Hard Candy

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

New Madonna alBUM!

Out today!

Timbaland and suchlike!

I didn't like it much (after yo-yoing on it a bit). But what do you think?

Comments

[datura800.livejournal.com]

'Candy Shop' is a dazzlingly mediocre opening, but after that I think the album picks up and never drops the ball. I LOVE that it's filled with nods to her very early period, from the 80s disco that's everywhere through the attempt to make her vocals sound raw again (which I agree doesn't always work) to touches like her singing 'incredible!' in the middle of that song in the EXACT same way she sings 'material!' in the middle of 'Material Girl'. I also love that it's an unabashed balls-out POP record - 'Confessions...', for all of its trumped up 'non-stop dance party' claims, was just 'American Life' with catchier tunes. Here the messages are kept to a minimum.

'Devil....' is the other frustrating point of the record. She actually wrote that song about 5 years ago for an abandoned musical, and it's obviously a great song. But she's allowed Timbaland and Timberlake to over-produce it to hell and make it sound like 'WGACA' when it deserves FAR better.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yeah Confessions was really not very pop, in that it was ~all~ about the groove, and with only a couple of exclusions this was at the expense of structure and songiness - which is why it's a total triumph obv.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

oh I wouldn't agree with that at all - I've heard acoustic covers of 'Hung Up', 'Get Together' and 'Forbidden Love' which if anything underlined what great songs they are, regardless of the production.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yeah those are the exceptions, pretty much! though I would have picked 'Jump' rather than 'Forbidden Love' which I get mildly grumpy about, b/c could Madonna really not have come up with a generic title which she's ALREADY USED TEN YEARS BEFORE for one of my favourite 90s Madonna ballads? it fucks up last.fm totally. er yeah anyway.

the ones I like off Hard Candy are really growing on me - 'Give It 2 Me' is amazing, what I love about that and 'She's Not Me' is that Madonna sounds so defiantly old on them. cuz that's the jibe I've most seen aimed at her in the past few years, and it's a) nasty (blah blah female roles in society blah) b) inaccurate. on these two tracks she's going "yeah bitches I'm OLD, wtf are you gonna do about it?" and 'Give It 2 Me' is as audacious a statement of immortality as you're gonna get from anyone.

'Beat Goes On' is pretty slamming too, though I think I like Kanye more than Madge. "vampire at full moon now"!

do you have the og mix of 'Devil...'? Because I can definitely hear what you're saying - it does sound like an attempt to rewrite 'Cry Me A River' AGAIN but you can also hear that it doesn't quite fit the mould, it's more to do with the sellotaped-on piano line etc. thankfully they held off on the strings.

sadly the bad songs are getting WORSE - 'Dance 2night' is so unbelievably dull and wtf is that 'Miles Away' shit. 'Spanish Lesson' makes me want to listen to 'La Isla Bonita' just to cleanse my brain.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Agree on the old thing - when I got the Madonna assignment for P4K the first thing I decided was that I was under no circumstances going to mention her age.

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I think 'Miles Away' is one of the best things she's done in YEARS. As is 'Dance 2Nite'! I could take or leave 'Spanish Lesson' though.

And I personally wouldn't say those Confessions songs are the exceptions in terms of being songs rather than rhythmic tracks, but it's not that important really.