Madonna’s First Song To Reach One Billion Views On YouTube Might Surprise You

Madonna will forever be the queen of pop, but she’s also the queen of groundbreaking music videos. It’s surprising then that, until now, none of them had reached one billion views on YouTube.

via: People

Madonna's 1986 hit song "La Isla Bonita" from her album True Blue became the seven-time-Grammy-winner's first music video to hit 1 billion views on YouTube. The video was directed by Mary Lambert, known for her work on music videos for Janet Jackson, Sting, the Eurythmics, and Madonna's "Like A Virgin," "Material Girl," and more.

The Latin music-inspired single features Spanish flamenco guitar and maracas. Madonna, 66, is seen playing two versions of the same person – one wearing a red dress akin to the typical regalia of flamenco dancers as she dances through a candlelit room, and the other a young Catholic woman secretly crushing on a musician playing live on the street below.

While "La Isla Bonita" now holds the record for Madonna's most viewed music video on YouTube, the music video for her 1989 song "Like A Prayer" held the most cultural notoriety when it was released. The track stirred controversy at the time for its use of Catholic religious imagery in a sensual context.

The song and video play to Madonna's signature strengths, and explore the push and pull between her Catholic identity with her sexuality. Similar themes are famously explored in her smash hit "Like A Virgin" and throughout her career.

"La Isla Bonita" got a new lease on life in part due to a series of TikTok trends. Over 200,000 videos have been posted to this sound in the past year, with users often soundtracking their fashion and vacation videos with the song.

Madonna's next most-viewed videos on YouTube are "Hung Up," with 531 million views, "Bitch I'm Madonna" featuring Nikki Minaj with 368 million views, followed by "Like a Prayer" with 341 million views.

In December 2024, the pop music icon announced plans to release new music in 2025, and confirmed she was working with producer Stuart Price once again. Price and Madonna previously collaborated on her 2005 tracks "Get Together," "Jump," and more. Price has also worked with Kylie Minogue, The Killers and Pet Shop Boys.

"These past few months has been medicine for my SOUL. Songwriting and making music is the one area where I don’t need to ask anyone for their permission.. i’m so excited to share it with you," she wrote on Instagram.

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I would have thought Open Your Heart, Live To Tell, Vogue, Cherish, Express Yourself, Like A Prayer, Hung Up or even Like a Virgin would have hit one billion streams before La Isla Bonita. Then again, Madonna has performed the song on every world tour she has done so I shouldn't be surprised by the song's success.