Let's talk about Hard Candy!

[MadgeSlave 1,749]

 

So, today I saw the Sticky & Sweet tour show, and here am I, talking about the Hard Candy album. 

 

The Hard Candy album is not the best one of Madge, in my opinion, but the tour is amazing, so dynamic and enjoyable.  

I wonder who here likes the album? To be honest, this one and MDNA are my least favorites, but those eras have something in common, the amazing tours.   

 

I don't like Pharrell participation on the album, I always laught when the track Give it 2 Me it's on, because he says 'left, right', and then I say to myself 'thanks Pharrel, for making me put my headphones in the right position'.   

 

The only track that I like it's Miles Away, it's so special and amazing, it gets a glimpse of Madonna's true feelings but with a modern sound. 

 

What do you think of this album?    

 

 

[Rebel 1,001]

I love Hard Candy album! all the tracks on the album from the start! except Incredible & Spanish Lesson those 2 grows on me  and now I love them too.

the art work of the album is horrible though.

 

my fav tracks are:

 

1. Devil wouldn't recognize you

2. Heartbeat

3. She's Not me

4. Incredible

5. Miles Away

6. Candy Shop

 

this cover is much better imo

[rebelheartgermany 81]

When I think of Hard Candy, the first thing that comes into my mind is that it's sort of unspectacular. But when I listen to the whole album, I realize it's full of bops! The only song I really dislike is Spanish Lesson. It was great on the tour, but the album version just sucks, there's no energy whatsoever. And the only thing that bothers me is that her voice was edited to hell! I don't get why she did that to her voice with HC and MDNA, everyone knows she's not 20 anymore and people would her her real singing voice on tour at the latest. Anyway, besides Spanish Lesson, the album is quite good but can't keep up with COADF, Ray of Light and so on.

[MadgeSlave 1,749]

@@Rebel 

 

I know that the artwork was changed from the original and the original name 'Give It To Me' was changed too, I wonder why?

 

[Rebel 1,001]

@@MadgeSlave  

 

i have no idea

[poserdemadonna 1,642]

When I think of Hard Candy, I think of how Warner butted in so much and completely changed Madonna's vision for the album...

[Scarlet Witch 6,147]

I love the original photo minus the candy swirl in the background. At first, I hated Pharrell's contributions to the album because it just felt cheap at the time. Now it's aged and seems current while the Timbaland portion has aged so rapidly and badly. 

Most of the outtakes are far better than some of the included tracks. Despite the love for Miles Away, I much prefer Across the Sky which I feel is JT/Madonna's best collaboration. I sometimes wonder why it couldn't be included as a bonus track on an edition. Animal, Pela Tute were also too great to pass up.

Wasn't the title changed because of the Nelly song that was out at the time?

[PlayPause 3,039]

I love Across The Sky and Animal, they would have been good singles and great videos.

I prefer the Pharrell tracks, better written, and with a crisper sound, even though I will never forgive the overmessy "Get stupid" part in GI2M (whereas "Get Stupid" worked fine as an interlude of its own in S&ST). Even the Pharrell collaborations in the RH leaks were far better than many other songs of the same era imho (Take A Day is so cute and Back Dat Up is fire).

Beat Goes On, She's Not Me and Dance 2Night were fun M moments though.

But the art direction, girl !

[RebelHeARTPOP 415]

Devil Wouldn't Recognize You and Voices are incredible, great songwriting. She's not me deserved a video.

Now however "bad" people may say this Record is (including myself) it's one of her most cohesive. All of the tracks fit together. They all make sense next to each other and sound, not the same, but similar enough to immediately go THAT'S MADONNA as well as THAT'S HARD CANDY! These tracks can't belong to any other M Record and I applaud that. Even the visuals, however cringey some may be they are "sticky and sweet" and "raw."

One of my least favorite albums but one of the strongest concepts she's come out with in recent years

 

Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk

[heartcore 1,553]

A brilliant, sadly underrated album. I can understand the criticism of it not being a Madonna album, though. 

[Guest]

Yes the TITLE was changed because NELLY had a song out with the same title.  For some odd reason, her people (or maybe the record company?) was afraid there would be some conflict or confusion.  Seems silly. I believe Madonna was hoping for "Give it 2 Me" and "Candy Shop" be the first two singles, not necessarily in that order.  She was talked into releasing "4 Minutes" first. 

 

As for the album... the cover... meh!!  It's a little much for me.  I did like the boxing theme idea.  I wish they went with that and kept the original idea of the album title "GIVE IT 2 ME".  They were set on that at the beginning as her belt reads that.  I'd prefer another variation from that photoshoot than the one they had.  Though, I'm not too bothered by it. 

 

As for the album content.... she was definitely ahead of her time on the Pharell produced tracks of the album.  Pharell and others artists started having popular radio hits with similar sounds to "Give It 2 Me" and "The Beat Goes On".   As for the Timberlake and Timbaland tracks, I would say they come off as "jumping on the bandwagon". Though, I love all their tracks they did, especial "Devil...."  

 

The two that bore me are "Spanish Lesson" and "Voices". 

 

I think "Devil... " should have been the second or third single.  It probably would have been a proper hit if Warners took any initiative in promoting it. I think they dropped the ball after "4 Minutes". 

 

Favorite song:  "Devil..."

Worst song: "Spanish Lesson", but I actually enjoyed it on tour.  Speaking of the tour... I'm baffled by the hate it gets from some fans.  I thought it was a fantastic tour.  "Into the Groove"  is one of the best performances of that song that she's done since the earlier tours.  I also love what she did with "La Isla Bonita"  and "Like A Prayer".   It was genious to mash up "4 Minutes" with Vogue and that dancing for that performance is outstanding.  If anything, I feel this tour was high energy and very upbeat compared to her previous tours.  Her previous tours had a lot of up and down moments, which I don't think was bad, but Sticky and Sweet just was full of energy for me.

[kesiak 3,103]

I actually like the album but I REALLY dislike Sticky & Sweet Tour, it's basically a glorified work out on stage. The gypsy section was the only redeeming thing about that tour for me.

[Guest]

Well in all fairness she was going through a divorce, turned 50, adopted a kid from Malawi, left the UK to return to the US.

 

What better way to be accepted back into the US market then add some hip-hop r&b flavor to a rushed album.

She is a guest on her own record, it's so odd to have so many male voices on a Madonna record. Just sounds so wrong.

 

It's like she gave it to someone else to finish and wasn't that involved. Rush job. It was a sound we already heard from Nelly Furtado. 

Sticky & Sweet is also my least favorite tour, there is no coherence to it. Despite some highlights (Like A Prayer amazing) there is no story, no thread like her usual tours. And having a Eurythmics song in the middle of the show.......WTF?

The entrance was the lamest she has ever done, just sit on a chair that rotates from behind a screen....that's not the Madonna I know and love.

 

Considering her perusal life at the time, I can understand why the record and tour was such a mess.

[madgefan 10,330]

I know everybody has mixed up feelings about this record...  I would add:

 

The frigging face! 2008 marked the beginning of a series of face transformations that would carry on til these days... I can completely understand some percentage of her audience was totally turned off by it. "Is that Madonna?"

 

 

These two guys's overwhelming presence was too much. "Where is the independent Madonna that used to ignore duets and featurings?"

 

 

Tick tock tick tock tick tock. "Really Queen?" Hung Up (2005) was already a kind of rehash of Gwen Stefani's What You Waiting For? (2004) so why continue with the same thing in 2008!? 

 

 

Although it was Madonna last studio album under Warner's supervision, I think they really did a good thing promoting 4 Minutes and Give It 2 Me on the radio. In Latinamerica they were played everywhere and I can easily say that non-fans acknowledge Madonna is the one singing them. Miles Away is a whole different story: No one knows it's her, no one knows it's a single, and no one knows it's got its own video.

 

Album tracks that could have saved the project if they had been released as singles: Beat Goes On and She's Not Me, however the sole fact they weren't even included in the Promo tour was quite evident. Madonna's priority was Candy Shop which ironically is the only Hard Candy track she would play in the following tours leaving the whole fanbase wondering why 

 

On a positive note, I think the album is great on its own. It is well balanced and sounds pretty cohesive. The tracks did not sound very original at the time of its release as it was too late considering the Timberlake/Timbaland peak was 2007. Had it been released in 2013 at the same time Daft Punk was scoring a #1 with Get Lucky, our Madonna could have gained more recognition.

[NowRadiate 3,342]

 

She is a guest on her own record, it's so odd to have so many male voices on a Madonna record.

 

agreed 100%.

 

i don't agree with the "face" comment at all @@madgefan. her face was fine.

she was going through turbulent times.

 

(the tour sucked. my least favorite M tour.)

[MadMark 118]

I love Hard Candy so much  It´s my third favorite Madonna album. I don´t get why so many fans seem to hate it with such a passion, although it was very successful (Number 1 in 37 countries). After the dark masterpiece American Life and the mostly melancholic and preachy Confessions On A Dancefloor it was like a breath of fresh air to me when it was released in spring 2008. I love how Madonna truly went back to her roots for the first time in her career. Give It 2 Me is my favorite Madonna dance song, killer beat and the lyrics are the credo of her life. Heartbeat is like her Into The Groove/LuckyStar of the 2000s for me. The duet with Justin seemed not forced, they had great chemistry together and Timbaland gave one of his best productions to date, mega hit all over the world. Candy Shop is so much fun. Miles Away is one of my favorite love songs in general. The structure of She´s not me is a masterpiece to me and Wendy Melvoin (of Prince and the Revolution) playing guitar was like the icing on the cake. I even like the cover and the photoshoot although they would look better without that copy paste candy background. That´s why I love the big booklet of the candy box much more. The belt looks so cool and bossy and has great details. Also the album aged very well. I hope in some time in the future it will get its well deserved praise, at least it was nominated for three grammy awards (4 Minutes/Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, 4 Minutes/Best Remixed Recording (Non-Classical), Give It 2 Me/Best Dance Recording).

[Guest]

Don't forget she was also thinking about doing the cover in black face...the pictures are out there.

Steven Klein shots...wouldn't have gone down well I'd imagine.

[gafuller 1,708]

Don't forget she was also thinking about doing the cover in black face...the pictures are out there.

Steven Klein shots...wouldn't have gone down well I'd imagine.

It wasn't the right direction but I still think it was a brilliant artistic work. But no it wouldn't have worked well given the absence of religion in Hard Candy. I would have love a few more songs towards the "candy" theme.

[devilpray 2,390]

This is the first Madonna album that I remember everything about the release. I remember the day it came out, I bought it before school and I had to wait 5 hours until I got home and was able to listen to it, I already knew 4 Minutes but the sound caught me off guard. I didn't like it as much as her previous records but I kept listening to it, the more I did it, the more I liked it. Nowadays I like this album, I still think it's one of her worst, especially since it has aged pretty bad. She got on the Timbaland/Timberlake bandwagon after that sound was dead and also every song produced by them is basically them fighting her to be in the spotlight   The singles released for this project were a mess, even though 4 Minutes and Give It 2 Me did pretty well, they gave up on the album after two and a half singles. I won't even talk about her considering the blackface cover, whoever had that idea deserves to be fired and forgotten. 

[Fighter 28,900]

Don't forget she was also thinking about doing the cover in black face...the pictures are out there.

Steven Klein shots...wouldn't have gone down well I'd imagine.

 

We should build a shrine for Guy O. for stopping her about this. Say what you will about him but I can't believe Steven Klein and Madonna were in any way remotely ok with doing this shoot, let alone thinking about it in the first place.

[Scarlet Witch 6,147]

I think those blackface photos out there are false. Didn't someone say it was a fanmade photo?

[Fighter 28,900]

I think those blackface photos out there are false. Didn't someone say it was a fanmade photo?

 

The real ones are unleaked, hopefully destroyed tho probably not since so much from that era got spread around and most leaked.

[devilpray 2,390]

I hope those pictures have been deleted by now, or at least remain unleaked forever.

[SimonVenekeo 1,895]

As one of the new gen of fans (Confessions On A Dance Floor really made me a fan) I actually love Hard Candy. Nothing too trailblazing about it but good solid dance/pop music.

 

Aside from Incredible I could easily listen to it without skipping and that includes Ring My Bell.

[devilpray 2,390]

Am I the only one who likes Incredible?