Madonna and Charli XCX put the single Danceteria Afterhours out on 24 September

Madonna confirmed the date herself on 18 September, telling her Instagram following to take it to the East side on 9.24.26. Danceteria Afterhours, her collaboration with Charli XCX, comes out on 24 September through Warner Records, produced by Stuart Price, who has worked on her records for two decades.

The song it reworks sits on Confessions II and takes its name from the Manhattan club where Madonna established herself in the early 1980s. The preview clip has the two of them dancing in a white studio space, Madonna in a red hoodie printed with a photograph of herself from that era, asking whether anyone wants to talk about Madonna and Charli before delivering a line from the original: "Everyone here is a work of art."

This is the third guest turn of the campaign. The lead single Bring Your Love brought in Sabrina Carpenter, and Kylie Minogue reworked Love Sensation from the same record. Fans have started guessing at a full Confessions II remix album along the lines of Charli's guest-heavy Brat reimagining. The album itself went to number one on the Billboard chart.

The route here was not straightforward. Madonna answered Charli's line about the dancefloor being dead, from the single Rock Music, by suggesting that a dead dancefloor means the wrong music is being played, which most people read as a falling out. Then the pair were photographed together in Paris. Charli later told BBC Radio 6 Music they had taken "a mini-break together, essentially," that they accidentally threw two parties, and denied at the time that they had recorded anything. Their CLUB CONFESSIONS party with Saint Laurent during Paris Fashion Week came after that.

Charli has been candid that she came to Madonna late. She was not a fan as a teenager and only got there once she started thinking about music as something artful, she said, and the first song of Madonna's she fell for was Hollywood.

The single arrives with three limited-edition CD configurations and days before Madonna opens the MTV Video Music Awards, her first performance at the ceremony in 23 years and, by SPIN's count, her fifth, more than any other artist. The outlets disagree on her nomination tally this year: NME reports 11, SPIN says a career-high 13. Charli, meanwhile, is three shows into the North American arena leg of her Music, Fashion, Film tour and has been selling limited 25-dollar tickets for the run, with UK and European arena dates in February including two nights at The O2. Both acts sit squarely in the pop and electronic overlap this record is aimed at.