Madonna Releases Six Singles as Damage Control for ‘Rebel Heart’ Demo Songs Leak

By Steven Hogg - 22 Dec '14 08:42AM

Madonna, the "Hard Candy" hitmaker, released six full tracks from her forthcoming album "Rebel Heart" just days after some of her incomplete, demo tracks leaked online. All the tracks are now trending on iTunes in more than 30 countries.

Last week, some of Madonna's unfinished songs leaked online sending the pop queen and her team in frenzy. They took a rapid decision to release six full new tracks online and accelerated the release date of the full album to March 2015.

Madonna wanted to release her first single on Valentine's Day 2015 but the hack disrupted the entire schedule.

"I was hoping to release my new single 'Living For Love' on Valentine's Day with the rest of the album coming in the Spring. I would prefer my fans to hear completed versions of some of the songs instead of the incomplete tracks that are circulating. Please consider these six songs as an early Christmas gift," she said in a statement.

Madonna said that the leaks come as a surprise because security was super tight.

"We don't put things up on servers anymore. Everything we work on, if we work on computers, we're not on WiFi, we're not on the Internet, we don't work in a way where anybody can access the information. Hard drives of music are hand-carried to people. We don't leave music laying around," she told Billboard in an interview.

She told The Guardian that she is scared that her personal system may have been hacked.

"Obviously there is a person, or a group of people behind this that were essentially terrorising me. I don't want to sound alarming, but certainly that's how I felt. It's one thing if someone comes into your house and steals a painting off your wall: that's also a violation, but, your work, as an artist, that's devastating," she said.

"I'm an artistic person, I'm very expressive. I'm sorry if words alarm people, but that's what it felt like. It was not a consensual agreement. I did not say 'hey, here's my music, and it's finished.' It was theft," she added.