Guy Oseary on the ‘Circus Show’ of Getting ‘Rebel Heart’ to Fans
Billboard spoke to Madonna’s longtime manager Guy Oseary just days after successfully launching Rebel Heart… four-and-a-half months ahead of schedule.
The surprise pre-release of six songs from Madonna’s upcoming album Rebel Heart on December 20 was a hard-fought victory, Billboard explains: the result of two sleepless nights to combat the widespread leaks of more than a dozen unfinished demos just three days prior. And it almost didn’t happen, as Guy Oseary said in a phone interview on December 23.
We didn’t know until Friday night [December 19], 11:30 [Eastern] and 8:30 [Pacific] that it would even work,” There was a chance that technically it was not possible because it was so last-minute. Normally it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but because iTunes was shutting down [for the holiday] we were told that it would either go live at 11:30 East Coast time or January 5. We didn’t know — she was saying her prayers, we were all just hoping.
The result? Pre-orders for the March 10, 2015 album topped the iTunes charts in more than 36 countries, with three of the album’s six finished songs entering this week’s Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Lead single “Living For Love” was serviced to U.S. radio stations on Dec. 22 by Madonna’s label Interscope, with a bigger push coming in January. An official music video will be filmed next month as well, with a planned release for the “first week of February,” as Oseary revealed in his Twitter Q&A on December 27.
Read an excerpt of Billboard’s conversation with Oseary last Tuesday, including a detailed account of how Madonna and her team sprang into action to respond to the leaks, on Billboard.com by clicking here.
