The Immaculate Collection

The Immaculate Collection is the first greatest hits album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on November 9, 1990 by Sire Records. It contains fifteen of her hit singles from 1983 to 1990, as well as two new tracks, "Justify My Love" and "Rescue Me". The title of the album is a loose pun of the Immaculate Conception, the conception of the Virgin Mary without any stain of the original sin. This name follows Madonna's religious-themed songs and videos, as well as the second section of her Blond Ambition World Tour, which also employed religious motifs. An extended play titled The Holiday Collection was issued in Europe to accompany the compilation and the re-release of the single "Holiday". It contained tracks omitted from this album: "True Blue", "Who's That Girl" and "Causing a Commotion". It is the first album ever to use an audio technology called QSound.
The album was ranked at number one on the Blender magazine's list of "100 Greatest American Albums of All Time". In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine named the album the 278th greatest album of all time. It became Madonna's second album to be certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America for shipment of over 10 million copies across the United States. It spent the second highest number of consecutive weeks at number one for a female solo artist in the U.K., being at number one for a 9 week stint. The album has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling compilation album by a solo artist and one of the best selling albums of all time. "Justify My Love", the album's first single, became Madonna's ninth number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and was one of her most controversial singles due to its sexually explicit music video. "Rescue Me" was released as the second single and became the highest-debuting single on Hot 100 by a female artist at that time, entering the chart at number fifteen and peaking at number nine.