Six and a half years into the 2020s, and we still hadn’t gotten a new album from Madonna, who we last heard from in full on 2019’s Madame X set. But on July 3, she finally returned, and with a sequel set to perhaps her most-beloved LP of this century to this point: Confessions II, follow-up to 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor.
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This week, the set debuts atop the Billboard 200 (dated July 18), with an impressive total of 134,000 first-week units. That number marks Madonna’s best first-week performance since 2012’s MDNA set, and includes her best single-week streaming numbers to date. (As her 10th career No. 1 album on the chart, it also makes her one of just four artists to have achieved double-digit No. 1s on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200.)
How was she able to achieve such a head-turning first-week performance so deep into her legendary pop career? And what classic ’00s album could be next to receive such a sequel? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
