Madonna has thawed over the decades, both when it comes to her own back catalogue (her 2023 greatest-hits tour would have been unthinkable a handful of years earlier) and her relationship to the many artists who\u2019ve cast themselves in her image. But there\u2019s still a glint of prickly, passive-aggressive menace to how Madonna views the pop world \u2013 a kind of \u201cI know, adore and support the fact that you\u2019re ripping me so brazenly off\u201d \u2013 that feels uniquely, hilariously her. Case in point: the announcement, just a few weeks after her Instagram post, of a long-rumoured collection of remixes locked in the Madonna vault since the late Nineties, each of which feels like a sonic blueprint for the exact kind of music currently being produced by music\u2019s most outr\u00e9 pop girlies, from FKA Twigs<\/a> and Addison Rae<\/a> to Arca, Caroline Polachek and Erika de Casier. Jade, Britain\u2019s next big pop hope<\/a>, even threw out a cover of Madonna\u2019s stark ballad \u201cFrozen\u201d in March. God forbid a woman takes inspiration.<\/p>\n Veronica Electronica, which is released tomorrow, takes its name from an alter ego Madonna teased in 1998 during the promotion for Ray of Light \u2013 her sensual, nocturnal dance record that housed hits such as \u201cFrozen\u201d, as well as \u201cDrowned World\/Substitute for Love\u201d, \u201cNothing Really Matters\u201d and the still-dazzling title track, with its twisting, twirling techno melody and euphoric vocals. A remix album bearing the Veronica Electronica title was mooted for release a year later, until Madonna grew distracted by sessions for her 2000 record Music \u2013 an album that would build upon her work with Ray of Light\u2019s key producer, the spacy genius William Orbit, as well as the French electronica pioneer Mirwais Ahmadza\u00ef.<\/p>\n In keeping with the shambolic rollout of Madonna\u2019s back catalogue in recent years \u2013 extensive re-issues announced in 2021, for instance, have yet to materialise \u2013 Veronica Electronica is ultimately a bit of a damp squib. Instead of unearthed material from 1998, the album boasts lightly tweaked versions of remixes already present on the original Ray of Light CD singles, along with one genuinely new demo track. Orbit himself has voiced his disappointment. \u201cGiven how much the Ray of Light album has meant to so many of us, there could be something really wonderful \u2013 reworkings, remixes from the decades,\u201d he wrote on his Facebook page. \u201cGoing deeper into that special place.\u201d Madonna, pop\u2019s most marvellous troll, is back at it again.<\/p>\n But whether it\u2019s truly new or not, Veronica Electronica feels like an attempt to root the pop sounds of 2025, as if to remind modern listeners of the inky, plaintive dance music from whence they came. It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything in pop music sounds like Madonna, because Madonna is more or less all pop music, or at least the template for everything we recognise as female pop stardom today. But it\u2019s been more pronounced than usual lately, with the year\u2019s two best pop records \u2013 FKA Twigs\u2019s Eusexua and Addison Rae\u2019s Addison \u2013 both fusing traditional pop hooks with a chilly, introspective, ambient gloom, much like Madonna did on Ray of Light and Music.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n FKA Twigs in the video for her single \u2018Eusexua\u2019 (Atlantic Records)<\/p>\n On January\u2019s Eusexua, a portmanteau of \u201ceuphoria\u201d and \u201csexuality\u201d, Twigs shifts out of the eerie midtempos of her earlier material and into full-blown experimental pop. There is an almost cyborgian eroticism to the record, her vocals warped into metallic purrs, the production bubbling and curdling underneath her toplines. \u201cGirl Feels Good\u201d, a slinky celebration of female sexuality co-produced by Ray of Light\u2019s Marius de Vries, is a clear highlight, shifting from a sparse oddity into a busy lab experiment full of dramatic strings and glitchy synths. It could be lifted from turn-of-the-century Madonna \u2013 which Twigs herself has directly acknowledged, performing the track on her tour with choreography borrowed from the video of Madonna\u2019s 2000 folktronica masterpiece \u201cDon\u2019t Tell Me\u201d.<\/p>\n Six months on from Eusexua came Rae\u2019s full-length debut Addison, which traded the Britney-aping power-pop of the former TikTok star\u2019s early EPs in favour of lush trip-hop and sensuality. It\u2019s partly out of necessity: Rae is not a powerhouse of a vocalist but a 24-carat whisper singer, Addison\u2019s soundscape matching the limitations of its star\u2019s pipes. But it helps evoke a gorgeous airiness across the record\u2019s 12 tracks (its producers have stated Ray of Light was a key influence). Rae\u2019s lyrics are often abstract and opaque, like dream logic, or what comes out when you pop a foreign language into Google Translate (\u201cTell me who I am, do I provoke you with my tone of innocence?\u201d).<\/p>\n Addison is far less ruminative than Eusexua, but both are swaddled in a kind of gentle melancholy. Much like Ray of Light, this is music by artists clawing their way out of emotional funks. \u201cTimes Like These\u201d, on Addison, sees Rae pondering the uncertainty of young adulthood (\u201cHead out the window, my song on the radio\/ Head out the window, let\u2019s see how far I\u2019ll go\u201d) and gesturing towards distant pain (\u201cAm I too young to be this mad?\/ Am I too old to blame my dad?\u201d). You leave the record sensing that she is testing the waters when it comes to autobiography, planting just enough breadcrumbs to keep the listener intrigued for album two.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Addison Rae performs in New York in June (Getty)<\/p>\n![\"FKA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/fka-twigs-eusexua.jpeg\")
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