Madonna’s promoters are firing back at the New York Post for allegedly lying about poor ticket sales for the artist.
At the beginning of June, the New York Post’s Richard Morgan reported that ticket sales for Madonna concerts promoting her latest album, ‘Madame X’, were lagging and had ‘tarnished’ the tour. Morgan went on to compare previous ticket sales in much larger venues with current ticket sales the smaller venues chosen for the concerts, suggesting that the comparison indicated ‘Madonna was struggling to sell them’.
Chris Willman from Variety magazine cautiously came to Madonna’s defence, citing promoter, Arthur Fogel, (Live Nation’s chairman of global music), who roughly called the report fake news, saying it was “absolute lies”.
Fogel also went on to point out the pattern of negative coverage The NYP seems to give to Madonna, stating:
There’s something really amiss there. If you go back in history, each of her last four tours, they’ve gone on full attack mode on Madonna.
Willman said that ‘on the surface, the Post is not wrong that there are tickets still available for most, if not all, of Madonna’s upcoming shows in 2,000-3,000 seat halls’. He then gave three reasons for the slower than expected ticket sales being where they were. First noting a discrepancy caused by a new system used to ‘weed out scalpers’, ticket prices and location.
However, the New York Post wasn’t the only outlet to report the news. Terry Zeller of The Daily Mail wrote a piece discussing mixed reactions to the soft-porn album art, and quoted an “insider” as saying that ‘despite Madonna’s team and promoters informing media that several shows were ‘sold out’ during a multi-week lottery ticket sale, the shows and their remaining tickets hit Ticketmaster today. And it’s a mess.’
Dave Brooks from Billboard fired back with the headline: ‘Madonna’s 17 Madame X Shows In New York Are More Than 90% Sold Out, So Everybody Chill’. Brooks leant on the same justifications as Variety, adding that ‘a lack of sellouts for what some would consider a once-in-a-lifetime experience doesn’t mean that Madonna’s tour is “tarnished”.
On the 21st Variety once again came to the artist’s aid defending her decision to play smaller venues. Mackenzie Nichols stated that the decision was based on ‘Madonna’s desire to maintain intimacy with her fans.’
Also worth noting is Nichols’ special mention of Madonna’s admiration for Joan of Arc, citing the artist as saying:
They accused [Joan of Arc] of being a heretic, a lesbian, a witch, a boy, a freak, and of course I can relate to all of those things; and so, in the end, she was burned at the stake, and then she became a saint, and of course, this is what we always do. We destroy our prophets and our sages and then we put them on pedestals. We have to stop doing that and appreciate people while they’re still alive.
Even with lower ticket sales and smaller venues, album sales are doing well for the artist in both the United States and Australia – according to ARIA, Madonna’s ‘Madame X’ is currently number 2 here, and according to Billboard, it’s number 1 in the U.S – but the MTV era that gave longevity to artists is long over.
We now live in a social media age, where new is old after 24 hours. This is the culture Madonna helped create. Her relating to Joan of Arc may also include a sense of rejection due to lower turnover from tickets, and a disappointment at the fact that she is playing smaller venues when she once packed stadiums.
If Madonna’s popularity is waning, chances are it has nothing to do with martyrdom, or her being a prophet or a sage. In all probability, it’s related to her anti-Trump, and pro-abortion, activism.
During a speech given at the Women’s March in January 2017, Madonna, joining a chorus filled with dissonance and hate, declared to Americans that she had given an awful lot of ‘’consideration into blowing up the Whitehouse”. This was in response to Hillary Clinton losing the 2016 United States election to Donald Trump.
Then last week in an interview with Andrew Denton, Madonna, suggested that Jesus would be okay with abortion. The MTV golden girl claiming that ‘she wanted an interview with the Pope to convince him that he was wrong on abortion’ because ‘don’t you think Jesus would agree that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her body?”(W.T)
Madonna joins Elton John in attempting to lecture the world, particularly Christians, on biblical theology. This week, Elton John made a bizarre statement suggesting that all reasoned Christian criticism of LGBTQIA+ ideology and activism was abusive, violent and an affront to God (Daily Wire).
By their words and actions, it appears that Madonna and Elton John – both MTV demigods of a by-gone era – consider themselves to be closer to Joan of Arc and Jesus Christ, than the rest of us.