Madonna’s new album hits No. 1 on the Billboard charts

VPM | By Stephen Thompson

Published July 17, 2026 at 8:19 PM EDT

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

The ’80s are back – on this week’s pop charts, at least. The 1980s were a huge decade for Madonna, for Michael Jackson, for Bruce Springsteen, for Journey. And this week, they are all back on the charts. Here is NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson.

STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: Madonna was one of the biggest stars of the 1980s as she exploded across the charts with hits like “Borderline,” “Crazy For You” and “Like A Virgin.”

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “LIKE A VIRGIN”)

MADONNA: (Singing) Like a virgin, hey, touched for the very first time.

THOMPSON: Madonna’s output has slowed down in recent years, but when she does release music, she still has the power to make her presence felt on the Billboard charts. This week, her new dance pop album “Confessions II” debuts at No. 1. It’s the tenth album of her career to hit the top of the Billboard 200.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BRING YOUR LOVE”)

MADONNA AND SABRINA CARPENTER: (Singing) Bring your love ’cause you cannot shake me. Bring your love ’cause you’ll never break me. Bring your love.

THOMPSON: That’s “Bring Your Love” featuring Sabrina Carpenter. It’s the only song from “Confessions II” to have cracked the singles chart. The album hasn’t done huge business on streaming, and it hasn’t attracted much radio airplay, either. But “Confessions II” did sell 114,000 copies in its first week, demonstrating that Madonna still reaches a loyal army of fans. Madonna isn’t the only superstar from the 1980s to turn up on this week’s charts.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BORN IN THE USA”)

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) Born in the USA. I was born in the USA. I was born in the…

THOMPSON: Because of the July 4 holiday, a bunch of old America-themed songs come blazing back onto this week’s Hot 100, including “Born In The USA” by Bruce Springsteen. That song is joined by other old hits by Toby Keith, Miley Cyrus, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Creedence Clearwater Revival. And in keeping with our ’80s theme, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'” is back in the Top 40.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DON’T STOP BELIEVIN'”)

JOURNEY: (Singing) Strangers, waiting, looking down the boulevard. Their shadows…

THOMPSON: So if you’re a child of the ’80s, this week’s charts are for you. You’ve got Madonna at No. 1, Bruce Springsteen, Journey. And of course, Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” is still in the Top 10, thanks to the singer’s hit biopic from earlier this year. Stephen Thompson, NPR Music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DON’T STOP BELIEVIN'”)

JOURNEY: (Singing) Somewhere in the night. Don’t stop believing. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

In 1993, Thompson founded The Onion's entertainment section, The A.V. Club, which he edited — alongside duties as The Onion's copy editor — until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music- and pop-culture-themed commentaries for NPR programs such as Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Morning Edition, on which he earned the distinction of becoming the first member of the NPR Music staff ever to sing on an NPR newsmagazine. (Later, the magic of AutoTune transformed him from a 12th-rate David Archuleta into a fourth-rate Cher.) Thompson's entertainment writing has also run in Paste magazine, The Washington Post and The London Guardian.

During his tenure at The Onion, Thompson edited the 2002 book The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (Crown) and copy-edited six best-selling comedy books. While there, he also coached The Onion's softball team to a sizzling 21-42 record, and was once outscored 72-0 in a span of 10 innings. Later in life, Thompson redeemed himself by teaming up with the small gaggle of fleet-footed twentysomethings who won the 2008 NPR Relay Race, a triumph he documents in a hard-hitting essay for the book This Is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle).

A 1994 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Thompson now lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his girlfriend, their three cats and a room full of vintage arcade machines. (He also has two adult children who've headed off to college but still call once in a while.) Thompson's hobbies include watching reality television without shame, eating Pringles until his hand has involuntarily twisted itself into a gnarled claw, using the size of his Twitter following to assess his self-worth, touting the immutable moral superiority of the Green Bay Packers (who returned the favor by making a 22-minute documentary about his life) and maintaining a fierce rivalry with all Midwestern states other than Wisconsin.

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