Madonna's lead singles ranked

As Madonna returns with Medellín, the first cut from her 14th studio album, we rank her other lead singles.
madonna-medellin-press-shot-2019.jpg

Madonna is back, not that she ever went away. After four years without new music, Madonna's fourteenth studio album, Madame X, is imminent.

The first single, Medellín, features Colombian singer Maluma and joins an array of classic hits given the honour – and huge responsibility – of launching a new Madonna album.

Everybody has their favourites, of course, and fans worldwide have been posting their own rankings of the big launch singles. But when we push aside taste and make it all about the numbers, which comes out on top? We looked at combined physical and download sales, audio and video streaming figures to count down the definitive list of Madonna's lead hits.

To make things a bit more interesting, we include her soundtracks to Who's That Girl and Evita, plus Dick Tracy tie-in I'm Breathless – featuring the earliest release to appear on an album for the first time – and the first (new material) singles off her greatest hits. Why? Well, you can never have too many hits in a countdown, can you? See all Madonna's hit singles, including 13 Number 1s, in her Official Chart archive

The biggest lead single of them all goes to Like A Virgin, the provocative title track of Madonna's second album. While it reached only Number 3 in January 1985, it's amassed 925,000 combined sales – although it was another eight months before the parent album would make it to Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart.

Next is another title track, and a very similarly titled one at that, Like A Prayer. Cruising to Number 1 in early 1989, the euphoric gospel pop banger has a tally of 850,500 and its parent album topped the charts too. In third place is the mighty ABBA-sampling Hung Up, with 730,000 combined sales to its name. Heading up the campaign for Confessions on a Dance Floor – Madonna's longest album title FYI – the song spent three weeks at Number 1 and helped its parent album rack up over 1.35 million sales.

Perhaps a controversial choice, given it felt more tacked onto the end of its mothership album rather than a part of it, Vogue is fourth, with 663,000, coming from I'm Breathless, which was inspired by the movie Dick Tracy, and featured the underrated Hanky Panky. Hard Candy's 4 Minutes, featuring Justin Timberlake and Madonna's most recent chart-topper, is next on 627,000, and Madonna's huge comeback in 1998, Frozen, from the seminal Ray of Light, is next on 602,200 – it was the first Madonna song ever to debut at the top of the Official Singles Chart.

True Blue is Madonna's top selling studio album in the UK, but, rather surprisingly, its first single Live To Tell is in 10th spot, with 331,000. Live To Tell was originally recorded for movie At Close Range, and in early 1986 Madonna said the album would be called Live To Tell, later changing it to the True Blue we all know and love. Just behind Live To Tell is another ballad, heading up a whole album of ballad greatest hits – You'll See is in 10th place on 322,000.

The Immaculate Collection, Madonna's greatest hits from 1990, is her biggest selling album overall in the UK, with 3.76 million combined sales, but its flagship song, the "filthy for the time but pretty tame now" Justify My Love, is only her 12th biggest lead. It might have something to do with the fact radio stations were scared to death of it, and its raunchy video was only on late night TV. Plus, the album came out the week after the single and literally everyone raced to buy that instead.

Madonna's lead singles ranked in combined sales order:

  SONG SONG PEAK ALBUM YEAR
1 LIKE A VIRGIN 3 LIKE A VIRGIN 1984
2 LIKE A PRAYER 1 LIKE A PRAYER 1989
3 HUNG UP 1 CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR 2005
4 VOGUE 1 I'M BREATHLESS 1990
5 4 MINUTES 1 HARD CANDY 2008
6 FROZEN 1 RAY OF LIGHT 1998
7 MUSIC 1 MUSIC 2000
8 WHO'S THAT GIRL 1 WHO'S THAT GIRL OST 1988
9 LIVE TO TELL 2 TRUE BLUE 1986
10 YOU'LL SEE 5 SOMETHING TO REMEMBER 1995
11 EROTICA 3 EROTICA 1992
12 JUSTIFY MY LOVE 2 IMMACULATE COLLECTION 1990
13 CELEBRATION 3 CELEBRATION 2008
14 SECRET 5 BEDTIME STORIES 1994
15 YOU MUST LOVE ME 10 EVITA 1996
16 AMERICAN LIFE 2 AMERICAN LIFE 2003
17 LIVING FOR LOVE 26 REBEL HEART 2015
18 GIVE ME ALL YOUR LUVIN 37 MDNA 2012
19 EVERYBODY N/A MADONNA 1982

©2019 Official Charts Company. All rights reserved.

Relive all Madonna's singles artwork in our gallery:

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T

Thomsy26

0

I would be very interested to see what her sales are now that her entire back catalogue of singles, EP's with original remixes etc is being released digitally & via streaming. She's had a massive disadvantage as most of her 'singles' were pre digital and once out of the charts at the time, no more sales. When itunes put her back catalogue of albums on their platform in 2005, this did not include her singles or EPs sadly. PWL put Kylies on digital formats back in 2010 which helped boost her singles sales by a couple of million.


Now imagine if Warners had done that back in 2005??? Her sales of singles in the UK would top 30 million AND she'd have a couple of million sellers by now without question.

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Anna Nekrylova

1

Here's the combined list of her US and UK singles (she has more in UK, for sure)

US UK
1 «Like a Virgin» (1984) 1 3
2 «Crazy for You» (1985) 1 2
3 «Into the Groove» (1985) — 1
4 «Live to Tell» (1986) 1 2
5 «Papa Don’t Preach» (1986) 1 1
6 «True Blue» (1986) 3 1
7 «Open Your Heart» (1986) 1 4
8 «La Isla Bonita» (1987) 4 1
9 «Who’s That Girl» (1987) 1 1
10 «Like a Prayer» (1989) 1 1
11 «Vogue» (1990) 1 1
12 «Justify My Love» (1990) 1 2
13 «This Used to Be My Playground» (1992) 1 3
14 «Take a Bow» (1994) 1 16
15 «Frozen» (1998) 2 1
16 «American Pie» (2000) 29 1
17 «Music» (2000) 1 1
18 «Hung Up» (2005) 7 1
19 «Sorry» (2006) 58 1
20 «4 Minutes» (2008) 3 1
OVERALL 12 13

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Elgar Normunk

0

Would it be to difficult to mention that this was UK stats? Everyone in the world can access this article. You intentionally mislead readers with this text.

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julesin09

3

All the charts on this website are UK so I think it’s implied their stats would be UK specific.

FC

Fact Checker

1

Erotica - the 67th best seller of 1992 - ahead of Justify My Love - the 43rd best seller of 1990, with many more sales in 1991 too ?! An obvious error.
You'll See had sold 302,000 by August 2008, according to Music Week. Only 20,000 since ? Compared to 59,000 for Live To Tell, 94,000 for Frozen, 179,000 for Vogue, 213,000 for Hung Up, 226,000 for 4 Minutes, and 338,000 for Like A Prayer. Either an OCC error, or people really don't like You'll See.

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Tripp Fontaine

0

Yeah, something is amiss there. In 2017 This site listed Justify my love as her 23rd best selling single, whilst Erotica wasn't even in the top 40 of her best sellers. Seems unlikely that Erotica has overtaken JML.

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Shade E Pines

-1

Oh no dear. Like A Virgin took only 6 weeks to get to NUMBER 1, not number 3, and it stayed there for 6 weeks as well. Please consult Billboard magazine Hot 100 80s Decade book, that lists every single Hot 100 Singles chart from that decade, a book that I personally own.

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Carta

3

You do realise that you’re responding to an article about the UK charts, don’t you? Billboard’s Hot 100 is based on the US charts.

L

luca

3

Where’s papa don’t preach??

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julesin09

2

Live to tell was the lead single for True Blue. (debatable I agree)

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Carta

0

Not debatable at all, really. It was the first single released from the album (just as "Everybody" was the first single released from "Madonna"). On that note, "Die Another Day" is technically the lead single from "American Life", since it was always going to be on the album (Madonna herself confirmed this when the single was released).

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julesin09

1

Everything is debatable.

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Carta

1

True, but not every side can be supported by a logical argument :-)

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julesin09

0

Touché

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Glasgow1975

0

I'm guessing Medellín slots in at the very bottom?

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matthewrettenmund

1

Considering the songs are ranked by cumulative sales, uh, yeah, a single that's been out a week is necessarily last.

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Glasgow1975

1

it was rhetorical Matt :oP

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Peter Joseph Mountford

0

Awe i am going to be so annoying now.. but if Vogue is the lead single off I'm Breathless, then isn't American Life the lead from Music and Die Another Day the lead from Music..?

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Glasgow1975

0

They do get around that buy saying 'earliest track to feature on a new album for the first time', both American Pie, and Die Another Day were on respective OST albums.