Credit: YouTube / FOX Sports

It’s been nearly 30 years, and “Music” still makes the people come together.

Madonna delivered an electrifying opening performance for the first-ever FIFA 2026 World Cup Final halftime show on Sunday (July 19) at New York New Jersey Stadium, performing a fan-favorite remixed version of her 2000 hit, the title track of her eighth studio album, which went to No. 1 in several countries around the globe.

The “Music Inferno” remix played during the halftime show was crafted alongside Confessions producer and longtime collaborator Stuart Price, originally performed during her critically acclaimed Confessions Tour. The brand new mix also contained elements of her debut song “Everybody” and her viral new Confessions II song “Danceteria.”

“‘Music makes people come together, and music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel’ — do you know where I got that idea? At a Sting concert. Weird, isn’t it? OK. I went to see him in New York at the Beacon Theater. He has a pretty mixed audience — I always look at audiences when I go to concerts. I’m obsessed with checking out the audience and seeing how they react. And people were pretty well-behaved and enthusiastically polite for stuff that he was doing off of his new album. But then, when he did the old Police songs — and it was just him and a guitar, and the lights came down — somehow the energy in the room changed. It ignited the room, and it brought everybody closer to the stage. And suddenly, people lost their inhibition and their politeness,and everyone was singing the songs and practically holding hands — you know what I mean? I mean, it really moved me. And I thought, ‘That’s what music does to people.’ It really does bring people together, and it erases so much. And so that’s how I came to the hook of that song,” Madonna explained to Rolling Stone back in 2000.

Watch the halftime show performance…

Watch the music video for “Music”…

Listen to the “Music Inferno” mix…

Read the lyrics to “Music”…

Posted To:Lyrics Madonna Music