It looks as though there's been another casualty of Madonna and Guy Ritchie's divorce, as it's just emerged that her recent single Miles Away has the dubious honour of being her worst-performing UK release ever. And this time, it can't all be down to the more general crisis sweeping the music industry.
Around the time of its release, I blogged here about the ill omens surrounding her album Hard Candy. Roping in the world's urban superproducers might have been an attempt to restore her normal pop hegemony, but on 4 Minutes to Save the World it had the unfortunate effect of reducing her to guest star status on her own single. Its follow-up, the Pharrell-fronted Give It 2 Me, wasn't much better, and now she's finally taken centre stage on single three, look what's happened.
Miles Away isn't a terrible song, just an anaemic rewrite of her 2006 single Jump. But the unfortunate circumstances surrounding its release certainly haven't helped the single's cause. For one, the song – a mid-paced lament about loving from a distance – obviously addresses her relationship with Ritchie, and you do wonder why she's released it now. Of course, we don't know the real ins and outs, and I've always been wildly against the idea that somebody's personal life should have anything to with pop's grand artifice. But it was hardly a smart move to do what she did in Boston in October, dedicating the song to "anybody who knows someone who is emotionally retarded – God knows I do!"
It seems what was intended as a (calculated at absolute best) move to use her songs as a pawn in the game for public sympathy has backfired in spectacular style. Madonna just isn't convincing as a victim anymore, and while Ritchie has hardly handled himself with extremes of dignity, Miles Away's tanking is the surest sign yet that he's winning the propaganda war.
Now, Madonna's had career downturns before; Erotica, American Life and American Pie, to name the worst. And you have to question the wisdom of releasing a borderline-R&B track during the season of the power ballad. But it doesn't look good. What could save her now? If only she'd shown her usual skill for predicting trends and released an emotive version of Hallelujah to go with all the rest ...
