Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 2.5 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
Madonna’s eternal mission has been to assert herself in a patriarchal world, and turn stereotypes of male dominance on their head. The important thing is that she’s always done it on her terms – as long as it simultaneously kept her on top of the charts. Hard Candy demonstrates a compromise of sorts, almost as if she realizes that it’s going to require a little bit more than just her name to keep people interested. This time, she calls in the heavy hitters – The Neptunes and the team of Timbaland and Justin Timberlake split production duties on Hard Candy.
It’s hard to know what’s the more interesting storyline here. Is it the fact that Hard Candy is essentially a showdown of hip-hop’s top two producers, Pharrell Williams and Timbaland, or is it that the punch-counterpunch feel of the proceedings render Madonna’s presence practically irrelevant? Taken as a competition to crown the true king of the charts, Williams comes out miles ahead. He helms the album’s three best songs – opener ‘Candy Shop,’ ‘Give It 2 Me,’ and ‘She’s Not Me.’ Timbaland, meanwhile, is dangerously close to recycling some of his old material here.
The Material Girl herself is a virtual non-entity on Hard Candy. Through paper-thin vocals and increasingly dated sexual innuendo, Madonna does a better job of self-parody than self-promotion. This could be – and should be – the death of sexercize Madonna.
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