Notes

Released more than three decades after the sessions that created Bedtime Stories, The Untold Chapter opens the door onto material that had previously existed around the edges of Madonna’s sixth studio Record. Rather than functioning as a conventional reissue, the eight-track collection gathers early demos, alternate mixes and previously unreleased recordings to reveal something of the process through which the restrained R&B atmosphere of Bedtime Stories emerged.

Madonna worked with Stuart Price to return to the original recordings, with Price editing and mixing the material into a deliberately cohesive companion piece. Familiar Tracks including “Survival”, “Secret”, “Don’t Stop” and “Human Nature” appear in markedly different forms, while “Right On Time” and Madonna’s original demo of “Love Won’t Wait” bring abandoned branches of the sessions into the official catalogue. “Freedom” and “Let Down Your Guard”, previously known through releases outside the original Record, further widen the picture.

The project also restores part of the visual world surrounding Bedtime Stories. Its artwork uses previously unseen photographs taken by Paolo Roversi in 1994, imagery originally connected with the “Bedtime Story” period but never used for the Record itself. The Untold Chapter therefore does more than retrieve material from an archive: it reconstructs an alternative view of an era whose softer surface concealed a much more exploratory creative process.