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Madonna – Hard Candy
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“I’ve got Turkish delight, baby/And so much more,” warbles Madge on ‘Candy Shop’, the opener of her much-anticipated 11th studio album. A box of Milk Tray and some fun-sized Mars bars, perhaps? Sadly she doesn’t elaborate, but regardless, it’s a song so lyrically ludicrous that it almost rivals her 1990 triumph ‘Hanky Panky’.
Now, I’m no prude, but am I the only person on the planet who finds it a bit challenging to equate this old bird with any degree of sexiness, lasciviousness or controversy anymore? As Madonna gamely raps her way though a jar full of toe-curling confectionary metaphors – “Sticky and sweet/My sugar is raw,” she whispers – I feeler sicker than I would if I’d just necked 10 bags of Haribo in one sitting.
Anyway, In terms of setting the bar high, her last album, 2006’s Stuart Price-produced Confessions On A Dance Floor is as tricky as it gets. It felt bang on the button, with Price at the height of his powers and Madonna sounding the triumphant disco queen, returning to claw back her crown. Here, by enlisting Timbaland and Pharrell Williams on knob-twiddling duties, it feels like she’s run out of ideas and just hedged her bets with a couple of big hitters. Madge copying Nelly Furtado and Gwen Stefani? Check.
There’s no denying lead single ‘4 minutes’ is blistering, all trademark Timbaland off-kilter horns and deadpan rapping, but songs like ‘Incredible’ sound like they’ve been written by Pharrell in about 10 minutes to test out a new synthesiser. ‘Miles Away’ is horrible, sickly schlock and ‘Dance 2night’’s faux-Latin strumming recalls the dubious horrors of ‘La Isla Bonita’.
‘Voices’, which takes the vocals of ‘Dance 2night’ and twists them into a disorientating off-kilter dance track, is much better – a bit like the Yellow Magic Orchestra covering Adamski’s ‘Killer’. But when a backing vocalist asks “What the f*** is Madonna doing?” on ‘Spanish Lesson’, you’re inclined to agree that it’s a very good question.
Stewart Turner
