If you’ve ever played your first gig to a room of strangers, or talked your way past a long club queue, you’ll hear some of your own story in “Danceteria Afterhours”. It’s the first song Madonna and Charli xcx have made together. It came out via Warner Records on 24 September 2026 and leads Warner Music Southeast Asia’s new-release slate for the week.
The track reworks “Danceteria”, the latest single from Madonna’s No.1 album Confessions II. That song nods to Danceteria, the New York club tied to her origin story. The Afterhours version gives each singer a verse about how she got started, and those two origin stories are the best reason to press play.
Meet the Two Club Kids
Madonna needs little introduction, but the 2026 version of her is worth knowing. Confessions II went to No.1, and critics are calling it a late-career high. Variety called it “her best album in decades”, and Pitchfork said she’s in “peak form”. Rolling Stone described it as “a 64-minute nonstop groove that flows like a perfect club DJ set”.
The album treats the dance floor as a lifeline for people working through heartbreak and loss. That’s a heavier idea than most club records attempt, and it explains why the lead single is about a nightclub.
Charli xcx is the pop artist whose club sound has become shorthand for a whole era of internet culture. If her 2024 album passed you by, our piece unpacking the genius of BRAT is a good place to catch up. Her new verse shows she’s been at this far longer than her TikTok fame suggests. In her own words, she’s been “doing this shit since 2007”.
From Hackney Wick to the Lower East Side
Charli goes first, and her verse is full of specific details. She’s “sweet 15” in “a weird outfit”, stepping off the train at Hackney Wick for her first ever party in London. She’d been invited to perform through Myspace, and she plays songs off her iPod on a makeshift stage. From there she jumps to 2015, links up with “A. G. and Sophie”, takes a flight to LA and lands on the best line in the song: “Now I’m singing with Madonna at the VMAs.”
Madonna’s verse is set on the other side of the Atlantic, decades earlier. She rides the four, five, six train with her best friend Martin Burgoyne and skips a queue that’s “way too long”. Haoui Montaug waves them in. Then she lists the scene she remembers, from Basquiat and Keith Haring to the Rock Steady Crew “spinning on their head” on the Lower East Side.
The shared hook, “Everyone here is a work of art”, ties the two eras together neatly. The details are what make the pairing believable. Nobody names the person who let them into a club decades ago to chase a trend. An iPod on a borrowed stage and a Myspace invite are memories, and they read like two artists comparing notes as equals.
Who Built the Beat
Madonna produced the track with Andrew Watt, Cirkut and Stuart Price. The visualiser uses footage from CLUB CONFESSIONS, the party the pair threw with Saint Laurent (YSL) during Paris Fashion Week. The two artists had been teasing each other in playful social media posts for a while, which led fans to guess a song was coming.
For collectors, three limited-edition CDs are up for pre-order. The rollout had a clear commercial purpose, since the track arrived days before Madonna’s biggest TV moment in years. The lyrics still give it more substance than a typical promo single, and that’s why it deserves a proper listen rather than a skip!
A Big Sunday at the VMAs
That TV moment was the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) in Los Angeles on Sunday, 27 September. Madonna was set to open the show with her first VMAs performance in 23 years. According to her team, it’s her fifth performance at the ceremony, more than any other artist in its history. She went into the night with a career-high 13 nominations. She also opened the very first VMAs, so the timing makes sense.
The early fan response has been warm. Polish outlet Interia collected comments such as “I got chills” and “Nobody could have predicted this”. Nylon read the release as proof that the dance floor still matters. Charli has described Madonna as the artist who “paved the way for us all”. The song itself treats the two as peers, and that feels more honest than any claim that one generation is crowning the other.
The Rest of Warner’s Week
Tinashe released her eighth studio album, Popstar, on 25 September 2026. It’s a 16-track record that moves between pop, electronic, hip-hop and R&B. The focus track is “Nobody Wanna Dance Anymore”, a fitting title for the week Madonna and Charli insisted everybody get up and dance. Tinashe has worked with Charli xcx before, and the album is our strongest pick after the headline single.
The biggest surprise on the slate is Maple’s Pet Dinosaur, a 15-year-old who has gone from a zero-budget doorbell video to main stages at Good Things, where she shared the bill with Tool and Weezer. Her new single, “Big Mouth”, is a sarcastic, Beastie Boys-inspired track from her upcoming EP. She’s the same age Charli was at that Hackney Wick party, which makes her the one to watch.
Nessa Barrett‘s Tough Love leans into dark romance and borrows 1970s to 1990s influences, from Massive Attack to Fleetwood Mac. Jooyoung has switched to alternative rock with “Twist”, a pre-release single from a full album due in October.
Linkin Park have released the soundtrack to their film Unshatter, recorded live in São Paulo. It mixes career-spanning anthems with unreleased live recordings.
More releases are on the way. Seo In Guk‘s “Trace” lands on 30 September. Daniel Seavey, Emei, Rachel Chinouriri, Florence Road and Hilary Duff are among the artists releasing on 2 October, followed by Kita Alexander, Barry Can’t Swim, Alec Benjamin and Good Charlotte featuring Ziggy Marley on 9 October.
On TikTok, Dua Lipa‘s “Training Season” has passed 157,000 creations since a manifestation trend took off after her wedding. Ashe‘s “Stop The Wedding!” peaked at 39.6 million views of user-generated videos, where people posted about red flags in their relationships.
Gigs Heading This Way
The same slate lists several big shows coming to the region:
🎤 Charlie Puth · 📅 14 October · 📍 SM Mall of Asia Arena, Philippines
🎤 Benson Boone · 📅 2 November · 📍 The Star Theatre, Singapore
🎤 My Chemical Romance · 📅 10 and 11 November · 📍 Singapore Indoor Stadium; 13 November, Philippine Arena; 19 and 20 November, National Stadium Bukit Jalil, Malaysia; 22 November, Jakarta International Stadium, Indonesia
🎤 Bruno Mars · 📅 13, 14, 17 and 18 April · 📍 National Stadium, Singapore; 24 and 25 April, Rajamangala National Stadium, Thailand; 15 and 16 May, Philippine Arena
If your weekend plans include a dance floor, add “Danceteria Afterhours” to your pre-drinks playlist and listen closely to both verses, because they’re the best part of the track. It’s streaming now through Warner Records. Keep an eye on Warner Music Southeast Asia for the Tinashe, Maple’s Pet Dinosaur and My Chemical Romance news still to come this season!
Photos and Visuals courtesy of Warner Music Southeast Asia. Tinashe photo by Hugo Comte.
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