all about Madonna

Top Albums :
01. Extraordinary Machine – Fiona Apple
02. Wind In The Wires – Patrick Wolfe
03. Confessions On A Dance Floor – Madonna
Madonna’s American Life was a bona fide folk album, a record filled with literal protest songs by an artist who’d evidently forgotten she’d been making candy-coated ones throughout her entire career (”Holiday,” “Express Yourself,” “Music,” et al.). Confessions On A Dance Floor, her 10th non-soundtrack studio album, was purported to be a return to her club roots. Sure, the album might be pure dance, without a trace of a live string arrangement (blame the death of Michel Colombier, Madge’s arranger of choice since 2000), but Madonna hasn’t written in such an orchestral manner since, well, maybe ever (credit producer Stuart Price, whose parents were classically-trained musicians). The bridges and ascending chord progressions of songs like “Jump” and “Sorry” are reminiscent of Madonna’s collaborations with Pat Leonard, who helped bring a musicality to some of her best work. The album’s 12 tracks work better as a whole, not as individual singles, and not just because one track segues into the next. It makes sense that songs like “Hung Up” and “How High” were sprung from the loins of what was originally intended to be a musical score; the album could easily be adapted into a musical”albeit one best kept to the tour stage, where Madonna has always aimed for a theatre experience anyway”and performed in sequence beginning with her arrival at a club and ending with blissful revelation the following morning. But with Confessions, an album sparked by the singer’s desire to invoke “ABBA on Ecstasy,” Madonna doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, she simply rolls with it.
04. Arular – M.I.A.
05. Anniemal – Annie
06. I Am A Bird Now – Anothony And The Johnson
07. Takk – Sigur RA3s
08. … And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart
09. The Emancipation Of Mimi – Mariah Carey
10. The Cookbook – Missy Elliott

Top Singles :
01. Since U Been Gone – Kelly Clarkson
02. We Belong Together – Mariah Carey
03. Mr. Brightside – The Killers
04. One Word – Kelly Osbourne
05. Galvanize – The Chemical Brothers
06. Hung Up – Madonna
“Hung Up” uses a ticking clock to represent fear of wasted time, but Madonna isn’t singing about careerism (or even bringing the people together), she’s talking about love. The track embodies the past with its pitched-upward vocals, infectious arpeggio sample from ABBA’s “Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight),” and decidedly unironic, archetypical key change during the bridge. “Hung Up” is destined to become one of those songs where the video images are, in classic Madonna fashion, forever tied to the song. Directed by Johan Renck, the clip juxtaposes Saturday Night Fever-inspired garb and dance moves with the patently modern style of krumping (the video was originally slated to be helmed by David LaChapelle, director of the acclaimed krumping doc Rize), a fact that will likely become more fodder for cultural critics interested in the artist’s continued appropriation of black culture. But Madonna herself doesn’t crump in “Hung Up” the way she vogued in “Vogue” 15 years ago. Dressed in a hot pink Olivia Newton-John-style leotard, Madonna instead stretches impossibly and practices her disco moves in an empty studio, distancing herself from the young street dancers and providing further evidence of her precarious position as an outsider. But the same disco dance that seems awkward and dated (yet compulsively watchable) in that setting comes to vibrant life when performed en masse with the krumpers at a Japanese arcade. Maybe music does indeed bring the people together.
07. Feel Good Inc. – Gorillaz
08. Gold Digger – Kanye West
09. Why Do You Love Me – Garbage
10 . La Tortura – Shakira

source : slant

Leave a Reply