Madonna’s rebel heart on proud display at Boston's TD Garden

Truth or dare?

Truth: Madonna’s performance at TD Garden on Saturday night was a crowning achievement in a year that has unjustly denied her such moments.

Let me put it this way. The narrative surrounding Madonna in 2015 has not exactly been kind to the 57-year-old pop icon. You would think by now she has earned the right, and the public’s trust, to be whomever she wants. And yet the older she gets, the more she has to counter sexist questions of why she’s not acting her age ('I am,' she has said) and what is left for her to do.

Those critiques faded inside the Garden as Madonna reasserted a longstanding hallmark of her career: She is at her best and fights her hardest the minute you count her out.

'Tell me I’m no good/ And I’ll be great,' she sang on the opening 'Iconic,' a battle cry from this year’s “Rebel Heart,” a very good pop album that deserved to sell more than it did.

To read the rest of the review visit: www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music