"STICKY & SWEET" - Hard Candy Album Review

In Madonna’s now 25-year, Hall of Fame-awarded, recording career, the album that "Hard Candy" most resembles in context is 1994’s "Bedtime Story." That was Madonna’s sticky valentine to the hot black producer. This time round though, there’s no trace of Babyface (producer of Bedtime’s 1995’s US #1 "Take A Bow"), or Dallas Austin (Bedtime’s underrated lead single Secret), but in their place Pharrell Williams, Timbaland and posse.

Strangely, album opener "Candy Shop," (almost identical to the version that leaked online a year ago), is one of the album's weaker tracks and doesn’t bode well for the rest of the 12-track set.

On track two, "4 Minutes" succeeds on a number of levels. It's not Madonna’s greatest single ever, and one that will no doubt age very dis-gracefully, but the best track to right US chart wrongs. Want proof? This week "4 Minutes" soared to #3, handing Madonna the honour of now being the artist with the most top ten hits in the US – edging past Elvis Presley. Tick-tock, tick-tock indeed!

"Give It To Me" is Confession’s "Get Together" cleverly remodeled in the winning electro-funk style of her classic 1983 breakthrough single "Holiday."

That’s followed by "Heartbeat," the most "traditional" Madonna song here. Not only is it yet another ode to getting down – "when I dance I feel free" – in the finest Into The Groove tradition, but boasts a chorus as sweet as, well, candy. Madonna utters a line as club-friendly as ITG’s "only when I'm dancing can I feel this free" and Heartbeat’s "see my booty get down" is fitting and bootylicious

Finishing off the delicious trifecta is "Miles Away" – sweet urban pop with an undercurrent of melancholy and unmistakable echoes of Nelly Furtado’s "Say It Right." It’s a poignant tale of being far from the one you love and hints at what might be going on in Madonna’s private life.

Next up is "She’s Not Me" – a snippy, bitchy, catchy disco groover that appears to be the Queen of Pop taking direct aim at her competition. Yet with so much early promise it’s tragically let down with an unfortunately weak middle section. From then on it just gets messy as spooky, giving the impression Pharrell fell asleep on the mixing board while the track was still running.

That’s the biggest complaint for the rest of the album – so many of the songs have great potential, yet end too raw and unfinished. From the middle onwards "Hard Candy" is definitely more miss than hit. It’s a bit like sticking your hand blindly into the candy jar and coming up with trick after trick when you keep hoping for a treat.

"Beat Goes On" is significantly different to the version that also leaked last year. It’s yet another tribute to dancing, with more of an early 80s vibe, and at first seems like the perfect blend of old skool Madonna with new skool grooves. After a curt Kanye West rap in which he mentions "doing F," whatever that may be, things once again dissolve into a meandering mess. The chorus is brazenly forgotten about, spoiling what could easily have been another Madonna classic. On and on it does indeed go.

The closest thing to a ballad on the album is "Devil Wouldn’t Recognise You" where Justin once again makes his presence felt double-tracking Madonna. With echoes of JT’s own "Cry Me A River," it proves to be yet again a decent pop song.

Overall "Hard Candy" is patchy, but blessed with a handful of great singles (which is what you’d expect from any Madonna album) that stick close to the winning formula of keeping the most recognisable voice in pop uncluttered and out front. It’s when she’s tossed boxing gloves first into the mix, along with all manner of production pots and pans (a case of too many cooks perhaps?) that "Hard Candy" goes a tad sour.

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