Madonna's new album Rebel Heart: Has the final version leaked online?

I've been a Madonna fan for years (I also moderate over at /r/Madonna, just thought I would mention that at the outset) and I understand that a lot of people who consider themselves music fans either strongly dislike her or are apathetic about her music, videos, and whatever else. I get that, we all have our own likes and dislikes when it comes to music, and because it's based on what we feel, it's almost impossible to convince someone that a song really isn't that bad; or conversely, that something we hate is not as bad as we think it is.

But I've got to say, all this hacker shit is really pissing me the fuck off. As a fan, I want to hear the music just like I know a lot of others do; I described the feeling I have always gotten before the release of one of her albums recently as an adrenaline rush like standing in line to ride a rollercoaster (feel free to mock me if you must, I'm used to it). But first all these unfinished demo versions mysteriously appeared online right around Christmas, so she rushed through the finishing touches on the first six songs and put them out a lot earlier than she was planning. And then tried to damage control the situation, with mixed results since a lot of the press she was getting at that time had to do with her choice of words to describe what had happened ("artistic rape", etc.) I was hopeful that with the release of the six songs, including the first single Living For Love, she would lock down the remaining songs, spend time directing the final production touches on the rest of the songs, do the first video, start making the rounds to promote it and all the other things associated with preparing for a new album release like she has done throughout the years. And, naively I guess, that these six songs would be enough for her fans until March when the final version of Rebel Heart is (was?) scheduled to be officially released.

But then this happens, again- and if it's true, that now the entire 25 songs from the Super Deluxe edition of the album are out and floating around cyberspace, what else can she do? I'm afraid that one of her only choices is to rush release the whole thing, which makes it on the timetable of whoever hacked the songs and not her own. This doesn't just irritate me because it's Madonna, I admit I'm a fanboy for her and have been ever since I was a teenager and saw the Lucky Star video for the first time. I like Bjork's music all right, I respect her individuality more than I ever really cared for her music personally but some of it is quite good. But she just had the same thing happen, her new album was put out well ahead of schedule. And in the past few years this has occurred with a lot of big name artists.

What choice do they have? If they stick to their guns and maintain the original timetable for releasing the album, then the sales will be even more miniscule than they have become for everyone who isn't named Taylor Swift - because anybody who wants to hear it will have just downloaded it from one source or another. Or else she can speed up the whole process, which leaves the finished product not as polished or professional as it would normally have been. It's a catch-22. And although I doubt I would personally refer to any of this with violent language, it is kind of like a hostage situation. Done by alleged "fans" or just people who are bound and determined to fuck up everything that can get their digital fingerprints on.

I am trying to enforce the rule at the Madonna sub that I don't want to allow anyone to link to leaked music, Pirate Bay or anything like that. For one thing, I am reasonably sure that reddit frowns on the trading of music files or torrent sites, if not outright bans this. They should anyway, especially in the subs devoted to fans of an artist. But as a mod (which I only took on about a month ago when I noticed that sub was flying on autopilot, previous mod abandoned the sub and there was no mod box or anything) I feel like an out-of-touch fuddy duddy dork for sticking to this out of principle when I know that almost everyone who visits the sub has already heard all the music, demo versions and now apparently finished material as well. I just want to seal myself AND the subreddit in a vault and come back out in March and convince myself that it's 1998 again and Ray Of Light is about to blow my mind.

Wow, this wound up being the kind of thing I maybe should have posted over at r/offmychest, I let things build up sometimes and this is what happens. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

/r/MusicNews Thread Link - digitalspy.com