all about Madonna

Madonna leaving the after party for ‘I am Because We Are’ at Soho Grand in New York (April 24 2008)

Back to bubblegum basics for the Material Girl

Of all the Mouseketeers and Madonnabees of 21st century pop, it’s Justin Timberlake who’s most cannily emulated La Ciccone in his extending his pop shelflife without going bland or barmy. And so, with her magpie eye for a successful formula, Her Madge returns for album eleven by hooking up with the golden boy, with collaborators Timbaland and The Neptunes in tow.

Surprisingly the results speak less to contemporary avant RnB – though the opening “Candy Shop” is Pharrell’s latest retread of “Milkshake” – than to her original early 80s incarnation as disco protegee of Jellybean Benitez. “Can’t you see, when I dance I feel free” she sings on “Heartbeat”, echoing “Into The Groove”, and though it sometimes plays safe, Hard Candy could be her most unpretentious and consistently enjoyable pop record since Like A Virgin.

3 out of 5 stars

The material girl has abandoned the pulpit for the dancefloor, writes Jon Pareles.

When in doubt, take Madonna at face value. Since the beginning of her career, she has telegraphed her intentions and labelled herself more efficiently than any observer. She has titled albums Music, Erotica and, in 2005, Confessions On A Dance Floor for a collection that mingled personal and biblical reflections with club grooves. Flaunting her ever-changing image, she named one tour Who’s That Girl?, another Re-Invention.

She’s just as blunt on her 11th studio album, Hard Candy (Warner Brothers), which is released today. There’s no question that this album aims to please – and it does. “See which flavour you like and I’ll have it for you,” she promises in Candy Shop, and she follows through: “Come on into my store/I got candy galore.”

That’s a come-on, of course, but it’s also a statement of purpose. Hard Candy is devoted to the instant gratification of a musical sweet tooth and, equally important, to the continuing commercial potency of “my store”.

Madonna turns 50 in August. The one-time club-hopping Boy Toy is now a married mother of three who’s making a midlife job change. She’s leaving behind her career-long major-label contract for a deal with the concert promotion giant Live Nation that will keep her on the road and making albums over the next decade.

Hard Candy is Madonna’s last album of new material for Warner Brothers Records, which says she has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide (via the Sire label and later her own Maverick) since her career began in 1982. It doesn’t burn bridges with her major label. It’s the kind of album a record company longs for in this embattled market: a set of catchy, easily digestible, mass-appeal songs by a star who’s not taking chances.

Madonna sets aside her avant-pop and do-gooder impulses on Hard Candy. Instead of introducing little-known dance-world producers into the mainstream, she is working with established hit makers. Instead of arty provocations, she’s polishing the basics of verse-chorus-verse. And instead of another full-scale reinvention, she’s looking back, deliberately echoing the sound of her early years, with a ProTools facelift.

When she’s not urging a listener to dance or “undress me”, Madonna uses Hard Candy to renew her brand and defy sceptics, yet again. Sometimes she gets defensive, and her best defence is a sleek dance beat. Hard Candy, despite some filler, has plenty of them.

Alongside whatever she has offered her audience through the years – sex, glamour, dancing, defiance, blasphemy, spirituality – Madonna has never pretended to be anything but diligent. She’s disciplined, hard-working and determined to sell. For Madonna as a pop archetype, the truest pleasure isn’t momentary physical ecstasy or divine rapture but success. She labelled that impulse too in an early tour: Blond Ambition.

Presenting herself not only as an object of desire but as a material girl with her eye on the profits was one of the many smart moves she made from the beginning. By flaunting her control and her triumphs, Madonna gave fans a stake in her long-term prospects.

Madonna’s financial future is by no means precarious now that she’s on her own. In a so-called “360 deal” reportedly worth as much as $US120 million ($127 million), Live Nation will handle her output, encompassing albums, ticket sales, licensing and merchandising. “I’ll be your one-stop candy shop/Everything that I got,” she sings, appropriately.

Well, not everything. Madonna was getting mighty serious on her 21st-century albums American Life and Confessions On A Dance Floor. During last year’s Confessions tour, Madonna melded her longtime hobby of Christianity baiting with her newer charitable cause. She sang Live To Tell from a crucifix with disco-ball mirrors, wearing a crown of thorns, while video images of suffering Africans were shown. Last year at the Live Earth concert she introduced a would-be environmental anthem, Hey You, that tried and failed to be her equivalent of John Lennon’s Imagine. The song came and went, raising some corporate donations, but does not appear on the new album.

The closest Hard Candy gets to social consciousness is 4 Minutes, which has a clock ticking and Justin Timberlake singing, “We only got four minutes to save the world!” in his best Michael Jackson imitation. But the rest of the song’s lyrics just make those four minutes sound like they’re time for a quickie, or perhaps the length of a pop hit.

More than ever, 21st-century pop performers live by the popularity of one four-minute song at a time, to be quickly exploited as a single before listeners move on. Madonna clearly intends to stay competitive, and her talents suit an era when staccato, electronic pop makes perfect ring tones.

Madonna wrote the songs on Hard Candy with Timberlake and with Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes. The producer, Timbaland, adds his touches; Kanye West drops by to rap on Beat Goes On. They’re all established hit makers, as well as some of the most clever hook-makers alive.

Choosing those collaborators is a change of strategy for Madonna. In past albums she used her cool-hunting radar to seek out lesser-known figures – Jellybean Benitez and Patrick Leonard in the 1980s, Mirwais Ahmadzai and Stuart David Price (aka Jacques Lu Cont) in the 2000s – who could ride her pop instincts into the mainstream.

The sound of Hard Candy is partly the sound of an era when New York dance clubs were an experiment in improbable social interactions – gays, socialites, breakdancers, artists – that became a pipeline to pop radio. Like Moby on his new album, Last Night, Madonna can’t help looking back fondly on her younger days.

She has had more profound moments – Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light – but not every pop star is cut out for full-time profundity. This time, concocting new ditties that will have her audiences singing along, she was smart to stay shallow.

A couple of years ago, 50 Cent opened a boutique with the hit Candy Shop. Now it’s time for Madonna to lead us up the path to her own confectioner’s shop, one that is alas limited in flavours. There are only two, to be precise: not so sweet and downright unsavoury.

2 out of 5

Full Review

More than a quarter-century after debut single Everybody got everybody dancing, Madonna has yet to be demoted to Immaterial Girl, even in this age of flash-in-the-pantheon stars.

“Don’t stop me now, don’t need to catch my breath,” she defiantly sings on her new track Give It 2 Me. “I can go on and on and on.”

So it seems. It’s one of a dozen cuts on her Hard Candy disc, out Tuesday with assists from Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Pharrell Williams. She also has directed the comedy Filth and Wisdom and produced and written a documentary, I Am Because We Are, about AIDS orphans in Malawi. That’s where she found David Banda, the 2-year-old she and filmmaker husband Guy Ritchie are adopting.

Madonna chats from her London home:

Q: Why these collaborators?

A: I love their records, and they bring out the best in other people. I thought we could play to each other’s strengths. I decided to work with singers, songwriters and producers who are artists in their own right and see what that would manifest.

Q: Did you instantly click?

A: No, I don’t think you do with anyone. I’d met them before in social circumstances. It’s quite different when you sit down and say, “Let’s write a song.” You’re putting yourself in a vulnerable position. Will they think my ideas are stupid? Can I speak freely without hurting anyone’s feelings? That’s awkward. They’re personable, and nobody was unprofessional.

Q: What inspired Hard Candy’s urgent, mobilizing fervor?

A: We don’t have the luxury of thinking someone else is going to take care of our problems. Obviously, I’ve been focused on the world around me and taking responsibility for the past few years. (Candy) also is about life’s surprises and trust and disappointment, about finding out that people I thought were my friends weren’t. It’s staying flexible, not being married to any fixed idea and not taking anything too literally.

Q: She’s Not Me could be a response to Madonna wannabes.

A: I wasn’t thinking about that. I’m very happy if what I do and what I’ve accomplished has inspired other women or given them a sense of ownership of their destiny. I don’t think anyone is trying to be me. To me, (She’s Not Me) is the ultimate jilted lover song. The follow-up to I Will Survive, maybe a little angrier.

Q: Work often separates you and Guy, which you address with some sadness in Miles Away.

A: That’s the drawback of two artists living together. We have to make sacrifices, and there’s always a trade-off. It’s about long-distance relationships in general. After I wrote it, the guys in the studio were like, “I can totally relate.”

Q: Is the media spotlight less welcome now that the cameras are on your family?

A: Attention on the adoption bothered me because it will filter down to my other children (Lourdes, 11, and Rocco, 7), and it’s hard for them to understand why anyone would get mad at me for saving someone’s life. We have a basic understanding in this house that most things written in newspapers and magazines aren’t true.

Q: What’s your reaction to the microscope Britney Spears has been under the past year?

A: I have a lot of compassion for her. People are being entertained by her suffering. I don’t condone it, and it makes me sad.

Q: You turn 50 on Aug. 16. Any dread about that milestone?

A: I love birthdays. You get to have a party and people give you presents. I don’t think this year is any more significant than last year.

Q: Reports keep surfacing that you’ve had cosmetic surgery. Sharon Osbourne rather indelicately said, “I went into shock at Madonna’s new head.” Do you want to respond?

A: There’s something undignified about commenting on someone else’s commentary. I don’t mind what she says or doesn’t say.

Q: As someone on the cutting edge of trends, do you think the best music gets heard?

A: Not necessarily. If a fire engine’s blaring in my ear, I’m not going to hear the fantastic mandolin next to me. Everything is about instant gratification and shorter shelf life. Someone who’s offering subtleties won’t make an impact. We live in a world full of distractions.

Q: Did your induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month feel a bit premature?

A: Kind of. I was thinking: “But I’m not done yet. I don’t want to be in a museum.” I had to stop and look at it as an acknowledgement of the work I’ve done. The footage they showed was predominantly from the first 10 years of my career, and it seems like centuries ago. I’ve gone through a million revolutions and evolutions since then.

source : usatoday.com