Madonna on New Album and 'Possibly' Crashing the Grammys
Tuesday, 23 December 2014
It’s a rather large understatement to say that it’s been a crazy couple of weeks for Madonna.
On Tuesday night, more than 10 of the singer’s unreleased demo recordings turned up on the Internet, causing the singer and her team to go into 'overdrive' to combat the stolen leaks. ('I haven’t slept in a week,' she says.) The songs were from the sessions for her forthcoming 13th studio album, which at the time, had not been announced (and is still not finished).
To counter the leak, Madonna accelerated the release of new music: On Friday night (Dec. 19), she announced that her album, Rebel Heart, would be released on March 10, 2015 through Interscope Records, and six of its tracks would become immediately available to purchase. Among those tracks are the set’s lead single, the Diplo-produced soul-meets-house jam 'Living For Love.' How far ahead of schedule was the release? The single wasn’t supposed to premiere until Feb. 14, 2015.
The album - which features a collaboration with Nicki Minaj - is also available to pre-order, and has topped the iTunes Store's top albums tally in more than 40 countries, including the United States. She also dominated the real time Billboard + Twitter Trending 140 chart on Saturday night (Dec. 20), where two of the album’s songs ('Living For Love' and 'Bitch, I’m Madonna') were concurrently in the top three.
Billboard spoke to Madonna on Sunday morning via phone, to talk about her new album, its 'chaotic' recording process, and how her day-to-day business has changed because of the leaks. She also discusses her fondness of Diplo (he’s a 'badass'), a possible Grammy Awards performance, and how no one has ever called her an 'Unapologetic Bitch.'
Billboard: How are you doing?
Madonna: I'm good. I'm good, I haven't slept in a week, but I'm good.
I can only imagine the week that you've had so far.
Yeah. It's been a very intense couple of weeks.
Are you OK right now? As OK as you can be considering what's been happening?
Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm not happy that unreleased demos are out there in the world for people to hear, listen, judge, etcetera, etcetera. Once that happened we went into overdrive. A) Trying to figure out where the leaks were coming from, and then B) Trying to combat that with putting out finished music that people could focus on versus demos that were never meant for anyone to hear. So, that led to no sleep.
Did at any point you turn to someone and say 'Bitch, I'm Madonna,' this shouldn't be happening to me?
No. I said, 'Shit, this is the age that we're living in.' It's crazy. I mean, look at what's going on with Sony Pictures. It's just the age that we're living in. It's crazy times. The Internet is as constructive and helpful in bringing to people together as it is in doing dangerous things and hurting people. It's a double-edged sword.
To read the rest of the lengthy interview visit: www.billboard.com/articles
OH MY GOD!! Just read a story bout the new album. The leaks and the six burning hot new tracks from the new album. So I just listened to each track twice. Listening again for the third time while writing this. Amazing!! Crazy Amazing; ) thank you Madonna. And not one new music drop but 3 new madonna music drops over the next couple of months. You me and everybody just got made. Madonna and her team may have just, because of the leaks, just lucked into a new great delivery system for her album. Thank god it's 19 tracks. It's like dropping 3 EPs in 4 months. All the songs are smashes. She sounds just amazing voice tone attitude and a looser lyrical style song style. It's hooky as all hell. Just so freakin excited about the rest. Hope there are a few sweepingly emotional songs. Madonna just sounds so damn good and strong it be a shame to not have some ballads on this album.
Posted by: Kevin N | Tuesday, 23 December 2014 at 05:11 AM