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- Celebrities Discussion (http://www.discussworldissues.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59)

- - Hard Candy (http://www.discussworldissues.com/forums/showthread.php?t=166417)

Album discussion thread! http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n.../HardCandy.jpg

Release date: 19 April 2008

Track List:

01. Candy Shop
02. 4 Minutes (featuring Justin Timberlake and Timbaland)
03. Give It 2 Me
04. Heartbeat
05. Miles Away
06. She's Not Me
07. Incredible
08. Beat Goes On (featuring Kanye West)
09. Dance 2night (featuring Justin Timberlake)
10. Spanish Lesson
11. Devil Wouldn't Recognize You
12. Voices

Probably my least favorite Madonna album. Even in 2008, to me, it sounded dated and copy-cat of Timbaland's success around the time with the likes of Nelly Furtado (Loose). It almost sounds like a Justin Timberlake record (Futuresex/Lovesounds, part two?), oddly enough. There was no defining image outside of the whole boxer-chic "M-Dolla" schtick and just felt half-baked. "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You," which is basically "Cry Me a River" redux, is probably my favorite song.

"Miles Away" is a decent song. Probably the least embarrassing song on the album, though perhaps a tad overlong.

Hard Candy's a weird one. I feel like all of the songs stop short of being great. For me, Give It to Me comes the closest, but the tour version bests out the album. I still like Incredible and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You. Overall though, I'd agree it's her worst album. Granted, she was probably going through a lot of personal issues at the time as her divorce was announced shortly after the album release.

I really like Incredible, but that's pretty much it...

The videos:

"4 Minutes"

"Give It 2 Me"

"Miles Away"

I love Voices.
...

and this should have been the cover/concept (at least it would have been provocative and not just ugly) :

http://www.worleygig.com/wp-content/...-and-Bacon.jpg

It could have featured whole topics on meat and meat-related products...

Am listening to Hard Candy for the first time since about 2008. I actually quite like "Candy Shop." And "She's Not Me" is a bit like Voulez-Vous era ABBA meets early '80s Blondie which isn't a bad thing (except it well outstays its welcome). But I am currently on "Incredible," the first four minutes of which are horrid. Some of this album is alright, some is quite embarrassing, and some is shite. Nothing is amazing.

Prediction...

Hard Candy:MDNA::El Beekrapper:Abnormally Attracted to Doll Posse

I have a feeling HC, shitty as it is, was merely a harbinger of shit to come.

Incredible and Heartbeat are actually amazing in their shittiness.

Sexwithyouis...INCREDIBULL!!

Baby ooh whoa let's finish what we started girl
Hey there ooh whoa I'm comin' to your party girl

INCREDIBLE! UNACHIEVABLE! METAPHYSICAL!!

I know this album gets a lot of hate, but there's a lot that's worthy of love here. The stretch of Give It To Me -Incredible (which has my favorite vocal Madonna's done in years) is excellent, and Devil Wouldn't Recognize You is another awesome track even if it's part 3 of the Cry Me A River trilogy.

I like Voices as well, but I much prefer it in it's demo form as Is This Love? (Bon D'accord).

I have probably listened to Devil Wouldn't Recognize You a million times, and watched the concert footage of the song as well just as many times. I love it so much! Besides that I hate all the collaborations she did on this album, and I know she was going for a certain vibe, but the album sounds so dated.

Actually, when the album came out, I thought the boxer idea was really good but that it was so underplayed in the whole concept that it failed to become meaningful. Maybe it's because the album itself wasn't very strong and not very worthy of Madonna the pop champion... If it had been, then I think this image would have been embraced more fully. She deserves her champion belt after all. The fact that she surrounded herself with so many commercial and overused writers/producers which made her own contribution pale made the image kind of unwillingly sad or sarcastic...

I just hated how tacked on the whole "candy" thing was. I was especially miffed when the original photos surfaced. The concept still isn't great by any means, but it beats the hell out of what was officially released.

http://i300.photobucket.com/albums/n...seebus/1-6.jpg

I had never seen that but absolutely, the candy thing was forced and pointless, very tacky and derivative. She should have gone with something grittier.

I like Incredible more than I should.

I like all the Pharrell/Neptunes tracks, actually. They got that urban sound Madonna was looking for, but there's still a strong yeah-it's-still-Madonna feel to the tracks.

Quote:

In terms of the visuals/videos, this was the least focused she's ever been, which is a shame.

I'm going to have to voice an unpopular sentiment ... I really like this album. I think it gets unfairly shit on. No way do I think it's her worst album. In fact, I like it much better than it's predecessor, COAD. I actually feel Madonna's presence on HC more than on COAD. Her vocals are more colorful and alive here, and there's an urgency to the songs. It's funny, I always heard the album as Madonna's struggling against time. Clearly, she has been criticized for fighting too hard against aging, not being graceful, whatever, but the songs really do seem to be ABOUT those struggles to me. She wants to dance off into the sunset, she's aware that her relationship is in trouble and is looking back in time at when things were better, she's aware that competitors (both romantic and professional) are nipping at her heels. To me, this album feels so much more personal than COAD.

I like your use of 'urgency' here. I've never really thought about what it is that I like about the album but it's somewhere in that direction.
It has an honesty about it, it's straighforward. COADF is maybe somewhat more formal in its message and delivery.
When HC came out I had no interest in it, M was slipping fast. But when I actually got to hear some of the songs I couldn't believe how much I liked them. This album reminds me quite a lot of her Pre-Madonna stuff. Simple, raw, some bubblegum, some heartbreak. The joy of Gi2M is so infectious I can't even describe it.

After many years of neglect I put on the album last weekend and can only say I thoroughly enjoyed it (minus 2-3 exceptions and the heinous noise on Voices)

I think many of the songs would lend themselves to being turned into unplugged versions with more soulful, maybe even jazzy, undertones.

This album divides me. On one hand, it has some of the best tracks she's done in the first decade of the 2000s. Heartbeat, Miles Away, and She's Not Me are quintessential Madonna, just amazing. Then there's some really good tracks like Beat Goes On (minus Kanye), Devil…, and Voices.

On the other hand the rest of the tracks are just there, and feel quite hollow. It wasn't just the album promotion and visuals that are so off-putting, her delivery in the album feels like she's just phoning it in. And in my opinion, she's delivering some of her laziest vocals on record. Whereas on Bedtime Stories, she sounded seductive and pretty with the R&B recordings, the R&B/Hip Hop music of HC are not suitable for her vocals, making them sound tinny and haggard.

In retrospect I still think American Life is her worst album, but at least she seemed passionate and focused about the album's motivations. Here it feels like she's quickly fulfilling a record contract.