{"id":811850,"date":"2026-10-23T23:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T23:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811850\/"},"modified":"2026-10-23T23:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T23:18:09","slug":"in-1998-linda-ronstadt-wrote-off-madonna-400000000-albums-sales-later-the-world-did-not-agree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/811850\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1998, Linda Ronstadt wrote off Madonna. 400,000,000 albums sales later, the world did not agree"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"In<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Circacies \/ Sire Records<\/p>\n

October 23rd, 2026 \u00b7 9:30pm BST <\/p>\n

Linda Ronstadt<\/a> didn\u2019t really need to be cagey about any of her musical opinions. <\/p>\n

She knew that there was a hierarchy when it came to great pop singers, and even though there were plenty of artists that she needed to live up to, there were others that she found to be the most fun to sing with, no matter what era she found herself in. But even if she worked with some of the greatest legends, there were always going to be those few people who had a different kind of charisma whenever they got onstage to sing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As far as Ronstadt could tell, though, the live stage is where she was able to truly be herself. Some of the biggest opportunities that she ever had came when she was up there with some of the greatest musicians that she could find, and while the studio was a much different environment, it wasn\u2019t until the 1990s before she felt that there was a lot more that she had to offer in the studio other than just singing the songs that she had already been belting out in the clubs.<\/p>\n

All of the window dressing of being in the studio wasn\u2019t her idea of a good time, but given where the 1980s were about to go, she couldn\u2019t have picked a better time to leave the traditional pop industry behind. Some of the biggest stars of all time were now having to show their stuff on MTV, and while Ronstadt wasn\u2019t cut out for that kind of work when she was singing standards with Nelson Riddle<\/a>, there were still some incredible voices out there when she bothered to look for them.<\/p>\n

She knew that Annie Lennox had one of the finest voices<\/a> that she had ever heard when listening to those early Eurythmics songs, and Sinead O\u2019Connor was responsible for one of her all-time favourite vocal performances on \u2018Nothing Compares 2 U\u2019, but there were just as many people who didn\u2019t seem to gel right with her. She knew that the main objective was the spectacle in the 1980s, and Madonna seemed to radiate that out of every pore in her body.<\/p>\n

While people like Lennox were a bit hesitant when she saw Madonna\u2019s performance of \u2018Like a Virgin\u2019 at the MTV Video Music Awards, Ronstadt understood what she was going for immediately. It was all about getting the most eyes on her when she was singing all of her tunes, but that didn\u2019t always translate to her being a good singer whenever Ronstadt heard her sing tunes like \u2018Holiday\u2019 or \u2018Like a Prayer\u2019.<\/p>\n

She was a fabulous entertainer, but Ronstadt was much more comfortable sticking with the classics than listening to Madonna, saying,<\/a> \u201cMadonna, she\u2019s more an entertainer than she\u2019s a singer. Celine Dion is a voice. Madonna\u2019s not much of a singer but she\u2019s a stylist, and she does something that\u2019s evocative.\u201d Given the massive fanbase she has garnered over the years, though, it\u2019s not like the rest of the world necessarily agrees. <\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

Since Madonna has become one of the highest-selling singers in the world, that\u2019s a lot of people who are listening to a \u201cbad\u201d singer, but Ronstadt did have a point about being a stylist. Madonna didn\u2019t need to have some stratospheric range, but when you look through all of her albums, it\u2019s all about her trying to find a different space within her voice or finding a way to fit her voice into something new and exciting, whether that\u2019s her going electronic on Ray of Light or throwing it back to her days of making dance music on Confessions on a Dance Floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ronstadt could have given her opinion on what Madonna was supposed to be doing as a singer, but Madonna was the last person to listen to what the true professionals wanted her to do. She lived to go against the grain, and the least that Ronstadt could do was look on and see what the next outrageous move she was going to pull alongside all of the other musical mavericks of her time.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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