Mariah Carey Connection

The war is over and there’s a new queen of pop: Miss Mariah Carey.

How do we know?

Hitsdailydouble.com is reporting that estimated first week sales for Madonna’s Hard Candy album will range between 275,000-300,000.

Mariah’s “E=MC2” sold 475,000 in its first week and was Carey’s biggest debut ever.

In addition to that, Madonna’s numbers are a slide downwards from her last album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” which 350,000 copies its first week out and went on to sell 1.7 million copies in the U.S. That was three years ago.

So what happened? Kabbalah and Malawi didn’t help, neither did dependence on Justin Timberlake singing like Michael Jackson on the debut single, “4 Minutes to Save the World.”

RelatedColumn Archive
FOX411: There’s a New Queen of PopLindsay Lohan and … Snoop Dogg?Michelle Williams to Leave New York?’Iron Man’ Rocks: First ReviewVultures Circle at Michael Jackson’s NeverlandFull-page Fox411 Archive

Stories
Vultures Circle at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Britney Spears Aces ‘How I Met Your Mother’ Cameo Michael Jackson’s Neverland Foreclosed; Auction Date Set Full-page Fox411 Archive Madonna is also hobbled by the Warner M. Group’s broken marketing machine and the company’s sinking stock. It’s a good bet that Wall Street analysts will be asking about “Hard Candy” on next week’s conference call with Bronfman and Cohen.

Madonna will keep pumping “Hard Candy” tonight at 10 p.m. with a six song set at the Roseland Ballroom that may feature a whooping Timberlake and the 50-year-old singer wearing leather chain mail.

If it’s anything like her Roseland performance several years ago, though, on Monday, November 6, 2000, I wrote that night: that stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna’s pal
Rupert Everett, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner with his boyfriend, Matt Nye and actor John Leguizamo were all there, but the hoi polloi dressed like a Rocky Horror Halloween.

There were a lot of rhinestones and cowboy hats. There were also drag queens of every size and shape, boys in dresses, the whole thing. No one would have been surprised to see deceased Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell rise from the dead.

The show that night lasted 20 minutes. There were almost no live instruments used except in a semi-acoustic “Don’t Tell Me,” which had a cadre of cowgirl violinists and was the best number of the five. Otherwise, it was all deadly pre-recorded synthesizer. As one security guard said, “Four days work, and it was just 20 minutes?”

The show had a forced feeling. There was no spontaneity. And if Madonna really cared for those thousands of fans who’d been hanging around for three hours, a couple of her hits wouldn’t have been so hard to perform.

We’ll see how different tonight’s show is…

Source: Fox News