The bass line at the start of Dance 2 Night

I cant quite believe it - ive been waiting for her to add some dirty bass in her stuff and this pretty much satisfies my dreams. I now have majorly high hopes for this song.

Give it 2 me just sounds brilliantly insane - and to think I thought Pharrell had lost it.

Heartbeat is gonna be killer also - that melody is my favourite so far, and i love the intro.

Shes Not Me has some nice little bits of funky guitar licks in it - hopefully threre will be more of this on the full song.

Devil Wouldnt Recognise U is stuck in my brain already. Wasn't sure of it at first but i see why people are raving about it. Still cant imagine it as a torch ballad though.

Spanish Lesson makes a little more sense with the intro - but i still think my violent reaction will be to pound the next button on my CD player. Nasty.

Dayum im too hyped about this CD now. Im even feeling love for Candy Shop. hearing the intro in HQ changes is totally for me.

Wow, I like most of what I'm hearing. I didn't expect to either.

GangstaFam said:

what? even Mr. Discriminating likes it? that's a good sign!

is it me or She's Not Me use the same melody as Supernatural?

heartbeatocean said:

wait. what? how'd I get that name?

Rating:
Rolling Stone



Dominance isn't just a fetish for Madonna, it's her religion. It's no accident that she opened each show on 2005's Confessions on a Dance Floor tour by clenching a riding crop in her hand, jerking a gagged male dancer around by a leather leash.

And she never puts down the whip: Since 1986's True Blue, Madonna has claimed writing or production credits on every one of her songs, even when she worked with dance-music artists such as William Orbit, Mirwais Ahmadzaï and Stuart Price. So itís surprising that her eleventh studio album — her final one for longtime label Warner Bros. — is an act of submission. For Hard Candy, Madonna's midlife meditation on her own relevance, she lets top-shelf producers make her their plaything.

A songwriting team of American chart royalty helps Madonna revisit her roots as an urban-disco queen. Madonna isn't even the star on the first single, "4 Minutes": Timbaland and Nate "Danja" Hills provide a clanging whopper of a beat, and her vocal bobs alongside Justin Timberlake's, fighting not to drown in the brassy funk of a marching band. Timberlake is the album's melody doctor, and he steals from his own broody "What Goes Around . . . Comes Around" on Madonna's "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You."

Madonna co-wrote but didn't co-produce the Timberlake-Timbaland team's five songs, which smack more of their creators' stamps than her own. The songs are solid, but slightly anonymous, as though they could be stripped down and peddled to other singers.

The creative tension between Madonna and the Neptunes' Pharrell Williams crackles. Williams bangs on paint cans to generate the beat on the innuendo-laden opener, "Candy Shop", and pumps up the thumpy self-empowerment anthem "Give It 2 Me" with clubby synths that trumpet one of Madonna's favorite life-dance-sex metaphors: "Don't stop me now, don't need to catch my breath/I can go on and on." "Heartbeat" pulses like "Lucky Star," and the soulful "Beat Goes On" (which features an uninspired Kanye West cameo) is one of a handful of tracks with bells and whistles — the classic disco "toot-toot, beep-beep" — traceable to two of Madonna's touchstones: Chic, whose Nile Rodgers helped steer her early career, and Donna Summer.

Like Confessions, Hard Candy celebrates dance as salvation, but even the euphorically groovy "Heartbeat" and "Dance 2night" strike wistful notes. Although the uptempo set features no ballads, the dominant lyrical themes — regret, yearning, distrust — are far from upbeat. Morphing from a syncopated shuffle into a lathery, orgasmic hysteria, Pharrell's "Incredible" is a challenging song about longing for a relationship's idyllic beginning. There's a melancholy pining in Timbaland-Timberlake's lush "Miles Away," which implies that all is not peachy in the house of Richie. "You always have the biggest heart when we're 6,000 miles apart," Madonna sings. International pop megastars — they're just like us!

The album's weakest moment is its most emotionally vapid. Madonna dips into Español for the painfully literal "Spanish Lesson." She has said the music was inspired by a Baltimore dance called the Percolator but seems more indebted to Timberlakeís fast-strummed "Like I Love You." Fortunately, there's also the bass-popping retro-boogie "She's Not Me," where Madonna imagines her lovers feeling buyers' remorse for being seduced by a copycat who "doesn't have my name." The offender who's "reading my books and stealing my looks and lingerie" could be any young pop starlet. But it also seems like an oddly timed barb at Madonna's now-fallen successor, Britney Spears, who has teamed up with many of the guys on Hard Candy — Pharrell, Danja and (ahem) Timberlake — and Madonna herself.

Madonna can still scoff at wanna-be's half her age because she's stayed so flexible with her sound. (She's performed a similar feat with her body, devoting herself to a yoga regimen that's made her impossibly elastic — name another near-fifty-year-old who can still rock a hot crotch shot on her album cover.) Even when she wrestles with Pharrell's abrupt stylistic changes or lets herself get absorbed in a Timberlake melody, Madonna still finds her way back on top. The atmospheric closing track, "Voices," poses the question "Who is the master, who is the slave?" before its operatic wind-down ends in a dramatic bell toll. The answer to both questions is still Madonna.

I finally got the new issue of Elle.A few days ago,I found the Vanity Fair issue too.So I'm still looking for the new issue of Q.I know it's an import,so it'll take a few more days before it reaches my area.Anybody get any of these mags yet?

CrozzaUK said:

The chorus to "Incredible" has been stuck in my head all day long! I don't know how the rest of that song sounds,but the chorus is addictive!

SoulAlive said:

There is no way we're getting 5 singles from this album. I'd guess 3, maybe a 4th sent to clubs with remixes. When's the last time we got 5 singles? American Life? One of those was DAD from the previous year, and doesn't really count. And Love Nothing Fails was little more than a club promo that somehow made it to the stores.

After a few singles, both parties are going to be itching to move on. Madonna, to just be done with WB and move on to the next thing, and WB to the compilation that's already in the works to cash in on a tour. The comp might have a remix of one of the HC tracks. Or maybe an outtake - I can see a big ballad being released as a single to cap off her WB years.

At the WB listening party,an executive mentioned that they want to release five singles,but it's probably wishful thinking on their part.It's almost a shame that she's leaving Warners so soon after giving them what might be the most commercial album of her career.If there was any Madonna album that could have five singles,this one is it.

So,if there will be only three singles,what should they be? "4 Minutes" and "Give It To Me" are the first two...what should be the third?

I´m really liking these snippets, except for the spanish lessons one

I wanna hear the whole album like NOOOOOWWWWW!!

SoulAlive said:

I really couldn't say, having only heard the 30 second snippets.


Nothing really grabbed me, but nothing repulsed me either, thankfully.

well, so far i've heared over 1 minute of each one. I gotta stop that! I want to deflower my new cd when I buy it (ONE WEEK!!)

now I like every song a little. It's fantastic. I still think 4 Minutes, Dance 2night, Beat goes on and Miles Away and Give It 2 Me are the best and most commercial ones and should be singles!!! hopefully they have proper videos. usually when she's toruing she doesn't have the time to make good videos (Get Together, Jump). Well, hopefully she's allready done 4 Minutes and Give It 2 Me!!!
She should shoot the vid for teh next ones before she'll tour!!

OMG, i'm so exciting bout the prmo tour! I wonder which songs she'll perform!!

I have finals and two huge papers as well as some other stuff. So fortunately I will be too busy to even entertain the idea of looking for these tracks even if they feel into my lap (and I don't want them too...I don't need more distractions!). So the fact that this album comes out on midnight Tuesday might just be perfect! If I'm still in town I might just go out to Meijer and pick it up.

I hope you don't go out this Tuesday looking for the album

It's due next Tuesday,April 29.

graecophilos said:

I wish I could be the type of fan who doesn't listen to links and previews I miss the days when I would buy a new album without knowing what most of the songs sound like.



She just shot a video for the second single "Give It To Me".This actually surprised me.She usuallly waits until the first single has completely died down before even thinking about the next video.




I agree.Now that the "4 Minutes" and "Give It To Me" videos are completed,she should go in and shoot an excellent video for "Miles Away",before the tour starts.I'm pretty sure that will be the third single.If we get a fourth single,she could use live footage from the tour for that video.





She's gonna do five songs from the new album.I think she should do these songs:

"Give It To Me"
"Heartbeat"
"Miles Away"
"She's Not Me"
"4 Minutes"

She'll need someone to sing "4 Minutes" with her,though I heard that Pharrell will appear with her at a few of the promo gigs....perhaps he can do it?

.
[Edited 4/18/08 6:22am]

SoulAlive said:

Me? No. I guess I didn't put this in my message but all next week I will be working on stuff and my last final (and where I have to dump nearly a semester's worth of work) is Monday the 28th. Depending on if I'm still out and it's close to midnight, I might just waste some time at Meijer...I probably won't be able to find a parking spot when I get home, but whatever!

Looks like Madonna has some competition for my dollars and the number one spot on the album charts....



I really like Carly. Could you imagine if she has the number one album...that means that Starbucks fucking kicked a major label's ass even with all their promotion and a single that went to number 3 (remember....Britney Spears getting her ass handed to her by the Eagles who the rules were changed for). Knowing that Carly, who I like a lot and love her "Anthology", will have an album out, I definitely don't want to go apeshit with all the deluxe editions of "Hard Candy" especially since I'm not such a huge fan of the first single. I might blind buy Carly, too.

Also an interesting note from Amazon....Madonna's album is so big it's helping others. You know how there is that section of "Customers who bough this also bought this". Under Def Leppard's new one..."Hard Candy" is up there (before it are semi related rock acts like Asia and Dokken). Under the Caryl's album, it's the first suggestion...With Donna Summer's upcoming new one, they pull the "Better together" deal. Interesting combos.
[Edited 4/18/08 7:13am]

Your last final is on April 28,huh? You're gonna need some "hard candy" to celebrate

SoulAlive said:

and it's a night class. Either going drinking right after with classmates or meeting other friends for trivia. Trivia lets out at 11 at the very latest unless my friends decide they want to do desert later but that is often rare (we got to this fancy place in Ann Arbor right next door...La Dolce Vita....expensive but good stuff).

Another newbie...grrrrr!

stevenpottle said:

she is such a Marlene Dietrich

This Madonna era has been excellent.

Haven't listened to any of the clips, I'm still holding out!

Dying to hear "Dance 2Night" & "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" though...

So "Give It 2 Me" is fantastic? I did read a few comments that it was too hyped up, just some "90s cheap dance track" in the vein of "Runaway Lover". Hope it's not true...

In a new Italian interview, Madonna named 3 favourites: "Candy Shop", "Miles Away" & "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You", so I'd think these would be considered as singles.

Review from Entertainment Weekly

You've seen the video for ''4 Minutes,'' Madonna's flirty duet with Justin Timberlake. Perhaps you've heard that roughly half of her new album, Hard Candy, was produced by the Neptunes, with the remainder entrusted to the team of Timbaland, Nate ''Danja'' Hills, and Timberlake. Maybe you know that Kanye West pops up on one song (''Beat Goes On''). Between the fountain-of-youth dalliances and hookups with hip-hop kingpins, we know what you're thinking: Just how massive is this midlife crisis of hers?

Pretty major, probably, but she makes it work with this surprisingly rejuvenated set. Now 49, Madonna has spent the past decade unevenly exploring moody trip-hop, chilly Eurodisco, and ethereal electronica — all of which are absent here. Candy finds her dropping her Kabbalah string on the dance floor and readopting an American accent to offer up an unpretentious, nonstop dance party. In tunes like ''Give It 2 Me,'' she's unabashedly reviving the celebrative spirit of early singles like ''Lucky Star'' and ''Holiday,'' filtering it through hip-hop's sonic boom. She's not above nicking from other carefree singers and eras, either. The giddy opening track, ''Candy Shop,'' has an easygoing synth hook that Jam & Lewis might've devised for Janet Jackson in her '80s prime, while the scrumptious deep bass of ''Dance 2night'' gets closer to the thump of '70s disco than anything Madonna's ever done in or out of a leotard.

If you're looking for softness, of course, you've come to the wrong place. ''Catch me on the floor/Working up a sweat/That's what the music's for,'' she asserts in ''Heartbeat,'' coming soon to a Pilates class near you. In the most exciting club banger, the aforementioned ''Give It 2 Me,'' she threatens, ''When the lights go down and there's no one left, I can go on and on and on.'' Often willfully vapid, the lyrics offer candy as a metaphor for sex, sex as metaphor for dancing, and dancing as metaphor for world domination. In fact, there's so much perspiration-soaked determination that you may detect a slightly scary C+C Music Factory-meets-Ayn Rand vibe.

Offsetting the grind are a few actual confessions on this dance floor — enough to give the tabs speculative fodder. ''You always have the biggest heart/When we're six thousand miles apart,'' she complains in ''Miles Away.'' (There, the Timba-lake arrangements get a bit too close to ''What Goes Around... Comes Around'' for comfort.) In ''Incredible,'' a mini-masterpiece of domestic woe in which the Neptunes do their best work, Madonna recalls how spectacular the sex used to be, over a furious house beat. Then she makes a desperate plea for reconciliation: ''I am missing my best friend.... Let's finish what we started.'' With this crowd-pleaser of a CD, she may be sending a similar message to fans, too. B+
DOWNLOAD THIS: ''Incredible''

http://www.ew.com/ew/arti...27,00.html

This thing STILL hasn't leaked?! With only 10 days to go!?

LiveToTell86 said:

"Give It To Me" could have easily appeared on 'Confessions On A Dancefloor'.It's a hot dance track that Madonna's longtime fans will appreciate.



She loves "Candy Shop" She wanted it to be the the first single.I wonder why this song is so special to her?

CandaceS said:

It leaked last night.I'm listening to it right now."Heartbeat" is AMAZING!


Just kidding!!!

the back cover of 'Hard Candy'

SoulAlive said:

So excited bout "Give It 2 Me"!

Well she said "Candy Shop" was the first thing she did with Pharrell, so I guess it made her to make an album with him, and it's a cool song, really!

The back cover is cool but I miss the producer listing... All of her albums have that except the first album...

mrexperiance said:

I love reading these reviews Makes me go even more crazier!