Linda Perry has expressed her desire to produce for Madonna, calling the Queen Of Pop’s current music “weak” and saying she’s “trying to compete with Charli XCX“.
The 4 Non Blondes frontwoman, soloist and record label owner has produced and/or written huge hits for major female artists in the past, including Christina Aguilera’s ‘Beautiful’, P!nk’s ‘Get The Party Started’ and Gwen Stefani’s ‘What You Waiting For?’.
She has also worked on music with the likes of Courtney Love, Ariana Grande, Alicia Keys and Miley Cyrus.
Now, during an interview with Consequence, Perry has named Madonna as her dream collaborator. However, she explained that this was because she thought the pop icon’s recent output was “weak”.
“Of late, I feel she is a follower,” Perry reasoned. “She’s following the trends. She’s trying to compete with Charli XCX and this and that. Everything about her seems weak to me, and not powerful.”
The musician and songwriter revealed that Madonna had turned down requests for Perry to co-write and produce for her on several occasions, calling the legendary artist “a thorn in my side”.
Despite this, Perry still has huge respect for Madge, calling her “one of the greatest”.
“She taught women to be strong and be yourself, and I love how she just constantly was changing her sound,” she went on. “Every record sounded different. I mean, she is an explorer. She is a leader.”
@consequence Linda Perry reveals why the Queen of Pop is her No. 1 bucket list collaborator. #madonna #madonnafans #lindaperry #4nonblondes
Perry said she hoped to finally link up with Madonna creatively before the icon, 67, quits music for good. “When Madonna is ready to retire, she should make that album with me because I’ll make her such a great album,” she continued.
“I would love to get that woman in a studio, slap her in the face a couple [of] times and say, ‘Wake up. Get back to who Madonna is and what you represent. You are a leader, so we gotta get back there’.
“And [I’d] focus on the power of what her voice can do, not the power of what Auto-Tune and effects can do, and all the electronics that she’s into right now to hide all that.”
Should the pair ever make it into the studio together, Perry explained that she’d “put [Madonna] out in the open” to “just show [her flaws] and make this beautiful, more acoustic type of record with strings”.
“Something she could sit down and just sing to a crowd that’s wearing nice clothes at Carnegie Hall or whatever,” she added of her vision for the proposed collab.
However, Perry said the dream team-up was unlikely to come to fruition: “She will not step into a room with me, ’cause that is far from what Madonna wants to do. So, Madonna, call me when you’re ready to get back to your strength, all right?”
Perry’s comments about Madonna’s attempt to “compete” with Charli XCX come on the heels of Madge taking an apparent swipe at the ‘Brat’ star‘s pivot to “rock music”.
Last week, Madonna took aim at a lyric from Charli’s recent single ‘Rock Music’ – “I think the dancefloor is dead, so now we’re making rock music” – in a post to promote her upcoming dance record, ‘Confessions II’.
“If your dance floor feels dead, maybe you’re playing the wrong music,” she wrote.
‘Confessions II’ sees Madonna reunite with producer Stuart Price, who helmed the original ‘Confessions On A Dance Floor’ from 2005. The Queen Of Pop has already previewed the sequel record with the club-ready songs ‘I Feel So Free’ and ‘Bring Your Love’ (featuring Sabrina Carpenter).
Charli, meanwhile, continued to show off a grittier side of her sound with another new single called ‘SS26’ last Friday (May 22).
As for Perry, she picked up the Special International Award at the Ivors 2026 last Thursday (May 21). During a recent interview with NME, she spoke about Madonna getting involved with the viral mash-up of 4 Non Blondes’ ‘What’s Up’ and Nicki Minaj’s ‘Beez In The Trap’ on TikTok.
“I loved it all, but both Madonna and Martin Scorsese doing it felt big to me,” she told us. “I had just recently reunited with 4 Non Blondes, and we’d played BottleRock festival in May 2025, before that blew up on TikTok. We couldn’t have planned that, and it took it to another level.”
Perry hit out at Green Day in the conversation, too, for dropping her from producing the follow-up to their seminal 2004 album, ‘American Idiot’. “That was fucked-up – all because Billie Joe’s a little pussy and got all this backlash from his fans and didn’t like it,” she recalled.
Elsewhere in the chat, she revealed that she once had to tell Billy Corgan to leave the studio while working with Courtney Love.