More than 20 years after Madonna’s last truly great front-to-back album, 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor, the Instagram addict will release its sequel at some point this year. Having reunited with that album’s producer Stuart Price for 2023’s rejuvenating, hit-focused Celebration tour, the pair have been holed up in the studio seemingly ever since. (There was also a tease of Madonna in the studio with pop supremo Max Martin.) Fingers crossed for a conversation-changing killer first single – equal parts bonkers and undeniable – lashings of glittery, disco-adjacent electropop and the rightful return of Madonna: The Icon. Elsewhere, the confessional brand of pop Madonna helped pioneer in decades past is at its zenith, with revealing releases forthcoming from the likes of Lana Del Rey, Sky Ferreira and ex-Little Mixer Leigh-Anne following in the footsteps of Lily Allen and Rosalía’s very different, but equally brutal, breakup epics. MC