Madonna’s surprise appearance in New York: dance floor in Times Square

Madonna sits under a pink veil, she throws it off and her song “I Feel So Free” begins. Hundreds of people on the sidewalks, canopies and galleries look up to her cheering. This is how you create a show highlight in the middle of New York. It’s Thursday evening and Madonna is starting the hot promotional phase of her new album “Confessions II”, which will be released on July 3rd, with a free concert.

It’s a spectacular, perfectly calculated move that will be streamed live and follows Madonna’s surprise Coachella performance alongside Sabrina Carpenter. This time the 67-year-old singer is accompanied by Stuart Price, who is turning the buttons behind the DJ booth. He produced the new album, just like Madonna’s “Confessions On A Dancefloor” from 2005, her last really convincing work, which she now wants to follow up on.

And so the single “I Feel So Free,” released in April, sounds like a mildly modernized continuation of the sound from back then. The following Carpenter duet “Bring Your Love” goes in the direction of house pop and triggers screams of joy in Times Square with the first beats. Instead of with her young colleague, Madonna presents the song with two dancers on the silver turntable.

All three wear pink and purple corsages and stretch around each other until one of the dancers lies on her back, raises her pelvis in the air and Madonna squats over her private parts with her legs spread. As she moves around there, memories of her legendary stage kisses with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera come to mind. After all, Madonna has been sex-positive and queer-friendly for decades.

She is currently increasingly seeking proximity to the LGBTIQ community, especially gays. The appearance in Times Square is presented by the provider of the gay dating app Grindr, whose mask logo is omnipresent on the big screens. Madonna also surprised users in the app itself a few weeks ago with small advertising announcements (“Hello Grindr! This is Mother!”).

The fact that she scheduled her free appearance at the beginning of the Pride month of June is also no coincidence. About halfway through the 15-minute concert, the stage lights up in rainbow colors, solemn strings play, Madonna takes off her blue sunglasses and stands moved on her podium, while the screens show photos of the New York Stonewall uprising and queer icons like Marsha P. Johnson and Keith Haring.

With “Love Sensation” she only plays a completely new song, the production of which seems to be inspired by Daft Punk. You also occasionally have to think of Modjo’s “Lady” in this piece with strong noughties vibes. She has the message “There’s nothing that we cannot do” repeated by the audience. Otherwise, the interactions remain sparse; for the most part it seems to be a playback show anyway. But that doesn’t detract from the spectacle.

Staging as “Mother”

When it comes to dancing, Madonna largely limits herself to posing effectively in knee-high silver boots. Sometimes she sticks the microphone into her neckline, sometimes she twirls her jacket over her head. Thanks to the turntable, your bottom, which is peeking out from under your mini fluttering skirt, also gets some air time. What fans in particular can follow online.

The fact that Madonna repeatedly refers to herself as Mother is a reference to the voguing culture, in which “houses” led by “mothers” compete against each other in competitions. With her hit “Vogue,” the singer made this New York underground culture known to a wider audience in the early 1990s. The Mother title perhaps even suits Madonna better than the Queen of Pop label, as there are many worthy successors around the throne these days, from Lady Gaga to Charlie xcx to Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift.

When Madonna closes her set with “I Love New York” and the indestructible “Hung Up” – both from the first “Confessions” album – it becomes clear once again why she has worn the crown for so long. Based on the songs released so far, it seems unlikely that the successor will reach this level. However, it should be better than the aimless “Madame X” from 2019.