\u201cMadonna never reflects, she\u2019s always moving forward,\u201d Warner PR Liz Rosenberg told me in 2005, when after a frustrating few months laid up after a riding accident, Madonna re-emerged \u201clike a bullet from a gun\u201d with the glorious disco-driven Confessions on a Dance Floor, produced largely alongside Stuart Price. Madonna has always been militantly anti-nostalgia: continual reinvention is crucial to her artistic identity.<\/p>\n
But arguably, Confessions was \u2013 until last week \u2013 her last great record. Constantly trying to push forward has not always worked for Madonna, with the multiple producers and genres of her 2010s output often proving inconsistent and confusing: the muscular funk of 2008\u2019s Hard Candy<\/a>, the busy powerpop of 2015\u2019s Rebel Heart<\/a>, 2019\u2019s globe-straddling Madame X<\/a>. Leaving Warner Records in 2007 started the decline: Madonna had struck hugely lucrative deals with Live Nation and Interscope, but pressure to recoup that investment meant an element of compromise in her practice and adapting to another contemporary pop innovation: songwriting camps and production by committee. In 2015, Madonna complained to Rolling Stone about \u201cworking with people who can\u2019t get off their phone, can\u2019t stop tweeting, can\u2019t focus and finish a song\u201d.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/fc2321b4f2e5f1fa9dbd5b9260250b4fd4c7cf56\/903_68_1289_1032\/master\/1289.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=72d1276c10aa6ed0f9f99cf5e974fccc\" "\\"Madonna")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"