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4th July 2009
After a star reaches a certain point, it's easy to forget what they became famous for and concentrate solely on their persona. Madonna is such a star. Madonna rocketed to stardom so quickly in 1984 that it obscured most of her musical virtues. Appreciating her music became even more difficult as the decade wore on, as discussing her lifestyle became more common than discussing her music. However, one of Madonna's greatest achievements is how she manipulated the media and the public with her music, her videos, her publicity, and her sexuality. Arguably, Madonna was the first female pop star to have complete control of her music and image.
In 2004, she embarked on The Re-Invention Tour, which featured fifty-six dates in the U.S. and Europe and became the highest-grossing tour of 2004, earning $125 million. Also in 2004, Madonna was involved in a brief legal battle with Warner Music Group, with whom she co-owned record label Maverick. The legal dispute ended with Warner Music Group buying Madonna's shares in the record label. In January 2005, Madonna performed a cover version of the John Lennon song Imagine on the televised U.S. aid concert "Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope", which raised money for the tsunami victims in Asia. In 2005, Madonna released her second documentary to TV, titled I'm Going To Tell You A Secret, which had been filmed during her 2004 Re-Invention world tour and directed by Jonas Akerlund.
Madonna's tenth album Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), was built as a continuous mix of dance songs, with musical elements borrowed from the '70s as well as her own repertoire. Produced by Stuart Price, it reached number one in 29 countries and has sold more than 8 million copies since its November 2005 release (over 1.5 million in the US). The album received the most positive reviews since 1998's Ray of Light and was considered a return to form after the negative reception to American Life. It has produced two successful singles, "Hung Up", which featured a sample of the ABBA song "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" and "Sorry". "Hung Up" became Madonna's first single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 since American Life in 2003, and tied her with Elvis Presley with the most top ten songs on the U.S. singles chart. Worldwide, it surpassed "Music" and "Vogue" to become the most successful single of her career. The follow-up single, "Sorry," became Madonna's twelfth number one in the UK. A third single, "Get Together", was released in June 2006 and became her thirty-sixth number one dance hit in the U.S. (the most for any artist in Billboard history) but failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The fourth, and final single release from Confessions on a Dance Floor, is " Jump", due in August 2006.
In summer of 2006 Madonna embarked on the Confessions Tour. It is expected to become the highest grossing world tour of all-time for a female recording artist.. She also released her 2005 documentary, I'm Going To Tell You A Secret, on DVD, which was packaged along with her first live album.
