Early signs
indicated that Nothing Really Matters was
going to be a heavily promoted
international single, with its fun and
funky video and Madonna's performance of
the song as the opening number to the
1999 Grammy Awards. The Grammy
performance, and the four Grammy awards
that the Ray of Light album picked up,
helped shoot the album back into the Top
40 nearly a year after its release.
However, from there things went downhill
and WB seemed to give up on supporting
Nothing Really Matters.
It appears that soon after the decision
to promote Nothing Really Matters was
made, Madonna decided to discontinue her
plans for a 1999 summer/fall tour. At
this same time, she was beginning work on
two new songs: Beautiful Stranger for the
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
soundtrack and Be Careful (Cuidado Con Mi
Corazon), Madonna's duet with Latin pop
singer Ricky Martin. Speculation is that
as soon as WB realized Madonna was no
longer touring and would have a new song
from the Austin Powers soundtrack to
promote in May, they discontinued all
promotion for the Nothing Really Matters
single. A release date for the single was
continually pushed back, moved from early
to late March, and the single was finally
dumped to stores on April 13. Once again,
speculation is that the only reason we
got a single was because WB had already
printed them, figuring that it was better
just to ship out the singles in hopes of
recouping some of their money even if it
meant a poor chart performance.
Without promotion, Nothing Really Matters
suffered on the charts, only getting
enough airplay to appear on one airplay
chart: the Top 40 Mainstream chart.
However, what scant airplay the song did
have peaked a month before the release of
the single, dooming Nothing Really
Matters to be Madonna's lowest peaking
single ever at a measly 93, and easily
her shortest run on the Hot 100 at just
two weeks. It should also be noted that
Nothing Really Matters' failure would
have been less severe had it not been for
the recent change in the Hot 100, which
now allows airplay-only tracks to chart
and gives sales less weight. Under the
old rules, the song's performance would
probably have been similar to
"Bedtime Story."
Although Nothing Really Matters will
forever be remembered as a chart flop for
Madonna, many consider the song to be one
of her best pop efforts. Some fans also
consider this to be one of her most
imaginative videos to date, with arguably
the best set of remixes from the whole
Ray of Light project.
The video for
"Nothing Really Matters" was
heavily inspired by the book
"Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur
Golden, with Madonna modeling herself
after the character Hatsumomo. The video
is also unique in that it incorporates
all four major "elements": fire
(one man spins a stick with fire at each
end, heavy use of the color red), water
(Madonna and numerous people carry bags
of water), earth (there is lots of wood
and brown is prevalently used), and air
(several people seem to float through the
air defying gravity).
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