Happy MDNA Day! Madonna officially drops her 12th studio album today, after weeks of promotion — promotion you probably haven’t noticed if you’re not on Facebook or Twitter. That’s because Madge’s hype machine has based its campaign solely on social media (we’re guessing she was tired of magazine covers, talk show appearances, and photo shoots) despite the fact that she’s never really embraced these platforms before (she lets her manager Guy Oseary do the tweeting, despite what she sings on the album’s “I Don’t Give A”). This weekend was, of course, the busiest of all (save her Super Bowl appearance in February), starting with a 24-minute interview with Jimmy Fallon, broadcast only via Facebook webcast. In the only in-person appearance she will make about the album, Madonna managed to teach Fallon some club dance moves, discuss her love of quantum physics, and otherwise answer the questions of her social media admirers, some of whom submitting from Mumbai, where local time was 4:30 a.m.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=moJF1VSTP-k
Post-Fallon, she packed her bags and whisked off to Miami, where she descended upon the 14th annual Ultra Music Festival, making a surprise (and extremely “good look”) appearance at Swedish DJ Avicii’s set. Naturally, the crowd went ballistic (as did, we’re sure, her most die-hard fans, when they realized they weren’t in Miami), especially when she announced, “Electronic music has been a part of my life since the beginning of my career. I can honestly say that a DJ saved my life.” Then, of course, she asked the crowd how many of them were rolling on Molly, the drug to which her album’s name nods (MDNA? MDMA? Get it?!), and introduced Avicii’s official remix of one of her new tracks, “Girl Gone Wild.”
The Queen of Pop continues her social campaign by hosting a Twitter-only chat at 10 p.m. EDT tonight (which means her Mumbai fans will be able to get a full night’s sleep) via the hashtag #askmadonna. Though we’ve already heard practically every song on the record, thanks to “leaks” (the sexy-and-dangerous code word for “singles intentionally dropped online, in advance, for streaming purposes”) over the past few months, the full album is officially on sale today, a day before the usual album-drop day, Tuesday, which will no doubt ensure its dominance over next week’s charts (luckily for Madge, the Hunger Games soundtrack dropped last week). Watch her Ultra appearance below via THR.
