Rated MDNA

This is hugely delayed, but I can't review something till I've actually had a sit down, with a mug of chamomile and a jar of Nutella (always a fat boy at heart) and properly absorbed it. So I did what I refused to do months ago and listen to Madonna's latest effort at remaining young and relevant, MDNA. I won't lie, my hopes weren't high and my expectations were so low you'd mistake them for dog sh*t. Thankfully for Madge's sake, I was a bit more impressed that what you'd now expect.

Hiding those wrinkles Mad?

MDNA is no Ray Of Light nor is it a behemoth masterpiece like Confessions, it is however a distinct sounding pop album with some fun moments and some growers. I reviewed second single 'Girl Gone Wild' a while back and I slammed it. I feel a review retraction/amendment is in order here as after a few more plays the song is actually a catchy little mother f*cker with some pretty immense dance production and a simple but insanely catchy chorus. This is about as gay as Madonna can get, but it's damn fun. It should seem a bit gross that a 50 something year old woman is singing about being a bad girl, but it's surprisingly convincing. 'Gang Bang' brings on a '........' response the first time you hear it but it too is a grower with a hellishly infectious beat. 'Turn Up the Radio', 'Give Me All Your Luvin'' and 'I'm Addicted' are all great pop songs, the first being the third single from the album and the second being the lead and one of the most funs of 2012. The third has some awesome electronic production going on and I'd stamp it as the album's finest track.


Things don't go so well with 'I F*cked Up', 'B-day Song' and 'Best Friend' with Madge's average at best vocals struggling to evoke any sort of emotion in her performance. Songs like these feel a lot like fillers and could actually have been removed and no one would notice. 'Fallin Free' harks back to the gorgeousness of her classic 'Frozen' with some hypnotising orchestral production and wraps things up in stylish form.


My advice to Madonna is: MDNA is not awful. It has some strong pop songs on it that act as saviours for the weaker/awful songs that litter its tracklist. What I'd say ol' Madge is that you take a step back and think about how you can make yourself different again. When Ray Of Light came out it was like nothing else on the pop music scene at the time, hence its popularity with the public and critics alike. An album like that cemented your position as one of Pop's most experimental, interesting and often daring artists, ever. Trying to fit in with the 'it' crowd isn't going to work now, so get back to what you did best, experiment. NO hip hop!


2/5