What Madonna at Coachella Can Teach Us All

On Sunday night, Madonna walked on stage at Coachella and the internet lost its mind. 

Not in that low-grade, scroll-past hysteria kind of way that evaporates within a handful of hours. But properly, collectively, joyfully and with some brilliant wild undertones: I implore you to read the comments below any of the most recent Instagram Reels featuring her unexpected and at the same time iconic appearance.

I've been thinking all things Madonna pretty much non-stop since first seeing those already iconic clips of her and Sabrina in their matching Dior corsets, kneeling at the start of Like A Prayer. The fact that I started a dance to the same song, in the same way, when I was 10 years old, has only added to the fun of it all. 

The questions I've been asking myself (and anyone else who'll listen) have included: Why Coachella this year? How has Madonna maintained her status? And were most of the crowd even alive when The Immaculate Collection was released? The last one was easy to answer (no). Those first two have taken a bit of time to untangle. 

Madonna will always be a Queen, and we know it. But had we maybe forgotten her a little? Those gaps in her public consciousness are interesting to sit with; I wonder whether they are actually the key to her enduring brilliance. And if so, how can we all become a bit more Madonna? 

The answers, I think, tell us something very important. Not just about celebrity, or the unique alchemy of the 90s. But about power, identity and what we might have been giving away in our age of the permanent broadcast. 

Let's start with the 90s, because I think the 90s really matter here. 

The 90s: How Silence Made Madonna's Fans Want More

For those of us who can cast our minds back, an obvious distinction to today, when it comes to famous singers, is how many fewer there were then. A smaller pool obviously created higher demand for each artist, plus they all felt like individuals: Madonna, Whitney, Mariah, TLC, Alanis. These were women who knew who they were and stuck to their creative guns. They evolved, of course, but they also remained distinctive, making their individuality more extraordinary. What united them was a lower pressure gauge: there was never the rush to create or push that artists need to endure today. 

We patiently waited between albums. We wondered what was coming next. We had no idea obviously, because there was no social media commentary and certainly no managed content plan to keep us informed between releases. The gap between what we knew and what was coming was enormous. It was also their power: in these gaps their mythology grew. 

Madonna understood this better than maybe anyone else. Looking at the trajectory of her career, it feels like she instinctively knew that what she withheld was almost more seductive than what she shared. 

Take her Erotica/Sex book moment in 1992. She released the album and the book simultaneously and kept both almost entirely secret until their joint release. This level of control over information paid dividends on so many fronts. The reveal rested on her moves entirely, which meant nobody knew what was coming. The shock, I'm assuming, was the strategy. It worked. 

Culturally this was a huge shift moment, plus the book sold 150,000 copies on its first day and 1.5 million copies in its first week globally. This was an extraordinary number for a coffee table tome at any price point, let alone one that cost $50 in 1992. Sex became one of the fastest-selling books in publishing history, despite, for a long time, MTV and its competitors refusing to show the music video. Shock sells. And that still rings true at Coachella in 2026. I mean, who saw that coming? It was genius. 

Oversharing & Personal Brand: What Madonna Knows That We've Forgotten in 2026

Madonna continues to live and promote herself by oscillating between pulling back from and being front and centre in the public eye. The gap is the architecture of her success. By doing not very much at all, at least in view, Madonna continues to build anticipation, retains control of her own narrative and makes it impossible for the rest of us to look away. Maybe this is because we could never see everything in the first place. 

This in and out of gaze is what we have almost completely unlearned. 

Thinking about how we live our lives today, we document and share so much. Our holidays, our hard days, our opinions forming in real time, our gym sessions, that matcha. There are no gaps between experiences and how we broadcast them. It isn't just overkill; this approach leaves no space between who we are becoming and who we are telling people we are. Let's be honest, we don't have time to think about who we're becoming with all the posting and sharing and checking other people's morning routines. 

Aside from the loss of personal privacy, and I am just as guilty as the next person, viewing our behaviours through this lens proves how we are cannibalising our ability to surprise and craft our own next chapter, even evolve quietly, on our own terms. 

Yes, visibility remains important, but we have to ask ourselves: does posting constantly build presence as much as a bit of restraint? I don't think you need to be a global megastar to benefit from the light and shade of some private becoming. 

The Power of Playing Your Moment

Image from Coachella Youtube channel

Here is Madonna at 67, on a Coachella stage, and she is still the most Madonna person in any space she enters. The fact that she is doing it in corsetry at nearly 70 years old might be an entirely different story. But also, maybe it isn't. At a time when we know work lives are extending, perhaps we should all be stepping in and out of our own limelight a bit more, if only to have a rest. And of course, to build the surprise too. 

Not subscribing to age as a restrictor is another arrow in Madonna's armoury. This isn't about looks, although I'll have what she's on, rather it's about refusing to let age define what she is allowed to want and risk. Her aura on that Coachella stage was not the energy of someone looking back and trying to relive. It was the power of someone reading a much bigger room and deciding exactly when to play her Queen of Hearts. 

Madonna has never reacted to the culture. She has always been slightly ahead of it, and there is plenty worth sitting with in that. Working out what is coming, both for yourself and perhaps your industry too, is a skill. And it could be a good idea to reclaim some of the time we spend scrolling, to use it more productively. Starting with your own potential and how you might harness it. 

In an environment that rewards constant disclosure, choosing not to share everything is perhaps the most radical act of self-possession. In the gap, you not only protect yourself, you also have time to stop and consider where and how you play your next move. You lessen the tendency to be defined by your last chapter, and start becoming your next one. 

Madonna did not reinvent herself on that Coachella stage. She just kept becoming herself, in private, then showed us all the finished version when the moment was exactly right. She was never going anywhere. She just wanted us to think she might. 

The question I’ll end with then: what are you becoming that nobody knows about yet? 

Alice Olins is Editor-in-Chief of theALLBRIGHT