Her greatest-hits compilation becomes one of the best-selling compilation albums by a solo artist in history.
Released on November 6, 1990, The Immaculate Collection compiled Madonna's biggest hits from 1983 to 1990, including two new tracks, 'Justify My Love' and 'Rescue Me,' both produced with the assistance of Lenny Kravitz and Andre Betts (for the former) and Shep Pettibone.
The album was among the first major pop compilations to be specifically remastered and remixed for the compact disc format under the emerging QSound audio technology, offering an enhanced spatial listening experience that was innovative for its time.
Commercially, the compilation was a phenomenon, eventually selling over 30 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling greatest-hits albums by a solo artist ever released and one of the best-selling albums of all time in several markets, including the United Kingdom, where it remains among the best-selling albums by a female artist.
The Immaculate Collection cemented Madonna's status as a defining singles artist of the 1980s, distilling nearly a decade of chart dominance into a single definitive release. Its massive commercial success also demonstrated the continuing viability and demand for physical greatest-hits packages in the early CD era, influencing how record labels approached compilation releases for other major pop artists throughout the 1990s.