Dance yourself to sleep

In the three years since Madonna’s last studio album Confessions on a Dance Floor, the world has been waiting eagerly for the “Vogue” woman’s next celluloid reminder that she has become irrelevant.

Now that reminder has come in the form of her latest effort, Hard Candy. From its outdated bubblegum BDSM-sleaze cover (that will look sexier in its Al Yankovic parody) to its cycle of over-processed dance beats, Madonna misses no mark in reminding us that she may not have entered the real world since 1989.

She makes sure to establish this from the get-go with her opener “Candy Shop.” Only the Usher-Young Jeezy combo could beat this misunderstanding of the term “clubbanger.”  It’s clearly trying to be a dance-floor hit, but it’s hard to imagine a remix even being able to spice up its dated bleep-blipping and snoozer chorus.  “Don’t pretend you’re not hungry / I’ve got plenty to eat / Come in to my store / 'Cause my sugar is sweet,” Madonna croons, in imagery whose eroticism could have been beat had it been written by a sexually latent candy-shopping 8-year-old.

The same themes appear throughout almost the entire album - bland dance beats, overproduced electronic instrumentation and insincere, melodramatic lyrics.  She does try to branch out, however. “Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You,” for instance, consists of her singing a cappella through alternating channels between periods of complete silence. Not only is it, like, avant-garde, it’s even sort of Zappa, man.
But Hard Candy does have a couple of saving graces. 

“Incredible” is weird enough to be appealing. The buzzing synthesizers and the unpredictable channel-switching of its vocals and instrumentation make it a trippy listen.

The album’s best track is its single “4 Minutes,” but the blame for that seems to lie more in collaborators Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, who add a passion and propulsion that’s missing in the song when Madonna takes the vocal helm.
The days when Madonna could save the world in four minutes are gone. But at least she’s inspired musicians of the ’00s to take her place.