A new Madonna album means it's a new time for critics to say she's over with. It's another opportunity for the fans to say, "...Well, it's certainly no Ray of Light." It's another time for the die-hards to ask ourselves, when is she going to work with Patrick Leonard again DAMNIT? ! ?  Ultimately, though, the music always wins in the end.  Or...does it?   For some, Madonna's musical candy isn't so sweet this time around.  Apparently, she's "sold-out".

Personally, I'm not one of the many fans who fawned over her last album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor." Sure, it had the mega hit "Hung Up", which signaled a call to practically every single person in the world to join her on the dance floor.  It also happened to spur a pretty incredible tour, despite its rather uninspired name (she seriously couldn't think of calling it anything better than "The Confessions Tour"?).  But, at the end of the day, the tracks are pretty standard euro-pop, thanks to the know-how of Stuart Price.  Euro-pop isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not necessarily a good thing either.  For better or worse, though, "Confessions..." was a huge hit and connected with millions of fans across the world.

While Madonna stated in her promotional interviews for "Confessions..." that it represented her desire to simply have fun again (after the poorly received, electro-pop sales disaster of "American Life"), "Hard Candy" is far more of a call to the no-worries attitude of her debut album.  You will not hear one single mention of the Kabbalah on "Hard Candy", unlike "Confessions..." which had a couple of tracks blatantly influenced by her Kabalistic teachings.  Let's face it, trying to dance to a song that sounds a little like a sermon isn't exactly "Into the Groove".

Yet, "Hard Candy" has been dismissed by many of her fans as being less-than-satisfactory, despite unanimously positive critical reviews.
Apparently, dancing to an urban beat, as "Hard Candy" wants us to do, is less appealing than dancing to the euro-like sounds of the Pet Shop Boys as "Confessions..." was asking of us.

So then, why does "Hard Candy" leave such a bad taste?  Is it that we should expect more from a woman who's reaching her 50's?  Well, we got some relatively introspective musical material with 2003's "American Life", but apparently not many people wanted to listen to a full-blown introspection from Madonna in her mid 40's.  Is it because we want something more along the lines of Dido, who is singing about love and loss, as we would expect from a woman who's had a bit of a life, as Madonna's had?  No offense to Dido, as she's terrific, but if I ever hear Madonna put out something like "White Flag" I will probably burn all of my Madonna CD's.

Some may argue that Madonna's blatant attempt to get back into the U.S. radio market has been rather pathetic with this album.  She enlisted the uber-successful Timbaland to helm the production of her debut single, and went as far as enlisting Justin Timberlake to accompany her on the "4 Minutes" track.  We should hang our heads in shame some say, as Madonna had to lower herself to singing a song with someone else, and be "produced" by a man who's done a song for almost everyone it seems.  These are valid arguments.  But, at the same time, exactly what would we have Madonna do instead?

Isn't the entire point of an album to connect with the mainstream, so that new fans discover Madonna's music?  After all, we ourselves, as diehard fans, have discovered Madonna at different points and with different albums.  Some of us became fans the minute we heard "Everybody" on the radio back in 1982, others became fans during the late 80's, others with her "Erotica" album in the early 90's, so on and so forth.  If Madonna hadn't changed her musical styles with each album she put out (granted some albums were more experimental than others), how would we have been able to discover her?  It's Madonna's consistent attempts to produce music that is going to be embraced by the mainstream, while updating her sound at the same time, that has become one of the main reasons why Madonna continues to stay alive in this game.

The same can be argued of "4 Minutes" and "Hard Candy". Madonna isn't going to be played on mainstream radio, at least here in the U.S., without a song that is somewhat urban in its feel as that is the current state of the American radio market.  Instead of fighting this (trust me folks, it would've been a losing battle), she went with the tide.  This is no different than any other moment in her career where she was sensing the tide and made it her own (e.g. house music, electronica, etc.).  Granted, this time around the urban tide was in full swing for several years by the time she decided to get in the game, but the longevity of "4 Minutes" as a single, and it's sales which are nearing 2 million in the U.S. alone, prove that she did a pretty damn good job of stepping up to the plate.

I thank God every day that Madonna continues to produce music that remains relatively listenable and something I can sing along to.  So many artists I love and adore have become far too experimental with their music.  I respect them for it, but I miss the terrific melodies that made me become fans in the first place.  Madonna continues to want to create a good melody and a good hook -- whomever happens to produce it, however commercial it may come off at times, or as desperate as it may be -- at least she cares enough to want to make music we can sing along to.

Okay, so "Hard Candy" is no "Ray of Light", but I'll choose the urban dance of "4 Minutes" any day to the melodramatic boredom of "Little Star".

-- Cristian Gonzales

"CristianLuvsMadge" on MadonnaTribe.