Warner
Pop, 2008

Hard Candy makes me feel old. I mean, when here we have Madonna trying so hard by teaming up with Timbaland and the Neptunes, I can’t help thinking that the locusts and the apocalypse must be next. What is Madonna trying to prove? She’s trying too hard to stay relevant, of course, but the end result is an anonymous mess of tuneless bleeps. I have to wonder why she even bothers. Not that it will stop her core following of fanatical queens who will insist that Madonna singing aloud from the telephone book is pure solid gold, of course, and I suppose this CD will be a great soundtrack for them to get smashed in a club and have sexual encounters they will regret once they are sober, but that doesn’t mean this uninspiring and boring CD is any good.

Teaming up with Justin Timberlake, the epitome of a suburban white guy trying desperately to be a gangsta just to get chicks and hang out with cool guys who can score him lots of drugs, on that lifeless 4 Minutes results in a lackluster song. I feel as if I am listening to a duet between two karaoke androids. The rest of the CD is no better. Everything is a mess of mechanical squeaks, creaks, bleeps, and whirring sounds.

I suppose that Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You is probably the best track here, if only because it has at least a discernible tune, but there is nothing here that hasn’t been done much better by Madonna in the past. Perhaps it is time that Madonna tries a little harder to borrow ideas from more cutting-edge folks instead of folks who had hit their peak in, oh, 2005 or so.