While we sort of expected to see another rant from Roger Friedman about the newest cover of TV Guide — still no Tim Russert, but plenty of reality TV stars — we were turned on by his rumormongering about who might be behind the anti-Madonna reports that have been popping up lately.
Friedman, as he so often does with the New York Post, is battling back against the paper's report yesterday that concert ticket sales have been sluggish for her upcoming Sticky & Sweet tour. Though Madonna has racked up $74 million in sales for 13 European dates, the Post says "just over half of the 43,000 seats available for a Nov. 6 date at Los Angeles' Dodger Stadium - 27,000 tickets in all - have been sold in their first three weeks of availability, raising red flags about the limits of US demand for the 49-year-old Madonna at this stage of her career."
Worth mentioning: This is her first fourth tour with Live Nation but her first since signing a $120 million "360" deal that covers all of Madonna's recording, touring, and merchandising, though these mega-deals have also led to reports (also from the Post) of massive layoffs at the company to follow chairman Michael Cohl's ouster.
But Friedman, a regular Madonna foe (don't get him started on her Kabbalah), notes, "Dodger Stadium is the only venue Madonna hasn’t sold out. Of course, the show isn’t for five months. The fact that she’s sold half the stadium now for November is pretty darn impressive."
So if that's the case, and many of her shows are selling out in minutes (like her three dates at Madison Square Garden), how does the Post manage to print the headline "Madonna Sale$ Sag: Live Nation Defends Limp Response to Her U.S. Tour"?
Because Warner Music, which lost Madonna to Live Nation, has been on a tear planting negative stories about their expiring artist, says Friedman.
"WMG, as I predicted, has done little to nothing to promote Madonna’s 'Hard Candy' album as retribution for her exit to Live Nation. That a CD with a hit single, the Justin Timberlake-Michael Jackson sound-alike duet "4 Minutes to Save the World," has sold only 500,000 copies is an utter disgrace. But WMG only has itself to blame.
"It didn’t take a rocket scientist to predict this. WMG has just this and a greatest hits album left with Madonna, and then she’s gone. Her departure is a huge embarrassment to the ailing, much-mocked record company."
Editorial Director
If you're going to devote an entire post to ROGER Friedman, you might want to get his name right. Morons.
Have you ever seen Friedman? He's that fat, balding, sweaty Jewish guy with big glasses in the corner staring you down. He's AN ASS of the highest order. Liar too
This is not Madonna's first tour with Live Nation. It is her fourth, but first since she signed the 360 deal.
Madonna will not only have the highest grossing tour of the year globally but also most likely the top 3 or 4 biggest selling album of the year globally. 80% of sales from her last album came from outside the US.
I usually can't stomach Friedman but once in a while, he gets it right and this is the one time that he does. I'm far from being a Madonna fan but the article in the NYP yesterday was a pure hit piece that was based on exaggerated facts. While the Los angeles show may be slow, it appears that the other stadium shows are 80-90 percent sold FIVE months before the actual shows. And we're also talking about crazy ticket prices.
Fans, want tickets to see Madonna?
Try this blog for a point of interest:
http://madonnarevelations.blog.....?q=tickets
I hate to burst your bubbles but there are still seats available to most of Madonnas shows. Just go to ticketmaster and check it out i did before i made a comment. You can still get pretty good tickets at most shows. Wembley Stadium in London which is her biggest market still has lots of tickets on sale. I think he is partly correct. Her latest album was given massive marketing all over the world and in USA and it has failed badly because it is an awful album. Yes i have listened to it and i own a couple of Madonna cds but this is a disgrace and her new video clip to Give it to me will win her no fans it actually made me laugh. Nanna in nickers Yuck
This will be the concert of the yeat. She is not even going to Japan and Australia this time and she is already selling well!
GIVE IT TO ME is the new single and keep requesting for it on your local stations!
Sticky & Sweet is the concert of the year!
MADONNA always had critcisms slammed against her!
Yet she remains on top! That's why she never fails!
Oh what, because of the lack of promotion, all us potential customers didn't hear about Madonna's album? Please, it didn't sell because it sucked, just like "American Life". Her core fanbase will buy every album but there aren't enough of them to make each a million seller.
She's going the way of the Stones. Pop icon, puts bums in seats at concerts, but no longer relevant musically. And it's worse because she's a woman. All she needs is a slip and fall to put her out of commission, keep her from the gym … and she'll become a total fatso.
Her album is a flop and she is irrelevant? LMAO, gotta love these bitter Mariah loons and Al-Kylieda members. Do your research sickly ones. Madonna has one of the biggest selling albums and singles in the music industry this year! It's her biggest single in 8 years! And no the album doesn't suck. Most music critics enjoyed it too.
On her last 3 tours we got exaggerated and downright fabricated negative reports from the NY Post about her tour bombing months before it even started. Yet the tours ended up selling out and were spectacularly the biggest tours of the year! This tour will be her biggest and most successful yet.
When these haters are JOLTED from their comfort zones by Madonna's undeniable brilliance, they have to FORAGE around, like PIGS sniffing for truffles, to find something to reaffirm their DELUSIONS.
Thank you and goodnight!
Give it to me is the best video she has made in a long while. MAdonna is now electric rather than a wiggley girl.
The MadonnaNation guy is calling people loons and labeling criticisms delusions? That was the silliest outburst I've ever read.
Right now, Madonna's latest album, after just 7 weeks, is at position 31 on the Billboard 200. I could care less about Mariah, but her album, after 9 weeks, is ten positions higher.
Fact is, Madonna's fanbase turned out, and bought her album. But now that they have their copies, the greater public is indifferent, and the album is falling off the charts.
Madonna needs to feed her art, not her voracious appetite for attention and material things. Maybe then she'll be relevant again.
btw her last album.. only 15% or something like that were from the US. 1.6 were sold in the US, annd 8 copies was sold worldwide.
Roger Friedman is notoriously known for being on FOX NEWS literally moments before the Jackson trial ended and telling the world that he had a world exclusive on Jackson being held up at a local spa 2 hours away. Moments later, it was announced that there was a verdict and Jacko came out of his house to go to the courthouse. It was a monumental slip up and shows that this man knows little about reality.