Hard Candy is the eleventh studio album from the chameleon of pop colloquially known as Madonna and the follow up to her 2005's hugely successful Confessions On A Dancefloor album.
Throughout her career, which spans three decades she has consistently proved to have her finger on the musical pulse and her ability to re-invent herself to capitalise on the trend of the moment is one of the most important factors that has contributed towards her phenomenal success. Another factor that has contributed towards the success of the world's biggest selling female artist is her ability to surround herself with the hottest people of the moment.
Hard Candy always promised to take a RnB direction and news that she was working with today's hottest people like Timbaland, Pharrel Williams, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West confirmed this to be the case. Always a fan of Madonna I was rather dismayed to hear that this album would have an urban/hip hop pop feel to it. "4 minutes" gave us a taster of what we could expect and also gave Madonna her 13th UK number one single. On first hearing this single I was not overly impressed and whilst I admit that the song did grow on me a little it still remains one of my least favourite Madonna singles to date.
Unlike previous Madonna releases I remained surprisingly reserved about Hard Candy
and I had no immediate plans to rush out and buy it. The weekend before last however I did finally take the plunge and add it to my collection but it would remain intact inside its cellophane seal for three full days until I finally got round to playing it.
The album contains twelve tracks as below:
1. Candy Shop 2. 4 Minutes 3. Give It 2 Me 4. Heartbeart 5. Miles Away 6. She's Not Me 7. Incredible 8. Beat Goes On 9. Dance 2night 10. Spanish Lesson 11. Devil Wouldn't Recognize You 12. Voices
On the very play first I was actually amazed that I didn't hate this album and for me there were two obvious standout tracks. These being the upbeat and ridiculously catchy Give It 2 Me and Miles Away. Unlike Confessions On A Dancefloor where we are treated to uninterrupted beats and strange noises on Hard Candy we find a dozen much more normal sounding songs. These are on the whole proper songs, with good musical arrangements and for the first time for years these are also Madonna songs with strong lyrics. These lyrics are tales of regret, lost love and missed opportunities. It is easy to imagine that these are heartfelt words about all not being well in the Madonna/Guy Ritchie house.
The album kicks off with Candy Shop, which has to be an obvious choice for a future single. Pharrel's influences here are very evident and it seems for a moment that rather than take control Madonna has actually allowed herself to sit back and let the experts do all the hard work. This could also be said of 4 minutes where Justin Timberlake has a more prominent place than Madonna herself. Candy Shop is a song that is packed full of insinuations and double entendres. On Candy Shop Madonna briefly revisits her naughty Erotica days but lets Pharrel give it a beat that still works today. The result is a catchy little song that is a lit bit naughty in a Hanky Panky sort of way, but without the shock value that alienated a lot of her fans during her Erotica and Sex book phase.
Give It 2 Me belts out at a much faster and harder pace than its two predecessors. This is to be the second single to be lifted from the album (released in the UK on 14th July 2008). Like a breath of fresh air this is one of my favourite tracks from Hard Candy and is much more like the Madonna that I know and love.
Miles Away has wonderful lyrics which leave you thinking about the state of Madonna's marriage. This is quite a slow song but it is not a ballad. On Hard Candy there are no ballads but Miles Away and later on with Devil Wouldn't Recognize You are the closest that this album gets to a ballad. Miles Away is a standout track for me and one of the songs that I have listened to a lot.
She's Not Me is a song about Madonna Wannabees. It has been said that this could even be about Britney Spears who has previously worked with Madonna and was of course the former lover of Justin Timberlake. Here Madonna sings: "She started dressing like me and talking like me, it freaked me out, she started calling you up in the middle of the night, what's that about?" and later "She started dyeing her hair and wearing the same perfume as me, she started reading my books and stealing my looks and lingerie". Did Britney really stoop so low- I think not.
Spanish Lesson is one of the album's stranger moments, where we find Madonna giving us a string of Spanish phrases followed by their English translations. Didn't Geri Helliwell do something very similar to this a few years ago and if I recall that was wasn't very good either.
Beat Goes On will appeal to RnB lovers but didn't do a lot for me but then the album ends with an almost operatic opening to a track called Voices which made me sit up and listen again. After an intro that could have been inspired by Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody Madonna asks "Who is the master and who is the slave?"
I think that Hard Candy has some good songs on it but it is not as good as a lot of her previous work. This album marks the end of her contract with Warner Brothers so it could be argued that her heart was not fully in it, but I don't actually believe that. Madonna is a perfectionist and puts 100% into everything that she does. I think that on Hard Candy she has made two obvious choices. Firstly she has taken a RnB route to try and win back a lot of her American fans that deserted her in droves with her anti-American American Life album and secondly she has recorded twelve songs that are less inclined to make good singles but collectively will appease her fans and maybe also find a new audience for her. This is probably another shrewd business move as Madonna knows that singles sales are now so low that it is album sales that she would be much better concentrating on.
Madonna may be about to turn 50 but she does still seem to have her finger on the pulse!
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Well reviewed. I must say I wasnt planning to buy it either as Im really not into hip hop and feel Madonna has past her best so to speak. But as you say there are two songs which sound like they are worth watching out for.
Jun 29th, 2008
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