Contrary to reports, Ariel Pink is not working with Madonna

Ariel Pink got a lot of Madonna fans very hot under the collar last night, when he revealed that he had been enlisted by Interscope to work on the follow-up to her 2012 album MDNA. In an interview with Louder Faster, the LA-based singer said that Madge's career had been "a downward slide" since her debut album in 1983. 

"They need something edgy," he explained. "They need songwriting. She can’t just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend that she’s 20 years old. They actually need songs. I’m partly responsible for that return-to-values thing." 

"I guess it’s called '‘throwback', but the first record was so good because of the songs,” he said while continuing to dig himself into a deeper hole. “It’s been a downward slide (since)... Ray of Light is not cool. And all the other stuff she’s done after that, it’s not like it matters. It really shows a drain of values. People need more substance in their mac-and-cheese. People need more sugar or something."

Pink's comments angered plenty of late-career Madonna afficionados, Grimes among them: 

But in one stunning example of a fan-tervention, somebody took matters into their own hands by approaching Guy Oseary, Madonna's manager:

Suffice to say, if Pink was actually about to work with Madonna... That ray of light has well and truly been extinguished.