Don't know if this is discussed before but...
I am a major Madonna fan enjoyed each and every one of her albums hey I even loved "I'm Breathless" and "American Life" but... I just hate "Hard Candy" (even though I love Nelly Furtado's latest album). Only "Heartbeat" and "Beat Goes On' sound good in there the rest just sound like it's not Madonna who's singing and to me her voice sounds lame and uninteresting. Anyone has similar feelings about this album? and yes I do like R&B although not as much as before it has gone downhill massively the last decade or so

No it's my second favorite album. I can't remember she did pure pop music like on HC. I can see why people think it's not a "real" Madonna album. Most of the melodies obviously don't come from Madonna. Pharrel completely wrote Heartbeat on his own minus the verse lyrics. Hell, even the instrumentation from his demo was used on the albun version.
4 Minutes and Dance 2nite on the other side are typical Timbaland and JT sounding.

But for me it really resembles early Madonna more than anything she's done since the 80s. Confessions only had four popsongs and they are too Euro to be comparable to her early stuff. The Black vibe she definiitively had was missing,

Remember, on Madonna and Like A Virgin she mostly wrote with Black artists. Remember some black woman with a stronger voice singing Holiday, everybody and stuff....

Also she wanted to make a fun album and it's fun to me. The only lame songs are Spanish Lesson which she should have left completely and Candy Shop.

I don't want her to make a similiar album next time, though. I just wanna have the outtakes. At least we seem to get Across the Sky and some other song from Shock Value 2 sooner or later.

It depends on what you define as pop. If pop means popular then yes "Hard Candy" is probably the most pop album Madonna ever made. But just because acts as diverse as 50 Cent, Mariah Carey and Amy Winehouse are all extremely popular, it doesn't mean that they all fall under the same category (pop).If we go with the traditional definition of "pop" then "True Blue" is probably the most pop album Madonna made and Kylie is the one who did more pop than any other diva. However that is irrelevant. The special thing about Madonna is how she seems to change her musical styles. To me "Hard Candy" is just weak no matter in which music category one puts it. It seems so risk-free. And her voice is not at its best there

this album is TERRIBLE.
i have tickets to the show, im hoping to be pleasantly surprised.
ive kind of stopped keeping up with her since the release of HC, it turned me off so much.

what she does so well is sort of "borrow and trailblaze" at the same time.
but this album just seems so desperate with the worst lyrics ive ever heard!

hey madonna: call pat leonard!!!!!

scrambledeggsaresoboring said:

well, Pat would be cool. Did you know the wrote the score for "I Am Because We Are"? So this means, they're still good and that they might work in the future again.

I resisted HC alot in the beginning, but has grown on me alot. I listen to it everyday. I truly love it.

I hope she work with Pharrell more.

The only week song is 4 Minutes.

4 Songs of it are my all time favorite madonna jams:

Heartbeat
Dance 2night
She's not me
Voices (orchestral version) - Recent leak
[Edited 10/25/08 7:55am]

Is This Love? (Bon d'accord) is a demo made with Pat. It serves has the basis of Voices.

i bet its her recent vaginoplasty
tightening your hole can effect ones vocal abilities,
not that she had any in the first place

it's not her best album in her catalogue but it is decent enough to my liking although I don't like it the way I did six months ago. And songs I wasn't feeling then grew on me. I liked all the pharell stuff on it better than timbaland's stuff, but now miles away and devil wouldn't recognize you sound great to me.

I was slow to get into it because of the collabos with Justin, Tim and Pharrell (altho I like P). Clearly it's not her best but I enjoy it enough. It's just straight dance pop and I liked it even more after the concert.

But across the board I think Devil and She's Not Me are solid songs. It's in the top five fave Madonna albums and one of my faves of the year altho it's been a slow year.

her worst album ever...not a classic madonna song on it...some even unlistenable: 'spanish lesson' and 'incredible'....even the imagery used on the sleeve sucks.....from the masterpiece that was confessions to this....a major let down...let's hope the next cd makes up for it

I know exactly what you are talking about.

I checked it out expecting to really like it, as I am a fan of the Furtado and Timberlake albums, which seemed to be what Madonna was after when she hired those producers.

But yeah, never before on any other album have I noticed so frequently how awful her voice sounds. Seems like they settled for the first takes she put down. Some blame can go to the vocal production of it.

She seems to lack "flow" over some of these rhythms. When she says "get stupid" for instance, her flow is clunky. Makes me realize she really couldn't wear the style she reinvented herself for this time.


All of this stuff I listened enough times that it had a chance to grow on me and it did NOT.

I do not like Hard Candy. But I wanted to.

Saw her on the Confessions tour and have all of her other CDs/soundtracks.
[Edited 10/25/08 11:22am]

marian said:

I think an album like "Hard Candy", even though its Madonna going back to her roots even more than she did with COADF, can be a very divisive album for many reasons. While Timbaland used to be a great really distinctive producer (the early Missy albums up to and including "Miss E....So Addictive") he obviously got a bit full of himself with the success of the last Justin album. The Neptunes manage to almost keep up with Madonna although I see some of the stuff songs like "Heartbeat" as lazy attempts to copy Kylie's not so great last album. I would place it in the middle of her albums as far as ranking, above "I'm Breathless", "American Life" (although it has some excellent tracks) and possibly right above COADF. I think some the songs are aimless but with tracks like "The Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" and "Miles Away" as having some lyrical and emotional edge (something missing, I believe from COADF). Also, "Candy Shop" and "The Beat Goes On" are just plain fun dance tracks. I can see people hating it and I agree this isn't her A game (maybe she it was the divorce/marriage problems....maybe the spilt with Warners) but it's subjective.

i love hard candy. i had very low expectations but was pleasantly surprised when it was released. thank god for pharrell!

the only madonna records i can't really get down with are like a virgin, bedtime stories, and music.

marian said:

Nothing new. Madonna is the most overrated bi... ever.

She can´t sing
She can´t act
She can´t write
and she isn´t a good hearted person.
I think in 20 years from now she is forgotten- only a few die hard homo fans will worship her flat ass.

monk76 said:

Lawd. This forum is just a bottomless well of cruel, cold-hearted bitchiness. I need air.

'Hard Candy' isn't one of my favorite Madonna albums,but there's enough good songs here that I enjoy tremendously...

"Miles Away"
"Heartbeat"
"Beat Goes On"
"Dance 2Night"
"Incredible"
"She's Not Me"
"Devil Wouldn't Recognize You"

That's seven great songs right there."Miles Away" has become one of my favorite Madonna songs.I wanna hear more songs like this from her in the future.I think the producers (Timbaland and Pharrell) did a great job at making the songs sound retro.They added their own stamp to the music but they still made it sound like a Madonna album (with the exception of "4 Minutes",which is pure Timbaland).Pharrell,in particular,must have really studied Madonna's early albums.The biggest surprise about this album is...it's not the big hip-hop album that many fans feared it would be.It's dance/pop with an urban edge.
[Edited 10/25/08 19:04pm]

MikeMatronik said:

I rarely ever want Madonna to keep working with the same producer but I truly wouldn't mind if she worked with Pharrell again.

sassybritches said:

Funny those 3 along with "Madonna" and "Ray Of Light" are my Top Madonna albums. I think I would rate her albums from best to worse like that:
1.Madonna
2.Bedtime Stories
3.Ray Of Light
4,Like A Virgin (why did they take "Into The Groove" out from there?)
5.Hard Candy
6.Music
7.Erotica
8.Like A Prayer
9.I'm Breathless
10.American Life (although this would be in my Top 5 if she had used some versions from "Remixed And Revisited" and some from "IGTTYAS"
11.Confessions On A Dancefloor (for me the first half of the album is pretty disposable)
12.True Blue (too many fillers)
[Edited 10/26/08 1:39am]
[Edited 10/29/08 14:33pm]

monk76 said:

meh, ramblings from a wacko jacko loon crazy with no tour, album, charity single, website or even kiddie-fiddling court case to look foward to.

I'm sorry your queen oops I mean former king doesn't deliver on his promises monk76 but to say Madonna can't sing while she is on another record -breaking world tour is just plain stupid

I absolutely love it. Never understood the criticism saying "not Madonna sounding" because in my opinion it is pure pop, something Madonna has always been, especially in the beginning of her career.

Her vocals are so much better than on COADF and what I love is that the songs are more than just 2 verses and the chorus repeated till forever, the songs have so many different parts, it keeps the album interesting.

My favourite is "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You". Least favourites are "Heartbeat" & "Spanish Lesson", but the latter is really great on tour.

tyrone25 said:

that was just mean about mj, but I know exactly what you mean, I can't stand mj fans who say madonna is washed up when she's still musically alive and breaking records.

I really like Hard Candy. It doesn't have that knockout punch of a song that most other Madonna albums do (American Life is in the same boat), but the album is much cohesive than it has any right to be and the vast majority of the songs are good (only "Spanish Lesson" is subpar IMO, although I do think it's kind of cute). For me, it's about the middle of the pack of Madonna albums -- not the best and not the worse, just a good listen.

monk76 said:

I'm a huge Madonna fan and I have to admit Hard Candy is one of the first records of hers that I don't like and rarely listen to. There are a few songs on it that I love such as Give it To Me, Miles Away, Devil and Voices. Now I have to admit I'm not a huge fan of R&B influenced music. My tastes run more to rock and electronica, so I'm sure my taste in music influenced how I felt about the album.
The songs that I did enjoy were the least R&B influenced.
I don't really see that much of a difference between her voice on this album and her other albums. But I think the songwriting is weaker. A lot of the songs are just about dancing and having a good time. I think lyrically it's her weakest albums. I guess she wasn't ready to write about her marriage breakdown yet.

Also, I can see how people say it's a throwback to her earliest records. That might be another reason why I couldn't get into it as much. I really didn't become a hard core fan of hers until Like A Prayer and her earlier records really never got me that excited.

i like it. much like Confessions and American Life the good songs in the middle.

What I don't like about it are the lyrics and he singing. She really phoned in her contribution to this album.

Otherwise, I enjoy it. But I have to be in the right mood for it, I guess. Miles Away and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You bore me to death. Spanish Lesson can be annoying. Candy Shop has grown on me, as has 4 Minutes (though I think it's nudged out Gambler, Dear Jessie and American Life as her worst single - oh wait, no, there's still One More Chance),

I'm finding now more than ever that I have to be in the mood for it to enjoy it cause though I like the majority of tracks, I don't always want to hear them. But that could also be cause I played the album constantly for months when it first came out. Best songs on it are:

4 minutes
Dance 2night
Give It To Me
Incredible
Beat Goes On

Devil and Miles Away grew on me recently and I can't get enough of them now

I never took Candy Shop very seriously, I consider it an intro to the album more than a good song, but it sounded very Vanity 6 to me, as She's Not Me sounded Prince or SOS Band like to me. Loved the performance of the latter by the way "BITCH!" "WANNABE!!" ehhehe

graecophilos said:

Madonna, Pat and Joe Henry worked on the Hello Suckers Musical that Hung Up, Jump, How High and the Devil Wouldn't Recongize You came from. I would assume they still have a functional relationship of some form. I think she knows he brings out the best in her.

peppeken said:

Dance 2Night, Beat Goes On and She's Not Me will be classics.