Album Description: Special Collector's Edition/CD + Amary Box + Booklet. This special edition of Hard Candy comes in a DVD-sized hinged box with the full album PLUS two bonus tracks. Tracy Young's House and Rebirth remixes of the first single "4 Minutes." Also included in the case is a 16-page full colour booklet with pictures of Madonna and a bag of "Starlite" mint candies. Hard Candy is a brilliant uptempo collection that adds a hip-hop beat to the cultural icon's club sensibilities, thanks to collaborations with Timbaland, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell Williams, and Nate "Danja" Hills. Hard Candy punctuates the first 25 years of the album career of the most successful female artist in history with a musical exclamation point.
Short and Sweet This album will be revered and reviled by the appropriate parties. The Madonna fanatics will herald the endurance and stamina of not just the artist physical prowess but her career, which is truly a remarkable feat. Her detractors will come down the pike exclaiming what an untalented Faustian invention she is and decry her as irrelevant, again. The opening to Madonna's new opus starts quietly with inverted syncopated beats and almost instantly pardon the pun if you will gets "into the groove" with the album's opener "Candy Shop". The song is immediately accessible and is reminiscent of some tracks from her r&b flavored album "Bedtime Stories", the tune is catchy if not ephemeral in its stay in your consciousness. The explosive, fun and unapologetically commercial first single "4 Minutes" bumps and grinds accompanied by thematically unstructured lyrics and like many of Madonna's musical projects the song is successful in implanting its clunky chorus in your head "tick tock tick tock".The track steamrolls the listener leaving them prostrate by the tracks powerful and entertaining energetic spirit."Give it 2 Me" the album's third and strongest track will really be the track that will define this album in retrospect. "Give it 2 Me" presents the artist in the millieu and genre that her most rabid and myopic fans would prefer her to stay in infinitely, dance music and the dancefloor. I have to say that I don't blame the fans. Madonna owns this track,you can practically see the disco balls and laser lights on this soon to be classic Madonna track with its bouncy and measured build up that does not invite you to the dancefloor but demands that you get on it immediately!. The album shifts from it's theme about candy,sweets and sugar on the provacative for all the wrong reasons (given the negative press coverage the artist has recieved regarding her marriage and alleged affairs) "Miles Away". The song illustrates the pitfalls and painful realizations of a long distance love affair that has come to an impasse. The inclusion of this track (which I personally like)creates a thematic disonance among a landscape of songs with lyrics such as "watch my booty get down like.." and "get stupid, get stupid". Hard Candy as a concept fails here. The song is quite frankly too anchored in real or perceived heartache on a album about confections. "Miles Away" would of been a perfect fit on the artist 2000 album "Music" or 2003's "American Life". On "Dance 2nite" Madonna pays homage to herself revisiting a groove and vibe that you can hear on her eponymous debut album " Madonna" and later "Like a Virgin" in songs like "Everybody", "Physical Attraction" and "Dress You Up". Madonna fans of a certain age will recognize that aspect of some of the songs on "Hard Candy". "Hard Candy" despite some thematic challenges stays musically consistent and taut. The casual listener will hear some very infectious and bouncy grooves.This makes "Hard Candy" a bonafide success. The Madonna fanatic and detractor for better or worse will project and inject their perceived ideas and feelings of the artist good and bad and they will miss the point , again. "Hard Candy" proves why Madonna is still here it's about the music always has been. To paraphrase one of the songs on "Hard Candy", were not her and we'll never will be.
Sounds Incredible the product arrived to my country - Argentina- in perfect conditions. It really sounds incredible and the pictures are owsome. I recomended it for avery fan of madonna and good quality sound.
Not her best, but still makes you want to move. Songs on this album are all definitely "sticky and sweet." I still loved her last album- mostly for the amazing transitions between songs- but this one has a different appeal. She once again has reinvented herself.
The Mid-Life Crisis Album from Madonna Madonna has never been a remarkable musical talent; she has simply always been a remarkably astute observer and creator of culture. She is the consummate chameleon with the correct response to every trend. I have always believed there is a streak of true depth to Madonna, despite her comfort in the superficial, and that depth lies in her commitment to the principle of free self-expression.
Madonna has lost that depth and the kernel of her genius in this album. Her "self" never emerges through the carefully packaged, retro-dominatrix club motif. For the very first time, we have no idea what Madonna is trying to tell us.
"Hard Candy" attempts to draw heavily on vintage Madonna. The sounds are produced enough to be squarely within our decade, but the song packages are reminiscent of the mid-80s. Even the album cover, with its neon and leather, is 1985. And yet the impetuous, creative, but curiously soft-spoken young woman from 1985 who relished her ability to stir the public with sharp edges is now so entrenched within her cocoon of status as a politically correct, music-industry legend, she has no motivation to manipulate us with this album.
All we hear are formulas. All we see are the hottest names in the business floating around the album to entice us to associate Madonna with contemporary musical power. It is all package, and no substance.
If there is any message here, the message is, "I may be pushing 50, but I am still a pop star". Like the stereotypical middle-aged man enduring an obvious mid-life crisis with a poorly conceived purchase of a flashy sportscar, Madonna is not conscious here of the narcissism she is projecting.
When "4 minutes" was released, (an odd mixture of the trendy global consciousness in Madonna's conceptual style and Justin Timberlake, who is just there because he is Justin Timberlake), my first response was to realize how much better "Blackout" is, and how terribly ironic it is that I am hearing songs from Madonna instead of Britney because while Madonna is a shrewd and confident master of public image, Britney is mentally ill.
Here, however, in Hard Candy, the limits of disingenuous posturing are seen; for once, formulas and shrewd marketing cannot take sail without any vulnerable and real person behind the package clamoring for expression.
Surprise Every time a song by Madonna comes out it seems like she has reinvented herself. This time is no different. A bit of the beginning sounds of Madonna mixed with her later music. Her voice is clear and sounds as if it is embedded into the music. The flow is great as well as some of the people she has on this CD. Listen to the words on this CD, they are clear and understandable, unlike some other recently produced albums. Madonna by far has outdone Mariah and Janet. Leona Lewis is on her tale though - check her out too.
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Trevor
