Madonna Releases A Large Chunk of New Album as “Christmas Gift”/Retaliation Against “Artistic Rape”

Madonna’s relationship with the public has been particularly called into question of late, primarily due to her Instagram account. This rapport intensified after the majority of the album, now officially called Rebel Heart, was leaked and M responded (on Instagram, of course) with the quote “This is artistic rape!! These are early leaked demos, half of which won’t even make it on my album, the other half have changed and evolved. This is a form of terrorism.” The words “rape” and “terrorism” caused particular offense on the heels of world events like a UVA student’s gang rape and a Taliban terrorist attack that killed 132 children. Perhaps regretting her harshness toward fans and in general, Madonna (somewhat like Beyonce last year) unexpectedly released a huge chunk of her album, six songs, to be exact, including, “Living For Love,” “Devil Pray,” “Ghosttown,” “Unapologetic Bitch,” “Illuminati” and “Bitch I’m Madonna.”

The first single from Rebel Heart, “Living for Love” is perhaps a combination dig at Madonna’s many recent exes (e.g. Jesus Luz, Brahim Zaibat and Timor Steffens) as she sings, “I let down my guard/I fell into your arms/Forgot who I was/I didn’t hear the alarms.” In spite of her consistent disappointments in love, Madonna espouses the notion that living for love remains what life is all about.

“Devil Pray” is the requisite religious-themed song that has appeared on most Madonna albums since Like A Prayer, featuring a somewhat subliminal unintelligible illuminati chant (a reference to another song on the album, “Illuminati”) of “Who will save us?” over and over again. Some may be unconvinced of her singing, “And we can do drugs and we can smoke weed and we can drop acid,” but if you’re on either of the aforementioned, it’s easy to gloss over. Although the song appears to be about promoting the use of drugs–both tangible and metaphorical, it’s really about seeking salvation from them as she asks, “Mother Mary can’t you help me? The ground beneath me’s getting warmer/Lucifer is getting nearer.”

“Ghosttown” possesses the combination of mid- and fast tempos that has helped Madonna evade the curse of being accused of balladry in her later years, and continues to address her heartbreak with the assertion, “When there’s no one, no one else around/We’ll be two souls in a ghost town.” Following is the Rasta feel of “Unapologetic Bitch,” a musical vibe that’s largely due to the pervasive Diplo influence on the album. Madonna admits, “It might sound like I’m an unapologetic bitch, but sometimes I gotta call it like it is.” Amen.

With a somewhat sinister backbeat, “Illuminati,” appropriately produced by Kanye West, addresses the common conspiracy theory that parties like Jay-Z, Beyonce and, surprisingly, Lady Gaga are members of an elite secret society of celebrities, noting that “the all-seeing eye is watching tonight.” Next up is the most likely song to get stuck in your head, “Bitch I’m Madonna,” again produced by Diplo and featuring Nicki Minaj. The lyric “We go hard or we go home” makes sense now after seeing Minaj and Madonna on Instagram with the same quote in recent months. Asserting that she can do pretty much anything she wants throughout the track, Madonna still manages to make her ego work to her musical benefit.

So there you have it, a magical Christmas gift that proves that 1) M knows how to execute vengeance 2) is still capable of shocking us all and 3) always knows that the key to a successful album is the right producers.