Madonna’s Grindr Pride

It is Pride month, and it is also “Madonna promoting her upcoming album” month, which means that Madonna is partnering with Grindr to promote her upcoming album, Confessions II.

Honestly, it’s a promotional match made in heaven. Madonna knows her audience, she knows how to stunt, this is the kind of stunting we should expect from her during Pride—she performed a concert sponsored by Grindr in Times Square yesterday evening.

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But it doesn’t stop there, Madonna also appeared on Grindr’s Youtube page, doing a “Confessions” video with her friends, including Ivy Mugler, Raul Lopez, Jeremy O. Harris, Bob The Drag Queen, and Marcelo Gutierrez.

I said it before, Madonna knows how to stunt. She is building up to the release of Confessions II with perfectly calibrated momentum. But she’s not the only one angling for our attention. She is also competing with Taylor Swift’s return to country/coming for Oscar. We talk about Britney Spears as Madonna’s spiritual successor, and musically, she is. No question. But promotionally? Stunt-ally? It’s Taylor, right? Taylor stunts as hard as Madonna, they just manage their stunts in different ways. Because they both know their audiences.

Madonna has survived for decades not only by releasing popular music, but by knowing exactly when and how to feed her fans what she knows they need from Mother. Taylor is the same way, just in a different register. They should collaborate, for real, not just a duet at an awards show. They might actually create the singularity with the power of their combined marketing sense. At the very least, they would sell a sh-t ton of albums.