all about Madonna

Madonna with Alek Keshishian, leaving the Waverly Inn after dining with Jerry Seinfeld and Gwyneth Paltrow (January 14 2009)

British eventer Daisy Trayford is heading to Florida this week to coach Madonna for two weeks at the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival (7 January-29 March) at Wellington, Florida.

Daisy, 27, has been teaching the popstar for two years with the connection starting when Madonna bought two horses from Exmoor Eventing, the business Daisy (née Binding) runs with her husband Richard.

“She had the horses on trial and asked if I would go down and help get her going on them,” said Daisy. “The first year it was really busy. Last year was more difficult because she was on tour, but I was there most weekends, fitting it around my eventing.”

Madonna flew one of the horses, all-rounder Boris, out to America six months ago and last week he was joined by the second one, young eventer Sportsfield Silver Lining.

“As soon as he’s there and settled in she wants me to go out,” said Daisy, who says she will probably get 24hr notice to fly out on Thursday or Friday.

Madonna has also bought two other horses from Daisy and Richard, who are at livery at Exmoor Eventing.

Daisy describes teaching Madonna as “really good fun”.

“She’s a dream pupil,” she said. “She’s very driven, listens to what you say and just wants to do it and improve. You can always get somewhere with someone like that.

“When I started teaching her she hadn’t jumped at all and now she can jump a course of 1.05m. Jumping and hacking are her two favourite things.”

Daisy says she wasn’t startstruck when she started coaching the star, taking it as “just another chore”.

“I’m pretty laid-back about things like that. She’s very friendly and we have been to things like Christmas drinks and her 50th birthday party and met lots of stars.”

Daisy is not the first eventer to teach Madonna, as in January 2006 Horse & Hound reported that Madonna was learning from William Fox-Pitt and particularly enjoyed riding Moon Man, who was put down in December.

source : horseandhound

It’s official: Madonna tops Calendar’s Ultimate Top 10, our annual survey combining sales of concert tickets, albums and digital downloads to measure which acts were most popular with the broadest swath of music lovers.

Madonna was the No. 1 concert attraction in North America during the year, according to Pollstar, the concert-tracking magazine, and she enjoyed album sales to the tune of $12.5 million in addition to downloads of $2.3 million.

For the year, there’s also a total split between Nielsen SoundScan’s ranking of the 10 biggest-selling performers of 2008 and Pollstar’s Top 10 highest-grossing North American concert tours.

In recent years the Pollstar and SoundScan rosters have veered away from one another. Typically, classic-rock acts that appeal to well-heeled baby boomers rake in the most money at box offices, while hot but still developing pop, R&B and hip-hop artists sell more albums.

The highest any Top 10 SoundScan act finished in Pollstar’s 2008 ranking was No. 13, where the Jonas Brothers (No. 7 among album sellers) landed after playing to 1.3 million fans last year.
Concert revenue hit $4.2 billion in 2008, according to Pollstar, a 7% rise over the previous year, even though the number of tickets sold was down. An 8.4% increase in average ticket prices was behind the rise, figures that are “astounding considering the economic environment in which they were generated,” Pollstar Editor Gary Bongiovanni said.

The road is still where artists tend to make the most money. Only three of the Nielsen SoundScan biggest-selling artists of 2008 — AC/DC, Coldplay and the Jonas Brothers — make the Ultimate Top 10, even folding in their revenue from digital track sales, which we began including in the Ultimate Top 10 ranking last year.

The best example? Taylor Swift sold more albums than any other act last year: 4 million, giving her $52 million in revenue from album sales using $13 as the average price of a CD. But she placed No. 12 in the Ultimate Top 10 calculations because she played only a handful of concerts as a headliner. She spent most of the year as a supporting act on Rascal Flatts’ tour.

That leaves the upper reaches of the Ultimate Top 10 to the veterans, and no one outperformed Madonna, whose combined income of $120 million is a drop from the previous year’s winner, the Police, which logged $140.7 million.
In fact, Madonna’s total is the lowest for a No. 1 since the Ultimate Top 10 began in 1997, when the Rolling Stones posted $100 million on concert ticket and album sales. The record belongs to ‘N Sync, which earned $212.9 million in 2000 at the height of teen pop.

Complete list :

1. Madonna ($120.1 million).

The Material Girl took in $105.3 million from touring, in addition to $14.8 million from music sales. It’s hard to decide what’s more impressive. The average gross at her shows, mostly in stadiums, was an eye-popping $5.5 million, and she drew about 36,000 people per show. Additionally, the average ticket price was $153.88, easily the highest among Pollstar’s Top 50 grossing tours. Worldwide, according to Pollstar, she amassed $281.6 million.

2. Celine Dion ($106.8 million)
3. Kenny Chesney ($95.7 million)
4. Eagles ($90.7 million)
5. AC/DC ($82 million)
6. Coldplay ($81.6 million)
7. Bon Jovi ($81.4 million)
8. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band ($79 million)
9. Jonas Brothers ($77.9 million)
10. Rascal Flatts ($77.1 million)

source : latimes

A host of unusual covers can be found on “Covered, A Revolution in Sound: Warner Bros. Records,” due Feb. 24 (available for pre-order at Amazon). On it, 11 current Warner Music Group acts cover a classic tune from the label’s back catalog.

Amongst the most intriguing are the Flaming Lips covering Madonna’s “Borderline” with help from Stardeath and White Dwarfs, the Black Keys taking on Captain Beefheart’s “Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles” and Mastodon teaming with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons for the Texas trio’s “Just Gt Paid.”

The project was introduced by Adam Sandler’s cover of Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane,” which he performed last month on “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

Here is the track list for “Covered, A Revolution in Sound”:

“Borderline” (Madonna), Flaming Lips with Stardeath and White Dwarfs
“Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles” (Captain Beefheart), the Black Keys
“A Case of You” (Joni Mitchell), Michelle Branch
“Here Comes a Regular” (the Replacements), Against Me!
“More Than This” (Roxy Music), Missy Higgins
“Into the Mystic (Van Morrison), James Otto
“Like a Hurricane” (Neil Young), Adam Sandler
“You Wreck Me” (Tom Petty), Taking Back Sunday
“Just Got Paid” ZZ Top), Mastodon with Billy Gibbons
“Burning Down The House” (Talking Heads), the Used
“Midlife Crisis” (Faith No More), Disturbed

source : billboard

Madonna out and about in New York (January 13 2009)

source : people

Guy Ritchie visited Madonna at her Manhattan residence (January 13 2009)

from Madonna.com :

Helping Malawi’s one million orphaned children is much easier than you think. By voting for Raising Malawi in this month’s MySpace Impact Awards, you can help Madonna’s charity win a (USD) 10,000 grant. So if you’ve always wanted to make an impact, now’s your chance. It’s fast, it’s free, and it can make a real difference in the lives of impoverished children. Go to www.myspace.com/impactawards. Vote for Raising Malawi today and every day thru January 26. A better future is at your fingertips.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen failed to charm the star-studded audience at the Golden Globes on Sunday – he drew a round of boos after mocking Madonna’s divorce from director husband Guy Ritchie.

The controversial funnyman stepped onstage to present the Best Comedy award to Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona at the Beverly Hills event.

He tried to humour the celebrity-packed crowd with jokes about the current global economic crisis and its effects on Hollywood – including one-liners about Victoria Beckham and Charlie Sheen.

But he received jeers after claiming Madonna had fired her “personal assistant” Ritchie due to the recession.

He told the unamused audience, “Madonna has had to get rid of one of her personal assistants. Our heart goes out to you, Guy Ritchie.”

The attack may come as a shock to the pop superstar – Cohen starred alongside the singer in the promo for her 2000 hit Music.

source : imdb

*UPDATE*

here’s the video :

Madonna with Steven Klein, going to a Waverly Inn Restaurant in New York (January 10 2009)

With each month’s finalist confirmed, vote now to determine the year’s overall winners. Voting ends on January 20 at 13:00 BST. Results will be published on the site the following day.

Sarah Michelle Gellar currently has more votes. Vote for Madonna at
HelloMagazine.com

Thanks to Didier