I would say Hard Candy was the height of unoriginality and stale.

I agree but very very few if any artists don't go through a stale period and most trundle on through it for the rest of their careers.

20+ years in the business, impossible to maintain the streak of great music. But for me, Madonna has always been "good enough" and her tours are brilliant. In fact, The Sticky and Sweet tour was up there with The Confessions Tour which I thought was not even possible.

Could explain both of your assertions, please?

 

While I would say that Madona is well ahead I can't see how SEB has achieved as much as even half what Rihanna has done.

 

Sophie has been on strictly come dancing.

15 years in music. (Longevity)

Hasn't needed to collaborate with every tom dick and harry to stay relevant.

 

Frozen is just so.... Beautiful.

 

Madonna is more iconic than rih

There's a serious lack of logic in this thread where personal opinions of the artist's music are biasing replies. I'm outta here.

Edited March 11, 201411 yr by Sinner

I would say Hard Candy was the height of unoriginality and stale.

 

Hard Candy is her second best album ever though :kink:

Yes this thread is in relation to sales figures yesterday and whether that is a true reflection of the relative stars position in music history. Not a general thread on who is the best female solo act. Stay on topic please.

Madonna changed the face of pop music. Before her pop was male dominated, she came along and rewrote all the rule books on her own terms, Rihanna is a beneficiary of that along with most of the popstar ladies since madonna. Madonna did a Bowie and used ever-changing visuals and videos as part of the package, co-wrote singles and albums herself and had a pretty good memorable strike record. Pound for pound, as singles and albums cost way more than they do now, I'd say Rihanna has a long way to go. If downloads cost the equivalent of the 80's, around a fiver by now, and albums 20-odd quid, I'm pretty sure the large volume of sales would slash drastically for current acts.

 

Rihanna's had some great singles, and has a large worldwide loyal fanbase, but she doesn't have the same level of fame, the same creative input, the game-changing kudos, and the same consistency that madonna had at her peak. She's a pop superstar of sometimes variable but regular output, and her achievement is to keep releases coming thick and fast like they used to in the 60's and 70's, rather than milk an album for 4 years (so hooray to her for that). She's also a serial duetter or featurer (often better than her own material, it must be said, so I'm not complaining, but it adds to her sales totals), whereas Madonna was very reluctant to duet, wanting creative control. I was surprised to hear Rihanna had actually turned down Pitbull for Timber - and chose Shakira instead.

 

I nominate Madonna as the winner by a mile. So far.

Rihanna's had some great singles, and has a large worldwide loyal fanbase, but she doesn't have the same level of fame, the same creative input, the game-changing kudos, and the same consistency that madonna had at her peak.

 

Posts like this are purely biased and not anything chart related or factual.

 

If we go by charts, as the other stuff is subjective, claiming Rihanna doesn't have the consistency or Madonna is just a plain lie. Of Rihanna's 7 lead singles, all 7 have gone top 2, 4 #1. She has had at least 2 top 10 singles off her last 6 albums. 4 of her last 5 albums went to #1. Her last six albums have all gone at least double platinum.

 

How is that not consistency at the very highest level?

I think he was talking about quality though, everybody can check the chart positions, they are what they are and don't change. They are not matter of opinion. The consistency in quality, however, is.

Quote tags not working, how annoying:

 

Pippa:

While not a Madonna fan there is no denying her impact and her career, Rihanna does not come close, Rihanna churns out record after record and seems to have very little input creativity wise, Madonna takes her time with releases and with the exception of her last album comes fresh and different. I would still rate Kylie above both.

How does KYLIE MINOGUE compare to Madonna? Oh my god, be serious! :rofl:

 

Ramona:

Sophie Ellis-bextor. Sophie's achieved so much more in her career than rihanna has and that is a matter of fact. Rihanna is very basic.

 

PAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

 

D:

I'm gonna sound like an OAP but I don't feel Rihanna will ever equate to Madonna's success...

 

but I suppose as the years go on, she does continually sell.

 

Except basically she already has? She is very close already ...

 

Nick:

 

Easily Madonna but Rihanna has been insanely successful over the past few years and although I don't doubt she'll continue she doesn't really have the artistry of Madonna and hasn't had a cultural impact on Madge's level.

 

Anyway Britney's the real queen!

 

 

 

Britney has never really been a contender for 'queen of pop', really she's been the new Janet Jackson pre-breakdown, post-breakdown essentially gay interest.

 

Titty:

 

Will Madonna songs be remembered? - Yes

Will Rihanna songs be remembered? - No

 

:blink: :unsure:

 

Hayzay:

 

Not a fan of Madonna lately but considering she's been consistently successful over so many decades, I don't think Rihanna can be compared to her.

 

There is no denying Rihanna has been leading the race for the last 10 years though, Madonna could nevaaa. :lol:

 

 

COULD NEVAAAAA!!

 

Basically Rihanna is now the most likely to be the next Madonna, people looking at Lady GaGa and Katy Perry have ignored Rihanna, who has had massive cultural impact already and a solid string of hits. The only difference is she is more rnb, but that just gives her much more credibility than pure pop artists like GaGa or Madonna.

 

 

sammy01:

 

I think people underestimate Rihanna's cultural impact. during her Loud era every other girl had red hair, I swear it got a little ridiculous in the end. Not to mention if you ever say the word umbrella to someone under 30 you'll get 'ella, ella, ella' back.

 

I also think Rihanna has a lot of credibility within the industry, the likes of Eminem and Coldplay were/are never going to work with the likes of Britney no matter how popular she was. I don't think there is an artist out there that wouldn't work with Rihanna on a record.

 

Also it is not like Madonna has had the last how ever many years to take advantage of download sales as well. Rihanna actually started her career when sales were dire and her 10 week #1 hasn't even passed 900k, so she hasn't always released in the high sales period.

 

This. Almost every girl in my town had that ridiculous big hair and fake orange tan.

 

Mr Aly:

 

I would say Hard Candy was the height of unoriginality and stale.

 

Apart from Spanish Lesson, when you do your homework get up on the daancefloor.

I think he was talking about quality though, everybody can check the chart positions, they are what they are and don't change. They are not matter of opinion. The consistency in quality, however, is.

 

Yes but sales and chart positions are fact, quality isn't. I only like 2 Madonna songs but there are loads of Rihanna songs I like, therefor I think Rihanna's music is of a higher quality but that is neither here nor there or any more relevant than his opinions on quality.

Yes but sales and chart positions are fact, quality isn't. I only like 2 Madonna songs but there are loads of Rihanna songs I like, therefor I think Rihanna's music is of a higher quality but that is neither here nor there or any more relevant than his opinions on quality.

 

Exactly right!

 

Hoping this quote tag works at least...

Interesting to see Rihanna pass even Madonna's single sales (about 18mil now?) on what was a relatively quiet year (for her!). I noted a while back her singles chart weeks were surpassing madge and I think are now well ahead also.

 

It is a difficult comparison; when Madonna started she was releasing singles every couple of months (not unlike Rihanna you say?) however the release of one single would see copies of the previous dwindle in the shops/be deleted and by the time the next single again was out you definitely weren't finding the first one many places at all. Potentially people would have continued buying these songs and continued to swell her sales, so instead of the 2-3 month chart run average of madge you could have the 6 month+ Rihanna has for a large number of her singles as 4 or 5 clutter up the bottom end of the chart simultaneously.

 

In addition to that is the constant collabs - this is something Madge never really did and even lately its been the odd record and not at the same time as her other solo songs. Rihanna has so many features as the second artist while she has her own stuff out. This is the way of the charts now though; artists like pitbull, flo rida, calvin harris etc accumulate masses of chart weeks even if the contribution is so small you couldn't pick them out of the song (like JT's featuring credit on Rehab!). If we removed Rihanna's (2nd artist) collab sales (as I've seen some of these lists do) I'd think she's still a fair bit behind Madge.

 

In terms of revenue and inflation adjusting I'm sure Madge is still way ahead. Also in terms of Cultural impact, longevity, ticket sales and revenue, and massively ahead on album sales but that could change in the future. Madonna has been so consistent and changed the game, but Rihanna's achievements in such a short space are nothing short of breathtaking; she hasn't changed the rules, she's playing a whole different game IMHO.

Edited March 12, 201411 yr by spicefunk

Sales should be excluded if she was a featured artist, and also sales excluded for album tracks, then see if she still comes out on top

Obviously Madonna sold many more physical records which people can actually hold in their hands, how many Rihanna records have been deleted from peoples' computers?

 

Oh, and I'm Team Madonna all the way!

Edited March 12, 201411 yr by Jack!

Obviously Madonna sold many more physical records which people can actually hold in their hands, how many Rihanna records have been deleted from peoples' computers?

 

Oh, and I'm Team Madonna all the way!

 

Yeah cus non of those physical CDs Madonna sold have been binned or are clogging up charity shop shelves. :wacko:

 

 

Sales should be excluded if she was a featured artist, and also sales excluded for album tracks, then see if she still comes out on top

 

You can make any artist look bigger than any other artist with arbitrary rules for sales that 'should be excluded'.

as was mentioned above, singles were deleted and generally not available once they'd had a short chart run. ANY modern act has that advantage that heritage acts didn't. In terms of downloads and heritage acts, most fans would have the albums so no need to buy the downloads of new stuff. Any downloads will be fans new to madonna, and current acts always sell in huge quantities while they are current (relative to the rest of the marketplace). There's no doubt Rihanna is top of the current pile, but like for like comparisons like chart positions and total sales doesn't tell the full story.

 

How about runs of Top 10 hits? Does Rihanna always make the Top 10? Is it sheer volume of releases that has given her massive singles sales or is it that her fanbase doesn't always buy albums? As I said, Madonna's fans were paying (relative to cost of living) about £5 per single or more, or in actuality about £2 not taking into account inflation. That's still twice or five times what Rihanna's cost, so a lot of kids in those days would have taped stuff instead from the chart show as it was just too costly to buy more than the odd single. 99p is cheaper than music has ever been by far, and 59p is virtually giveaway.

 

be honest, if downloads were £5 would you buy as many individual tracks? I wouldn't....

Oh, put up the price of downloads. That'd quit all these shitty songs selling a million on trickle sales. :P