After rocking Rio, here’s what Madonna should do next… but won’t

When you’re the world’s most famous singer and renowned for reinventing yourself, how do you follow a record-breaking performance on Copacabana beach in front of a crowd of millions? Paul Clements has an idea – but Her Madgesty is not going to like it

Madonna’s 81-date Celebration tour has been a critical and commercial success (Getty for MTV/ViacomCBS)

Tonight, Madonna plays the biggest concert of her life, the highlight of a career festooned with superlatives. A record-breaking two million people are expected on Rio’s famous seafront to watch the best-selling female artist of all time wind up her greatest hits world tour with an open-air spectacular to end all others.

But, what’s that? Will the undisputed Queen of Pop use this occasion to go out on a high, and bring down the curtain on her astonishing life in music? Fat chance – but maybe she should.

Certainly, there’s a sense of an ending in the air. Her 81-date “Celebration” tour, an enormous critical and commercial success, of course, has been beset by setbacks professional and personal. The opening leg had to be postponed while the star recovered from being put into a two-day coma to clear the bacterial infection that nearly killed her. Can’t wait for the inevitable song about that on the next album.