantics, yes, but to be fair, if the OCC didn't consider it to be a true Various Artists album (and charted it accordingly), then it has to be credited in some other way by them to justify its inclusion on the main artists chart (which specifically excluded anything credited to VA at the time).

NN

Nu No

1

The album cover does say "MADONNA - EVITA"

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de Sascha

3

Nice to know that she has no intention to retire!
I wonder if she will ever have another #1 in the UK or US?

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Martina Nugent

5

She did have a no 1 album in the US.Madame X hit the spot.

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de Sascha

2

Yes but in this instance I meant a #1 hit on the single charts?

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GagasPancakeT!ts

4

QUEEN! There really is no one else quite like her. I love her so much.

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etin

2

Another fact: she hasnt got a christmas album...
what is her lowest selling single? İ think they can santababy, onemore chance, miles away or biam..

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Andii

3

Something that didn't chart, like "Everybody" or ", I'm Madonna". It doesn't help that the 2015 on ones are listed from a chart that mixes this streaming nonsense in with sales, so the positions are lower than they would be on sales alone ("Ghosttown" is top 100 on sales).

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Marcothedonjuan

6

Queen Of Pop

ML

Mick Lynch

3

hey guys, love the tribute to the queen of pop. was hoping warners would put 60 of her Top 10 hits on a triple CD (60 at 60). BTW theres no way madonna was married to Sean penn in 1984 (if you say she was no. 1 on her wedding anniversary in 1985 (so fact no. 10 is in fact wrong lol)

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Yann Bourgaut

1

read it again : it's in 1985, her 27th birthday, so it is correct, you just read it wrong

T

TAYLOR

3

Shes the artist with more 10 ten singles in america 38, but rihanna has 31; she might pass her soon, in the uk she doesnt stand a chance to reach more than 63.

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JR35

2

"Into the Groove" is an honorary 39th. :) Top 10 airplay (per Radio & Records) and No. 1 in Singles Sales (per Variety's survey of the top 25 markets)/600,000-plus in sales.

UK stats for the Queen are crazy good.

DB

Del B

2

1993, u say Deeper and Deeper was first single in 8 years not to go Top 5! You are the official charts, so check your own website! The Look of Love did not go Top 5 at the end of 1987!! It got to no9!!

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chicagary

0

The look of love was never officially released as a single here in the u.s.

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ThePeterBishop

5

Wow, incredible indeed!
Let's hope she returns to #1 with her next album and single!