Everybody who heard about Live Nation's $120M, three album deal with Madonna thought it was a Titanic waste of money. Live Nation did it to put themselves on the map (they made a similar one with Jay-Z, which makes them the first record company to lose money on him).
Look at some of this crap.
1. $40M upfront per album to Madge and
2. Live Nation don't make a dime off her albums till she has sold 15 Million copies, or as we at rock nyc like to call it NEVER. And
3. Live nation only make 10% off ticket sales.
Eh?
What sort of deal is that?
It is, of course, a nightmare deal that got the previous management of Live Nation booted and for damn good reason. As rock nyc wrote over a month ago. Madonna bundled the new album with ticket sales (built into the price of the ticket, hahahahaaaaaaa). So, as reported in the New York Post on Thursday, now look at album sales:
1st week: 359,00
2nd Week: 48,000
3rd Week: 19,000
It's deader than a hologram of 2Pac.
To be dead straight,I don't see why the album stiffed. It is very very good, whether you want it to be or not. But, pop music has to be popular and MDNA didn't break. Really, Madonna played THE SUPER BOWL and still got slaughtered by contemporary Lionel Richie's country remakes of his old hits.
This has effected ticket sales as well.
And Live Nation are getting what they deserve.