Rebel Heart is the thirteenth studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released by Interscope Records on March 6, 2015. She worked on the album throughout 2014, co-writing and co-producing it with musicians including Diplo, Sophie Xeon, Avicii, and Kanye West. The album also features guest vocals from boxer Mike Tyson and rappers Nicki Minaj, Nas, and Chance the Rapper.
Thematically, Rebel Heart represents the singer's romantic and rebellious sides; the ideas grew organically during the writing and recording sessions. Musically, it is a pop record that merges genres such as 1990s house, trap, and reggae, while using acoustic guitars and a gospel choir. Some songs are autobiographical, while others discuss love and Madonna's career. Unlike her previous work, the large number of collaborators made it difficult for Madonna to maintain a cohesive sound and creative direction.
The record was scheduled for release in March 2015, and the first single was slated for release on Valentine's Day. However, after a series of unexpected album-content leaks, Madonna made Rebel Heart available for pre-order on the iTunes Store on December 20, 2014, with six songs available immediately for download. A police investigation led to the arrest and indictment of an Israeli man accused of hacking into Madonna's computer and leaking the songs. The album's artwork became popular on social media, prompting numerous memes.
To promote Rebel Heart, Madonna made several television appearances and embarked on the Rebel Heart Tour, which visited North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania from September 2015 to March 2016. "Living for Love", "Ghosttown", "Bitch I'm Madonna", and "Hold Tight" were released as singles from the album. Rebel Heart received predominantly positive reviews from music critics; multiple reviewers called it Madonna's best effort in a decade. It reached number one in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, and Switzerland. Rebel Heart was certified gold or platinum in seven countries.
Background and development Following the release of her twelfth studio album, MDNA (2012), Madonna embarked on The MDNA Tour to promote it. The tour created widespread controversy over her statements on violence, human rights, politics, her use of fake firearms, and her on-stage nudity. She was threatened with several lawsuits. Madonna was angered by several world events, which she described as acts of "injustice" against humanity. In September 2013, she released Secretprojectrevolution, a short film about artistic freedom and human rights that she directed with Steven Klein. The film launched a global initiative known as Art for Freedom to promote freedom of expression. Madonna said in a L'Uomo Vogue interview that her next album would be connected to Art for Freedom, adding that she was committed to the initiative and had to use her voice as an artist.
By December 2013, Madonna's manager Guy Oseary commented that the singer was "eager to get started" on her next album. However, she had another project in mind: developing the screenplay for a film adaptation of Andrew Sean Greer's novel The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells. Madonna decided to split her time between writing the screenplay and writing songs for the new album. In February 2014, Madonna confirmed she had begun working on her thirteenth studio album. Her previous work had been produced with a small core group of people developing the music. Working with many collaborators on Rebel Heart, Madonna encountered problems keeping a cohesive sound and creative direction for it. She observed that many of the people she enlisted to work on the album could not stay in one city for any length of time due to their schedules. As a result, she did not finish songs in a single session. "It was challenging ... with people coming and going in a revolving door of creativity".
Writing and recording sessions
In March 2014, Madonna began posting a number of images on Instagram hinting at possible songwriters and collaborators with hashtag captions. First, she posted about going into the recording studio with Swedish DJ and producer Avicii. Record producer Carl Falk spoke with the Dagens Nyheter newspaper in April 2014 about these sessions. He recalled that eleven demos with acoustic guitars and piano were recorded within a week at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood. Avicii's manager Arash "Ash" Pour Nouri selected six people. They were divided into two groups, the first consisted of Falk, Rami Yacoub, and Savan Kotecha; the second consisted of Salem Al Fakir, Vincent Pontare, and Magnus Lidehäll. Avicii worked with both groups to create the demo songs, while Madonna arrived at the studio in the afternoon and stayed until 7:00 am. She worked closely with both teams while writing and changing melodies, and oversaw the process.
A few days later, Madonna posted an image of a sunset with the words "Rebel Heart" on them, and a caption which the media interpreted as lyrics from a new song. The lines posted were: "Day turns into night. I won't give up the fight. Don't want to get to the end of my days... saying I wasn't amazed". Additional images showed Madonna with singer Natalia Kills in front of a microphone, and with Martin Kierszenbaum, the founder and chairman of Cherrytree Records, and senior executive of A&R for Interscope Records, Madonna's label. By mid-April 2014, she had also revealed on Instagram the names of songwriters Toby Gad and Mozella and record producer Symbolyc One with images of the group working in studio. The list of personnel grew to include producer Ariel Rechtshaid and sound engineer Nick Rowe.
In May 2014, Madonna posted a selfie in which she talked about working with American DJ Diplo. She had invited him for her annual Oscar party, but he could not attend. They eventually began discussing music by text message and decided to collaborate on the album. Madonna asked him to provide his "craziest record" for the album. Together they wrote and recorded seven songs. "Those records are gonna be crazy-sounding. We really pushed the envelope with some of the stuff we were doing... [S]he was up for anything. I love when an artist gives a producer the confidence, he needs to work with them, and Madonna was very open-minded to my ideas", Diplo added.
One song was composed using a hook Madonna had sung in the studio; Diplo described it as "super weird". Another one, later confirmed as "Living for Love", had nearly twenty versions recorded ranging from a piano ballad to an EDM version. Ultimately Madonna and Diplo compromised on a version midway between the two styles. Rechtshaid and British singer MNEK also joined their writing sessions, improving the song's verses. Diplo also confirmed another track, known as "Bitch I'm Madonna", which he said would push the lyrical boundaries for a pop song. Alicia Keys also contributed to the album by playing piano on "Living for Love". Madonna confirmed two other songs, "Messiah" and "Devil Pray", in different interviews. In 2022, Madonna named Rebel Heart the "most stressful" album she's ever done due to its multiple collaborators.
Titling and themes Thematically, Caryn Ganz of Rolling Stone felt the album focused on two subjects: listening to one's heart, and being a rebel. Madonna explained that these concepts were not her initial inspiration but emerged during the sessions with Avicii. Madonna observed two distinct themes emerging organically, and felt the need to express them. The record was titled Rebel Heart, since it dealt with two different aspects of the singer's character—her rebellious, renegade side, and her romantic side; she wanted the album to represent both. On the French radio station NRJ, she explained that Rebel Heart could be both autobiographical and fictional, since she mixed both her own experiences with imaginary narratives while writing the songs. The title stemmed from Madonna's belief that contemporary music artists are not encouraged or inspired to be rebellious, take risks, or speak up, and she wanted to highlight this. However, she understood the importance of love within a rebellious nature, so she added the word Heart to the title. On March 12, 2015, Madonna said in an interview with Larry Flick on SiriusXM that she had suggested releasing the album as a double album, saying the combined track list gave it a schizophrenic sound.
Introspection was also identified as one of the album's central themes. "[G]enuine statements of personal and careerist reflection [are] scattered among the posturing of 'Bitch I'm Madonna' and 'Unapologetic Bitch'" according to Slant Magazines Sam C. Mac as well as her "obsessive self-regard". Madonna explained to Jon Pareles of The New York Times that, although she has never looked back at her past endeavors, reminiscing about it felt right for Rebel Heart. "And it's bittersweet for me to think about that. It just seemed like a time where I wanted to stop and look back. It's kind of like survivor guilt. How did I make it and they didn't?" During the album's development phase, she became comfortable expressing her ideas in front of a few people, comparing it to "writing your diary in front of somebody and reading it out loud... It was almost like an acting exercise, you know, just putting myself in a room and letting ideas flow even if I didn't feel so connected to the people".
Further inspiration for the album came from Madonna's exploration of other cultures and art, literature, and music, referencing them in the songs. She believed that the tracks should stand on their own, so that one could sing them accompanied by just a guitar. Madonna enlisted the help of her daughter Lourdes and son Rocco, calling them her A&R advisers. They visited nightclubs and told her about up-and-coming music and artists, helping to shape the sounds she gravitated toward for the album.
Generally, a pop record, Rebel Heart was different from Madonna's releases in the last decade according to Bradley Stern of MuuMuse. He called it an "eclectic record" citing the merging of an array of musical genres like 1990s house, trap, and reggae along with the use of acoustic guitars. Stern felt that unlike Hard Candy (2008) and MDNA, which chased then-current musical trends, this album's sound was progressive. Adding to this, Mitchell Sunderland from Vice felt that Rebel Heart was a "lesson learned" from the criticism Madonna had received for her previous two albums. Jed Gottlieb of the Boston Herald found that the album continued Madonna's "increasingly interesting, innovative approach" by combining contemporary musical styles with her previous tastes. He found Rebel Heart to be an improvement over the generic dance tunes on MDNA. For Jon Pareles of The New York Times, Rebel Heart was like a sequel to MDNA in its composition. While MDNA was marred by its cold mechanized vocals and clichéd songwriting, Rebel Heart portrays Madonna's musical abilities and as a lyricist "who ponders sin along with romance and fame". Jay Lustig of The Record believed that Madonna's previous work had often lacked thematic coherence. However, with Rebel Heart, he felt she created potentially successful singles despite the tracks' different styles, maintaining consistency across the record.
Music and lyrical interpretation