Madonna turns 60: 6 charts that show she is the most successful pop artist in history
The queen of pop turns 60 this Thursday.
Since her first album hit record stores in 1983, Madonna has gone on ten international tours and sold more than 300 million records.
This earned her a spot in the Guinness Book of Records as the best-selling female artist of all time.
What else can we know about Madonna if we review some figures of her career?
1. She Has Had More Number 1 Records In The UK Than Any Other Female Artist
Twelve of Madonna's albums have reached number 1 in the UK. Only The Beatles and Elvis Presley exceed that mark.
The greatest hits compilation Immaculate Collection spent 338 weeks on the charts after its release in 1990, including more than two months at number 1.
2. The favorites of the public
Is Like a Virgin your favorite Madonna song? Join the pack: Data from streaming music service Spotify ranks this 1984 classic as their most popular song.
Also, only one song in the top five is not from the '80s: 2005's Hung Up.
3. She has managed to put more songs in the top 5 than any other female artist
Madonna has placed 46 songs in the top 5 of the British charts. Only Elvis exceeds that number.
The streak of top 5 hits spans three decades, from Like a Virgin in 1984 to Celebration in 2009.
4. Spotify doesn't hear Madonna the way we do.
Most streaming services give songs a numerical value to determine whether it's "happy" or "sad," based on their notes, tempo and other factors.
Of course, they only measure how the music sounds and ignore the lyrical content, but use the information to recommend new music.
If you study how Spotify's computers "hear" songs, you can tell that they have gotten "sadder" over time, with slower songs and more minor notes.
Clearly this doesn't tell the whole story, machines can't understand words and "feel" songs like we can.
Some of Madonna's deepest and most soulful work is on her early albums, even though they may sound happier overall.
True Blue, from 1986, is among the happiest-sounding, even though the songs speak of teen pregnancy, cheating and parental separation.
On the other hand, MDNA and Rebel Heart (2015) sound sadder on a computer, but the lyrics of songs like Give Me All Your Luvin and Girl Gone Wild aren't sad at all.
5. Her performance at the Super Bowl broke records
Obviously Google didn't exist in the 80s to tell us what people were curious about.
But since 2010, global searches for "Madonna" peaked in February 2012 when she became the first woman to perform at the Super Bowl intermission since Janet Jackson's mishap in 2004.
Madonna's performance set a record for the most-watched performance in Super Bowl history until it was surpassed by Katy Perry and Left Shark in 2015.
6. She is America's richest female music artist
If we pay attention to these figures, we can say that Madonna is, indeed, the "material girl" (for her song Material Girl).
Forbes magazine estimated Madonna's net worth at $580 million in 2017, making her the richest female artist in the United States, with a difference of $200 million ahead of Celine Dion, who although Canadian, has earned most of your money in the US
