The President thinks he has his hands full now with the war on cyber terrorism, but perhaps he hasn’t noticed the cruise missile screaming its way towards another highly esteemed artistic institution: Madonna.
First, a brief chronicle of the events thus far:
November 2014: Sometime around the end of the month, “the leak”officially began. Madge’s manager, Guy Oseary, hit Twitter on November 28th in hopes of stopping the trickle of stolen music from turning into a full on deluge:
I would be grateful to any @madonna fans that can assist us in finding those responsible for the leak.. We appreciate your help..
— Guy Oseary (@guyoseary) November 28, 2014
Madge, herself, responded with this Instagram depicting the state of her fragile life-muscle:
https://instagram.com/p/wMTISBmEUV/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=photo
December 17th, 2014: ONTD posts a full track list of all 13 songs that have been leaked to the internet, along with links to the music and production credits which include Kanye West and DIPLO among others. Madonna, appropriately, loses her sh*t with this now deleted Instagram post:
This is artistic rape!! These are early leaked demo’s half of which wont even make it on my album the other half have changed and evolved. This is a form of terrorism. Wtf!!!! Why do people want to destory artistic process??? Why steal? Why not give me the opportunity to finish and give you my very best?
And then this:
https://instagram.com/p/wto14lGEa8/?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=embed&utm_campaign=photo
December 20th, 2014: Madonna goes on the offensive by releasing six tracks from her upcoming Rebel Heart. The tracks shoot to the top of the iTunes charts in 36 countries.
On Sunday, Madonna spoke with The Guardian regarding the “rape” and “terrorism” perpetrated upon her artistic endeavors. Among comments like, “Obviously there is a person, or a group of people behind this that were essentially terrorizing me,” the interview provided some insight into a scandal that could bring America’s liberties to its knees. The theories are vast and conspiratorial in nature.
It Was North Korea
Why not? North Korea has already maybe or maybe not hacked into Sony’s database, releasing a flood of personal emails under the guise of the “Guardians of Peace,” so why wouldn’t they attempt to derail another cherished pillar of our culture? In the wake of the Sony scandal, Madonna has had to rethink how she releases the precious jewels she bequeaths upon us.
It’s alarming. Alarming because what do we do as artists? We want to finish writing our book or editing our film, we want to finish writing or producing our music. People need the arts, we need to be inspired, we need to hear people’s records and see people’s films. Why destroy that process for creative people? It’s going to affect everybody.
It Was Anonymous
Anonymous has already shown that their politically-minded exploits are not above attacking female musicians. Madge gave some credence to this theory by supposing that this is not the work of one singular entity, but possibly the work of a terrorist cell extracting its vengeance upon a pop sensation for not churning out a better James Bond theme song.
Images were coming out that I’d never seen before. It was then I started to think ok, what’s happening? What is the source of the leak? It’s not just one person, or someone sitting next to me in an office, or someone in a recording studio. I’ve had leaks before, a couple of weeks before an album was released, a lot of other artists have too, we all have to deal with that. But to have songs in the earliest demo form, from last March, that’s extremely disturbing to me.
It Was The Illuminati
One of Madonna’s tracks on her new album is called “Illuminati,” which makes light of the many conspiracy theories circulating about a shadowy group of celebrities and power magnates that supposedly control the direction of our culture and economy. Knocking on the devil’s door is never a good idea, and it may be the case that the secretive sect — allegedly controlled by Jay Z — may have rebelled against the lampooning nature of the song. Madonna, though, dispels any notion that the Illuminati exists, because the greatest trick the devil ever pulled…
There’s a lot of talk in pop music right now about people saying, ‘Oh, this person’s a member of the Illuminati,’ or they’re Illuminati, or you’re Illuminati, and people’s idea that there’s a group of entertainers or very wealthy people, they’re referred to as the Illuminati, and they work behind the scenes and they control things and they’re very powerful, and there’s possibly a reference to something dark, or black magic, or something like that. And I have to say I laugh at all of those things.
It Was Madonna
Madonna, you sly little devil. You think we didn’t catch that part where your half-released album rocketed to the top of iTunes in merely a day? That fact was not lost upon us. You may try to direct our attention towards terrorists or the Illuminati, but the fact remains that you’re still doing numbers after decades in the business, and that’s quite a feat. Just like your top hat, jewel-studded outfits suggest, “Material Girl,” you are quite the magician. Now go and be the magical beast that you are, you shrewd scoundrel, you.
