A little less intense, this time, will be our discussion of the original pop goddess, Madonna. In all the talk about Madonna's image on celluloid, one can easily forget that all this media madness comes from the fact that Madge is about to release her 12th studio album, Hard Candy. The web is currently going crazy, as the release date draws near (this Saturday), and everyone scuttles to get their ears round the 12 new tracks, co-produced with the American dream team of the current "urban" soundscape: Timbaland, Timberlake, Danja and Pharell. I can't say I'm a fan of any of them. So, as you can imagine, as a Madge die-hard, I was a little nervous. In fact, I thought I might have to ignore this album, altogether. The single making world headlines (bumping her over Elvis' record in the States, and currently her 13th UK number one), 4 Minutes, does very little for me (I didn't bother playing it, during my listen). Call me anti-American - heck, call me someone over the age of 23 - but "urban" and Aaron Darc don't generally mix. So, imagine my surprise, then, when I finally sat down to hear the new Madonna album, and... well... it turned out to be rather fab.  

 

After the commercial mauling of 2003's American Life (still her best creative achievement, I say), Madonna was quite determined to regain her position on the throne she has danced on for 25 years (credit where credit is due, thankyou). In 2005, this spawned Confessions On A Dancefloor: a record she described as "future disco". Indeed, it was; and, indeed, the disco sound sat, from an obvious angle, rather comfortably on Madge. But this record, co-produced with English tech-house DJ, Stuart Price - despite a couple of shining moments - was a reasonably hollow affair. For one, it basically went nowhere, musically - every track felt almost identical - and for all it's obvious postmodern references to disco and 80's synth pop, it came off only as a mere aesthetic; rather disappointing, for the woman who pretty much made that era, above all else. And, at the end of the day, she seemed to have made an executive decision, to strengthen her position in what was now her homeland, Europe, at the expense of the now vastly different American mainstream market. 4/4 disco-tech, in America, is basically slated as "gay music", and that's pretty much the only American market the record managed to win over.

The irony is that in Madonna's switch in demography for Hard Candy, she has actually achieved a record more reminiscent of the 80's Madonna spark, than Confessions managed to get anywhere near. The record has very little of the philosophical resonance of Ray Of Light or American Life; but, once you realise that this is Madge, yet again, leading us to a dancefloor in a basement club near you, this is a surprisingly entertaining journey, and one that is still quintessentially Madonna. I wasn't in the least bit expecting that. Timberlake and Timbaland (and Pharell, for that matter) are a very different bag of producers than the relatively unknown nobodies she usually plucks from the underground (such as Mirwais or Stuart Price), and they have a tendency to smother those they work with, with their big fat American egos. And, whilst the album's weakest moments are those where she seems lost in the crowded studio ("4 Minutes" being one of those moments, in my opinion), instead of Madonna sounding like a hired vocalist for the producers' latest collaboration, the dream team apply their prowess to something that precedes their idiosyncratic work... something like, say, the Queen of modern popular culture, Madonna! They smother her, at times, yes (their vocals litter the album, unfortunately: "Hey, Madonna, I'm takin' it to the club," croons little Justin - "Fuck off, little Justin," thinks Aaron); but they still ultimately bow and do their work, and the record is distinguishable over their other famous efforts (such as Furtado, Britney, etc). It's still a Madonna album - and thank God for that.

 

Realistically, Madonna is clearly trying to make a more youthful album, here; but in the process, through this most unlikely collaboration, she has managed to rekindle a very 80's flame - the "only when I'm dancing can I feel this free" Madonna. And that Madonna was always pretty cool. In Hard Candy, she's still doing her thing - she's just doing her thing over a dominantly "urban" soundscape (although, it should be noted, there are a couple of tracks that have their black origins in soul and disco, as opposed to modern R&B/hip-hop). Whilst there are a couple of forgettable tracks that don't hit their mark (such as "Incredible", which is anything but ); for the most part, it works.

At the core of this Madonna essence is the idea that the dancefloor is an avenue of psychological and physical escape and release. I always found this fascinating from a woman who, at the end of the day, ironically thinks so little of the chaos of the world around her: the dancefloor was always a kind of sanctuary for Madonna (in some ways, perhaps, the earlier signs of a woman who would eventually yearn to escape her psychological dependency on her ego and the external world - she had already been doing this, in some way, on the dancefloor). Refreshingly, this is completely at odds with pop music's obsession with the discotheque as a kind of glammed-up mating ritual. Madonna certainly acknowledges the sexualisation of dancing (the only time this pushes the boundaries is in the album's notoriously dirty grinder, "Candy Shop"), but, on the whole, makes it almost a self-empowering, masturbatory experience (among her most famous penchants, after all). In particular, the dreamy "Heartbeat" evokes this: the disco dancer, who matches the arena of lust and love against the lone transcendence to be accomplished on a dancefloor. "You know, I feel it in my heartbeat," she sings - referring to the music she's dancing to - "It makes me feel like I'm the only one". Does Madonna take to the floor to get onto people? Or to get away from them?

Following the theme, "Give It 2 Me" is a pop stomper that has an almost urban ska feel to it, and that captures the grunt so central in a younger Madonna's earlier sounds, such as Gambler and Burning Up (expect it to race up the charts, as the album's second single). One of the album's disco gems, "Dance 2night", glides along with delicious funk and grit, interspersed with moments of pure dancefloor bliss, where Madonna (with a little help from Justin) then matches the power of the dancefloor against the cult of celebrity, the album's only thematic echoes of American Life. "You don't have to beautiful, to be understood," she grooves; "You don't have to be rich and famous, to be good." What can I say? It's fabulous!

But wait! There's more! Alongside the groove ("get into it", if you can), we also find softer sweets in Madonna's candy... um... box. One of the other facets Confessions On A Dancefloor sorely missed was balladeering. With the exception of "Forbidden Love", the other trademark Madonna - as melancholic fallen lover - was nowhere to be found. Personally, this is my Madonna. And no, I'm not just thinking in mainstream terms of those classics - though they have their place - such as "Live To Tell", and the like. I'm thinking "Paradise (Not For Me)", I'm thinking "To Have And Not To Hold", I'm thinking "Easy Ride". Madonna fans, here, will know what I'm saying. That is what left Confessions an ultimately empty affair; and with its promises of thundering urban dancefloor mayhem, I was suspecting it would also be absent from this outing.

Not so. Hard Candy is at its best in its softer, more intelligent moments - the only moments it lyrically transcends the realm of dance pop, and reminds us that Madonna is a complex, fascinating entity, when being psychologically introspective. Madonna, far from what the mainstream may choose to know her as, is actually an incredibly dark figure, creatively. She knows how to cut a pop record; but she also knows how to make some beautifully haunting music about the darker regions of the human heart and mind. It would seem difficult to weave this in, amongst such moments of dance escapism, but she does. Any good Madonna record does, in fact - what makes this one so surprisingly "her". The mainstream, as always, will take to these songs, the least; the daily trash papers will no doubt mention them as the album's weakest links. But, for me, "Miles Away", "The Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" and "Voices" are the moments that make me thankful this collection found its way onto my itunes playlist. They're all stellar Madonna moments: a catchy, sorrowful fusion of electronica and emotion, that rises so very far above the kind of trash ballads made by the likes of (cringe) Celine et al, leaves Mariah's heavy-panting R&B stupidity for dead, and reminds all that Madonna is an artist in her own right. And though get their paws all over them, Justin and Pharell might, they still resonate as Madonna moments. There's something that binds her through the many producers she throws on like this season's latest fashions, and that's why she deserves respect as something in a very different league to today's shitty pop stars.  

In particular, "Miles Away" is an infectiously gloomy number, and has generated ample speculation that all is not exactly merry in the House De Ritchie (what a wonderful album that break-up record will be!). "The Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" is actually an old Madonna track (penned, it's believed, around the 1993 Erotica period) that has now been given the Timberlake "What Goes Around Comes Around" treatment, resulting in what is actually a much better song than the one it is clearly inspired by, production-wise (sorry, Justin).

But it is at its very end that Hard Candy delivers its greatest serve. Now having left the dancefloor, Madonna is left the tormented soul that Madonna actually is (as anyone who really listens to her music would know), and out comes "Voices", a track that does leave you wishing that a couple of more candies in the box dared to venture into such strong lyrical territory (it does leave the "Let's all dance and be free!" tracks seeming a little vacant). This is a powerful, haunting song, where Madonna wrestles with the paradoxes of the psyche, and slow-waltzes with the demons of her past. By the chorus, she tips her hat to those bad ways of old, and acknowledges that no matter what one makes of their life - no matter what intellect they yearn for; no matter what love they find; no matter what children they mother; no matter how much they reject the celebrity they built themselves to be - freedom is never really absolute. "Voices start to ring in your head... Distant echoes, from another time, start to creep in your brain," she sings, ominously. In the album's dying moments, she asks, "Who is the master and who is the slave?"

If Madonna figured that out, well, she probably wouldn't be Madonna. But you gotta love her for asking it. Powering on at 50, while the other stars she rose with are all but distant retro memories, she doesn't look like giving up that quest, any time soon. Thank Madge for that.