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Music

Leaks, Deletes and Madonna's Social Media Problem

The Queen of Pop couldn't have chosen a worse time to compare her album leak to terrorism and rape.

Madonna is having a hard time keeping her music from leaking all over the Internet. Yesterday, 11 (alleged) songs from her upcoming album got spewed all over YouTube and various music websites, taking everyone by surprise. Sure, we saw the photos of her chumming around the studio with her new BFF Diplo. We read the rumors of her collaborations with everyone from Nicki Minaj to SOPHIE (on the same track, no less!). We even heard two other tracks, "Rebel Heart" and "Wash Over Me," that leaked over Thanksgiving weekend last month.

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But yesterday's premature release was the closest we've come to confirmation that Madonna's thirteenth studio album exists (if perhaps unfinished) and is either titled Iconic or Unapologetic Bitch.

Before we address the artist's response to this situation, let's consider the changing face of album leaks in the digital age. While label executives used to greet these fuck-ups with copious amounts of hand-wringing, albums that don't leak are now the exception to the rule. Websites like HasItLeaked.com cater to impatient fans by posting slick calendars populated by the latest premature releases (Madonna is at the top of today's list). Taylor Swift's 1989, Nicki MInaj's The Pinkprint, Iggy Azlea's The New Classic, and Lights' Little Machines are just a sampling of the albums that could have been heard before their release dates this year. Music industry executives are still fighting the scourge with security measures and swift counter-measures, like asking YouTube to take illegal streams offline. But there's no doubt that leaks have become so common these days, they're practically factored into an album's rollout plan. Some artists have come to see the silver lining to this grim new reality—at least fans care enough to hunt down your music. When Our Love came out months before its due date, Caribou's Dan Snaith admitted, "In some way, it's gotta mean somebody's excited about hearing [it]."

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Madonna's response to her album's leak (via a since-deleted post on Instagram) was more tone-deaf, not only to the realities of the industry in 2014 but to the world at at large. "This is artistic rape!! These are early leaked demo's [sic] half of which wont even make it on my album the other half have changed and evolved," she wrote. "This is a form of terrorism. Wtf!!!!" In an earlier Instagram entry, she assumed a more passive-aggressive tone: "Thank you for not listening! Thank you for your loyalty!"

Madonna couldn't have chosen a worse time to compare the leak of her unfinished demos to terrorism and rape. Just this week, the world was stunned by North Korea's cyber attacks on Sony, gripped by a deadly hostage crisis in Sydney, and deeply saddened by a horrific Taliban school massacre that killed 132 children. Rape has also been a theme dominating news headlines, with recent controversies surrounding Bill Cosby, Uber, assault on college campuses, and the Rolling Stone magazine story on a UVA student's gang rape prompting larger discussions around sexual violence. At their worst, Madonna's comments made the star look incredibly foolish—like a child crying over a knee scrape while the world burns around her.

But maybe we should give Madge the benefit of the doubt. We have reason to believe she actually does read a newspaper now and then. After all, she's repeatedly demonstrated her commitment to humanitarian causes, including starting a non-profit called Art For Freedom that supports artists bringing awareness to human rights violations through their work (VICE was a collaborator on the project). It's reasonable to assume that unlike many celebrities, Madge isn't really locked in a private world of narcissism. Maybe she made those comments in an attempt to be shocking and provocative. It wouldn't be the first time she's done that.

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The problem is that Madonna in the age of social media is utterly uncensored. Two decades ago, when she was reveling in sexual fetishes in Erotica and the NC-17 movie Body of Evidence, exploring sadomasochism in her coffee table book Sex, or rubbing her crotch on the 1990 cover of Interview, (24 years before appearing topless in the same magazine), there were multiple layers of barriers between her and her audience. These levels of filters, including publicists, managers, and editors, allowed her to master the art of provocation with a pause button between the artist's thoughts and the world's eyeballs. Now, when she wants to compare an album leak to terrorism and rape, there's no one around to stop her.

While she might not be aware of it, album leaks in 2014 aren't that big of a deal, though they definitely suck for the artist (and we aren't endorsing them). That said, we're in an age when record sales are a virtually non-existant component of any artist's revenue scheme; this is why Madonna left a traditional album deal structure and signed a landmark 360 deal with Live Nation in 2007.

What makes someone a "real" fan is not refraining from listening to a leak out of loyalty, but caring enough to listen in the first place. Beyond that, someone needs to teach Madonna how to be more careful with her Instagram—or take away her password altogether.

@MichelleLhooq