If Madonna wanted another #1 song she could drag Katy Perry or Ariana Grande or hell, Taylor Swift as a featured artist and nab that hit.

Chalk it up to her age, the impression that she’s clinging to youth or the fickle nature of music appreciation. It’s the kind of song that would have been a big hit for her in the first half of her career before media and radio (and fans, to be honest) turned their back on her. The album opens with “Living for Love” and it’s classic Madonna but with Diplo’s careful (for once) touch of modern club dance. The super deluxe version, consisting of 25 songs, is a massive, ballsy effort and even if she could have subscribed to the ‘less is more’ adage, it’s epic, richly thematic and contains some of the best vocals of her career. With the release of Rebel Heart, her 13 th studio album in a career spanning over 30 years, Madonna has brought us her best work in over a decade.

But, as the song goes and as Madonna has lived her entire career, she’s gonna carry on. And if that weren’t enough, during a performance of the album’s lead single, “Living for Love” at the BRIT Awards last week, a costume malfunction found her pulled down the stairs of her stage set, giving her whiplash and making her the butt of age jokes across the internet. Then, in February, the entirety of the Super Deluxe version of the album, Rebel Heart, was leaked. Just before Christmas last year a handful of demos from her new album were leaked to the public and she and Interscope had to frantically release six finished tracks for an album that was three months from release. Rebel Heart, in all of its versions, Madonna’s 13th studio album (photo credit: )

Madonna rebel heart demos