Madonna Made Chart History Across Five Decades

Madonna's new album Confessions II debuted at number one on the UK Official Albums Chartm, making her the first American female artist in history to earn a chart-topping album in the United Kingdom across five separate decades, from the 1980s through the 2020s. The album sold 48,502 album-equivalent units in its first week in the UK, her highest first-week sales there since MDNA in 2012, and marks her 13th number-one album in the country, a total that ties her with Elvis Presley for fourth place on the all-time list of acts with the most UK chart-toppers of all time. Simultaneously in the United States, Confessions II debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 134,000 album-equivalent units, including 59,000 vinyl sales alone, giving her a tenth number-one album on that chart and making her the first act ever to reach the top of the Billboard 200 in the 2020s and three other decades. It was also her biggest streaming week ever for any album and her largest vinyl sales week since tracking began in 1991.

The album, a spiritual follow-up to her beloved 2005 dance classic Confessions on a Dance Floor, has received critical acclaim that most artists half her age would envy: a Metacritic score of 84 out of 100 qualifying as universal acclaim, with The Guardian calling it her most revealing work since Ray of Light, The Times describing it as one of her most personal albums to date, and Slant Magazine calling it her most focused and cohesive work in decades. The Guardian's Alexis Petridis went further, calling it her most vital album in two decades. In France, the album debuted at number one with 25,491 units, the highest debut of 2026 for both a female artist and a pop album. With Confessions II she also joins Kylie Minogue in the exclusive club of artists who have scored number-one albums across five decades in the UK, a pairing that would have seemed almost impossible to predict when either of them started. Madonna is 67 years old and at the top of two of the biggest album charts on the planet.

Source:https://www.billboard.com/lists/madonna-confessions-ii-number-one-billboard-200-chart/