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Mary Gabriel’s comprehensive biography “Madonna: A Rebel Life” can be read as the uptown analogue to “Sonic Life,” as this force of nature quickly outgrows New York clubland and in a few short years enters the pop icon pantheon.

Clubland did not just provide a community and information — it was a lifeline.

An anecdotal progress report on how clubland is surviving the ongoing pandemic: When I wrote this same autumn concert preview 12 months back, two events had to be scrubbed from the roundup before deadline, both canceled for covid-related reasons.

Producers from around the planet submit their tracks, she writes and records her vocals, then she sends everything back to be edited and mixed — with the caveat that she gets to sign off on the final cut before anything ships to clubland.

Conceptually, this qualifies as the brightest lightbulb to appear over his head in a decade, so it’s too bad that everything eventually goes sideways during his 52-minute astral projection into clubland.