Music Review - Madonna's "Hard Candy"

How many of you watch Family Guy enough to know that there's an old man on walkers who's a child molester? Not to be extremely mean spirited but that's the vibe I get from Hard Candy. (Just joking, well half-joking really) Music aside, the cover art and all the other pictures are not really flattering. Where's the airbrushing when you need them? And I don't need to see aunt Madonna spreading her legs on the cover. Tremendous gag value, true but it's so not consensual. I have all the respect for her, but it's like watching TLC's "What Not To Wear" and Madonna is this week's subject. You're 50 or half-century old, do something appropriate with your age, do classics, do glamour...

Hard Candy is a dance/pop album set out to continue the success of "Confessions on a Dance Floor". Pharrell and Timbaland produced the whole album, which is a smart move on Madonna's part. Pharrell is a hit or miss sometimes. "Candy Shop" is hopping, but then the sexual innuendo are a bit too much. She really needs to know her audience, no one wants Madonna's brittles. (Get it?) "Give It To Me" is too repetitive. "Heartbeat" is stellar, I can picture a music video almost a-la Justin's "Rock Your Body" but with a lot less light. "Incredible" could have been a great ballad but came out way too overproduced. "Beat Goes On" with Kanye West is cute.

Timbaland seems to be a sure-bet these days, "4 Minutes" is a banging joint, there's magic in the Timbaland/Timberlake duo, I especially like how Justin says "Mah-Da-Nah!", it's really catchy. I think that little "Mah-Da-Nah!" is the reason I bought the album, although the ending of the song is a bit lack luster. Does Timbaland has to sign every song he produce? "Miles Away" is a nice ballad that sounds a bit like Gwen Stefani's "The Real Thing". "Dance2Night" has a neat 70s disco vibe. I always love the more quiet, personal songs of hers, like "Mer Girl", "Little Star" or "Paradise (Not For Me)", Madonna delivers this time with "Voices".

The album is a little bit too commercial, like N'Sync's "Pop" only instead of soda, it's candy. Madonna's vocals are overshadowed by the over complicated arrangements, it's distracting at points. Sometimes I think her albums should be kept a bit simpler, I know she sets out to conquer the dance floor yet again, but I thought she knew that the army of DJs around the world would take whatever material she put out and make it into dance hits anyway. C+

Favorites: "Heartbeat", "4 Minutes", "Dance 2Night", "Beat Goes On".