LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 01: Sabrina Carpenter performs onstage at the 67th annual GRAMMY Awards Pre-GRAMMY Gala and GRAMMY Salute to Industry Icons honoring Jody Gerson on February 01, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy )
Two generations but a singular mould. Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter surprised festival goers at Coachella this weekend when the pair appeared on stage for what was, by all accounts, a breathtaking experience.
Madonna, 67, performed Vogue and Like A Prayer with Carpenter along with a new tune called Bring Your Love that’s a precursor for a new album by the Like A Virgin pioneer called Confessions II.
In many ways, Sabrina Carpenter is the Madonna of the Twenty-First Century.
While her music is dressed somewhat differently, Carpenter’s sensual undertones and liberal image take Madonna’s eighties conservatism-gut-punching to a new level.
Yet they seem universes apart, much because of the passage of time. There’s nearly five decades between their heydays.
Madonna the queen of reinvention
Madonna was the queen of reinvention and the goddess of shape-shifting.
She controlled her image throughout from the days of Like A Virgin and Material Girl through to Erotica and the more spiritual Ray of Light in between. True Blue and Who’s That Girl were Madonna’s answer to a changing consciousness.
Her photobook, Sex, did the trick to keep her relevant and was appropriately banned and widely criticised. Yet, today, it would be considered somewhat mild.
Carpenter’s muscle comes from the same shape-shifting foundation. From sweet girl through to her now confident, sexually aware image. Simply watch her new music video, House Tour, to see Madonna’s influence and the progression of her artistic edginess.
Listen to Emails I Can’t Sent Anymore also indicated a shrewd reconfiguration of her public image. Coupled, of course, with the cover of Man’s Best Friend, an album cover laced with innuendo.
On Instagram, Carpenter wrote: “Madonna …..I’ve got something I wanna talk about! 💋💋💋 Thank you for coming out, bringing your love, and gracing the audience with everything you are + astrology knowledge + the greatest songs of all time.
“Last night was straight out of a dream. Spending so much time laughing with you and then, above all, sharing the stage with you is a privilege I’ll never forget. x”
Controversy runs through both artists’ veins.
Madonna poked Republican morality with a stick and took swipes at religion, gender norms, and sexuality long before the woke movement ruined the truth that she ignited.
Carpenter’s not as blatantly at the coalface of social challenge, but her lyrics and visual interpretation of what she has to say digs into taboos, confidence and mixed in-between, some sardonic irony.
Watch the Coachella performance
Far from as outrageous as Madonna, but capable of creating social friction in the pop world as an opposite to Taylor Swift’s vanilla-esque approach.
Think of it as Madonna versus more clean-cut Britpop and Teen-idol eighties bubble gummers like Tiffany, Mel & Kim, and other Stock Aitken and Waterman-produced instances.
The difference between Madonna and Carpenter seems merely generational and life-stage-driven, it seems. That is, beyond genre. Madonna, though, was breaking rules when there were still many left to break.
Carpenter is pushing the envelope after Madonna had already loosened the elasticity of acceptance. She’s taken the baton from the Eighties star and is finally moving ahead, taking it forward where other wannabes over the years seemed to have failed.
This is probably why the two artists shared mutual admiration on stage, with Madonna reflecting on her own Coachella debut 20 years ago and describing the moment as “full circle.”
They ended their collaboration with a performance of “Like A Prayer” before hugging and moving on.
