Rebel Heart Reviews

[groovyguy 63,869]

Q Magazine’s Review of Madonna’s “Rebel Heart†album

http://allaboutmadonna.com/2015/02/q-magazines-review-of-madonnas-rebel-heart-album.php?utm_content=buffer50021&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

“The lady protests too much on volatile 13th albumâ€

 

You have to wait until the final track of Madonna’s 13th album, the grand, spiritual Wash All Over Me, to get a clear summary of its modus operandi: “There’s a contradiction and I’m stuck here in-between.†The title of Rebel Heart splits down the middle. On one side, Madonna has said there’s the “romantic†who still believes in love despite numerous setbacks; on the other, the “renegade†with a compulsive need to transgress and provoke. The spotlight darts between the two.

 

It’s neat conceit but an unnecessary one because we know Madonna can fold those contradictions into a single song. On signature hits such as Like A Virgin, Like A Prayer and Justify My Love, the headline-grabbing stuff stemmed naturally from relationships. Similarly, her brilliant 2005 album Confessions On A Dance Floor collapsed the distance between the club and the confession booth. By insisting on an artificial divide, Rebel Heart intensifies the polarisation that made 2012’s MDNA such a bumpy ride. Again, it’s the romantic who delivers the goods.

 

In recent interviews, Madonna has challenged the popular image of her as calculating and imperious – an image, let’s be honest, that she has done much to construct. Ever since she was a tenacious club-scene striver, Madonna has emphasized unstoppability and control. But Rebel Heart often strikes a more tentative note. “If this is the end then let it come / Let it flow, let it wash all over me,†she sings, ceding control for once. With similar finality, the wonderful post-apocalyptic ballad Ghosttown proposes, “This world has turned to dust / All We’ve got left is love.†On the album’s most beautiful song, Joan Of Arc, Madonna admits to being reduced to tears by the cruelty that comes with celebrity: “I can’t be your superhero right now / Even hearts made out of steel can break down.â€

Vulnerability is Madonna’s underused secret weapon and it gives Rebel Heart compelling emotional urgency. Range, too. On Living For Love, a kind of gospel-EDM I Will Survive, the “not gonna stop†defiance had real pain behind it. The tense, vengeful break-up song HeartBreakCity is followed by the irresistible Body Shop, a sweet eccentric garageland romance, beautifully produced by DJ Dahi and Blood Diamonds. You feel as if you’re zooming in on a complicated human being rather than an enduring megabrand.

For all these reasons, when Rebel Heart is bad, it’s truly baffling. It’s almost worth opening an official inquiry into the decisions that led to B*tch I’m Madonna, where Diplo and Sophie’s ADHD production, Nicki Minaj’s say-nothing rap and Madonna’s naff, “I’m a bad bitch†declaration converge in a three-lane pile-up. Unapologetic bitch is cartoon dancehall jam. Holy Water’s thrillingly harsh Kanye beat is wasted on lyrics dums as, “Bitch, get off my pole.†Perhaps it’s down to genre mismatch. While house and disco liberate Madonna to be anything she wants, hip-hop boxes her into a persona that’s metallic, one-dimensional and, worse, boring.

 

Not all of the agressive tracks misfire – Illuminati has fun with the conspiracy theories attached to pop stars in the barmier corners of the internet; Iconic boshes together a Mike Tyson speech, a Chance The Rapper verse and a Nero-like dubstep drop – but the harder she rams home her point the less persuasive it is. In fact, paradoxically, the queen-bee declarations make her sound insecure. Madonna should not have to tell us she’s Madonna, nor what that means.

 

When you hit the bonus tracks, it’s worth skipping past the pointless (Veni Vidi Vici, on which Nas raps about Nas) and the joyless (S.E.X. is as blunt and flat as its title) to get to the movingly autobiographical title track, where Madonna reflects at length on her career, her motivation, and “all the things I did just to be seenâ€. It makes you wonder what she thinks she has to prove in 2015 with a song like Bitch I’m Madonna when she proved it all and we’ve been paying attention for years.

 

She sounds far more confidant and fully realized on the songs that favour uncertainty and fallibility, inviting the listener to lean in. After 33 years, the “renegade†does exactly what you’d expect. It’s when Madonna is opening her heart that she really rebels against expectations.

 

3 out of 5 stars

[Frank 43,985]

http://www.gaytimes.co.uk/Interact/Blogs.aspx?articleid=14464&sectionid=760

 

Review: Rebel Heart by Madonna

The most in-depth full review of the new album

We’ve counted down all 13 previous studio albums, but here’s the big one – an exclusive, and extensive, full track-by-track review of Madonna’s Rebel Heart...

MADONNA – REBEL HEART (2015)

LIVING FOR LOVE
The single chosen to kick off the Rebel Heart campaign deviates a little from the leaked demo. It’s a flashback to old-school, early 1990s Madonna and could have dropped from the mixing desk of one-time go-to-guy Shep Pettibone. ‘Took me to heaven, let me fall down/Now that it's over, I'm gonna carry on,’ she sings over Alicia Keyes’ pulsating piano before leading into a rousing chorus and a smattering of gospel house female backing vocals. It’s not a lead single with the oomph of Like A Prayer or Hung Up, but praise Jesus, it’s no Give Me All Your Lovin’ either.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****



DEVIL PRAY
Not, as first assumed, an ode to the joys of narcotics, despite Madonna suggesting she and her beau could smoke weed, get stoned, drink whiskey or even sniff glue (are the kids still doing this?) The drugs mentioned are a metaphor for not giving into temptation of any type, set to a gypsy folk and dance beat echoing Don’t Tell Me. The opening flutes of the demo have been scrapped and producer Avicii reins in his usual balls-out default setting for a finely crafted mid-tempo melody. The end result is a chorus echoing The Animal’s House Of The Rising Sun and Avicii’s collaboration on Coldplay’s Sky Full Of Stars.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ****



GHOSTTOWN
First heard when she rush-released six tracks on to iTunes following the ARTRAPE debacle, it’s a mid-tempo, radio-friendly ballad only tainted by the occasional and completely unnecessary first-verse autotuning. Later, vocally, she hasn’t sounded this warm since the Ray Of Light long player. ‘When it all falls down/ We’ll be two souls in a ghost town,†she promises, altogether more plausible than her last ode to the spirit world in which she offered to a sex up a spook in Supernatural. A rumoured – and deserved - second or third single.
Final mix: ****



UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH
Diplo’s knob-twiddling demo is a dancehall inspired, electropop reggae fused, shade tossing rant aimed at an ex Madonna has kicked to the curb. ‘It might sound like I’m an unapologetic bitch/ but sometimes you know I gotta call it like it is,†she chants, like she’s reading a chapter from Katie Hopkins’ diary. This new version is richer than the demo, but by the time you’ve heard the repetitive chorus’s mantra for the sixth time, you begin to wonder if the lady doth protest too much. It’s borderline whether gets away with going on a ragga tip or ends up a poor man’s Rastamouse.
Demo: **
Final mix: ***



ILLUMINATI
The shy and retiring Kanye West last collaborated with her highness for Hard Candy’s Beat Goes On (the single that never was but should have been). Now he parks his self aggrandizing arse in the producer’s chair for a track that name-checks everyone from Justin Bieber, Jay Z and Beyonce to pretender to the Queen’s throne, Gaga (but no Kim Kardashian, Kayne?) In a monosyllabic stream of conscience, she harks on about celebs not being the all-powerful beings the misleading media portrays them to be. The acoustic guitars from the demo have been tossed away and replaced with Kanye’s trademark dark edge and a sparser, slower pace. And while the demo loses its mojo towards the end, the album version gets better the further it travels. ‘Everybody in this party / Shining like illuminati,’ she sings about the shallowest shindig there is. We’d still like an invite, please.
Demo: **
Final mix: **



BITCH I’M MADONNA (feat. Nicki Minaj)
After 13 albums in 30 years, do we really needed to be reminded who Madonna is? More overuse of the B-word than Britney with Tourette’s, it’s another leaked demo that initially, doesn’t stray far from the original. Harking back to the days when the Black Eyed Peas had feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night, Madonna takes will.i.am’s baton and runs with it, threatening to blow off rooftops, get drunk, snog strangers and swim fully clothed. ‘I just wanna have fun tonight,’ she sings convincingly, and then just as the party starts to thin out, Nicki Minaj bursts through the front door with a bottle of Prosecco in one hand, scattering her two cents worth of diatribe with the other. Like Minaj, this isn’t a song to be taken seriously.
Demo: **
Final mix: ***



HOLD TIGHT
This mid-tempo track underpinned by a dirty bass bears little resemblance to the sparse, pedestrian demo. OneRepublic’s rent-a-hitmaker Ryan Tedder cuts and pastes verses, adds a bridge and brings in some ethereal synths that remind us of Confessions’ Forbidden Love. Vocals have been re-recorded, extras added and the empty breakdowns replaced with Faithless style euphoric instrumentals. Lyrically, there are clichés aplenty about dancing in the middle of the freezing rain, surviving the eye of the hurricane blah, blah, blah but at least there’s no ‘waiting, anticipating’. And when the melody is lush as this, she could be singing a recipe from Mary Berry’s cookbook as far as we care.
Demo: **
Final mix: ****



JOAN OF ARC
This began life as a delicate, guitar strung ballad about the punishment fame can bring, much like Drowned World/Substitute For Love did 17 years ago. She bares her soul about a life spent in front and behind the velvet curtain and how negativity retains the ability to quietly wound those who dare to be outspoken. From paparazzi photographers to journalists raking her over hot coals, it’s all too much and she admits she’s not Joan of Arc, claiming even hearts made of steel can break down. This is a vulnerable Madonna we haven’t seen much of since Ray Of Light. The verses of this version remain acoustic but the choruses now have added drums and guitars turning into a mid-paced radio-friendly pop romp, Like A Prayer style. Vocally and lyrically she could easily be channeling Eva Peron, so don’t cry for her too much.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****




ICONIC (feat. Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson)
Nothing says female empowerment than a guest appearance from convicted rapist Mike Tyson. What next? Megan Trainor featuring Ched Evans? A crowd cheering Tyson banging on about how he’s ‘the best the world’s ever seen,’ kicks things off as over a deep bassline before Madonna lectures us about making our voices heard before someone does it for us. The verses build up and up and by the time the bridge arrives, it threatens to go all Celebration-like. You’re left expecting a soaring Calvin Harris style chorus; instead, it breaks down from EDM to r’n’b by the time Chance clocks in to do his thing. The finished product is wholly different from the demo and much more gutsy, getting better with every play.
Demo: **
Final mix: *****



HEARTBREAK CITY
The stand-out moment from the leaked demos was a dark, potty-mouthed soundtrack to a 1980’s film that’s yet to be made. This works as a companion piece to the Tarantino-esque Gang Bang from MDNA and uses a choir as an instrument (in particular a strong male vocal.) It’s a game changer for Avicci who helps Madonna coax out a venomous vocal about an ex who used her. ‘I let you in my house/ You helped yourself with everything/ And left me with your mess,’ she laments. This album mix retains the piano intro, but adds a shuffling marching band beat that gently gives it a foreboding pace and moves it forwards. Strangely, the demo’s final line, ‘And I still feel shitty,’ has been wiped from the finished product.
Demo: *****
Final mix: *****

BODY SHOP
The folkish original which relied on just South Asian style guitars and gentle percussion could very easily have been a leftover from her aborted 2002 musical project Hello Suckers. Heavily metaphoric lyrics compare her body to a car and she urges her boy to ‘zip up the hood to see what’s good’ and ‘take the wheel, I sit on top.’ Granted, it wont be up for an Ivor Novello award for songwriting anytime soon, but it’s playful, spirited and cute in the way that the nudge, nudge, wink wink, Hanky Panky was. The demo’s urgency is slowed down in the final mix but that does it no harm.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ***

HOLY WATER
If Body Shop was foreplay, then this is where the filth really begins. The demo sounded like Madonna had unearthed an old Rihanna track and tried to match her, whore for whore. ‘Bitch get off my pole,’ she hollers. Yes, really. And while the Queens will throw that line at each from now until kingdom come, it’s frankly just a bit embarrassing. If Where Life Begins was an ode to cunnilingus, then this is thinly disguised praise for lady moisture in the knickers department. ‘Baby you should get down low and drink my precious alcohol/ You look so thirsty I think that you need it.’ We’ll stick with the Evian, thanks. This mix is more pulsating than the demo and builds up Giorgio Moroder-style before sinking to yet another predictable r’n’b groove before inexplicably she starts quoting lyrics from Vogue. Alas it says something when the best part of a song is a 25-year-old sample. Again, Kanye helms this remix that would’ve been better suited to Hard Candy. And when it’s been preceded by Joan Of Arc and Heartbreak City, this is, well, just a bit reductive.
Demo: *
Final Mix: **

INSIDE OUT
Even just the leaked demo could have dropped straight from Erotica. In that version, dirty instrumentation in the verses leads to the guitar laden choruses before it gets coated in grime. Not any more. Instead, it’s a stop-start slow jam not that dissimilar to Waiting, Erotica or Push. ‘Let me love you from the inside out,’ she asks and ‘Let’s cross the line so far we won’t come back.’ Moments of the album track remind us of I Want You and Rihanna’s Diamonds and the longer it goes on, the better it is.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ***

WASH ALL OVER ME
Along with Rebel Heart, this was one of the first two songs to leak. In the original, swirling orchestration kicks off proceedings with Avicii’s stamp firmly spread across it. Here, Madonna sings about feeling displaced in a changing world that’s left her all of a muddle. Now with Kanye’s feet on the remixing desk, it’s gone from a full on EDM track to a more delicate piano ballad and thankfully it suffers little from the change in direction. Like Heartbreak City, it uses marching band style drums as it develops into something more dramatic and culminates with an electric guitar. Those who criticised the original may find this more to their taste.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****

DELUXE VERSION

BEST NIGHT
That’s it for the standard version, because now we’re dipping our fingers into the mixed bag of the Deluxe edition. First, we’re thrust back into the r’n’b zone again with Best Night, a slow, sensual track with Arabic-style samples in which she and Diplo threaten to make this ‘the best night of our life’ as long as we lose our self control first and surrender to the pleasure. It’s a track that already sounds dated and might have been better slotted between Bedtime Story and Sanctuary on the Bedtime Stories long player. She also starts quoting her ‘Wanting, waiting’ lyrics from Justify My Love and last rehashed for Erotica’s Waiting. It’s a pleasant enough album track but not as good as the sum of its sampled parts.
Demo: ***
Final mix: ***

VENI VEDI VICI (feat. Nas)
Few artists can name check their own songs and get away with it, but Madonna manages it 15 times here. There are nods to everything from Like A Virgin, Power Of Goodbye and Ray Of Light as she runs through both her Wikipedia discography and biography. Set to - another - r’n’b backdrop she recalls how she came from nothing and became something; ‘I came, I saw, I conquered,’ and only a fool would argue with that. And there’s an appreciative and gratefully received nod to us in the line, ‘When I struck a pose all the gay boys lost their mind.’ Madonna has dipped her toes in the rap world many a time dating back to Erotica’s Did You Do It in 1992, but none have clashed so badly as Nas’ contribution. Off he trots with his own life story to mirror Madonna’s, but too frequently he lurks in the background, throwing in unnecessary words as she sings, making us want to scream, ‘fuck off til its your turn.’
Demo: ***
Final mix: **

S.E.X.
‘Tell me what you know about Sex,’ Madonna asks. ‘Here we go again,’ the world collectively groans. Let’s get the lyrics out of the way first. The ones in the demo, like, ‘Oh my God you’re so hot/ Hold my hair let me get on top,’ are tame compared to this version, where she now offers a ‘lesson in sexology’ (a little friskier than Paula Abdul’s lesson in Vibeology.) Added lyrics include a shopping list of turn-ons, including a string of pearls, Absinthe, Novocaine, soap, raw meat, strap-ons and golden showers. Try ordering that from Ocado. By the end, you’re longing for Patrick Leonard to burst into the studio and drag her away from the recording booth by her weave. Live To Tell, this is not. In fact it’s so bad, not even a defibrillator, let alone producer Kanye, can resuscitate it. Especially not the moaning porn film samples towards the end. To give him some reluctant credit, Kanye’s mix is far superior to its predecessor with strings, a deep bass and piano but it’s never going to be anything other than toe curling. We don’t care that Madonna is a 57-year-old woman babbling on about sexual activity, it would have been just awful if it were a 22-year-old Miley Cyrus. 25 years ago this would have been shocking. In 2015 it’s only shocking because she’s so beyond this kind of crap.
Demo: *
Final mix: **

MESSIAH
This sums up how schizophrenic Rebel Heart is. One song ago, Madonna was boasting ‘Yeezus loves my pussy best’ and now she’s knocking out one of the most beautiful tracks she has recorded in the last 30 years. She channels her inner Lana Del Rey for a sweeping strings and piano ballad that builds and builds and could have floated off the soundtrack to a Tim Burton movie. There’s some extra percussion and subtle tweaking in this version that adds to the drama. Gorgeous from start to finish.
Demo: *****
Final mix: *****

REBEL HEART
The first track to leak from this era was an autobiographical, Avicii produced folk and dance fusion with the most singalong chorus since Hung Up. Had it not spread across like cyperspace with the speed of Ebola, it may well have ended up here in its demo form. However, there’s been a rethink - not as severe as Wash All Over Me, but enough to make a difference. Now it’s less dancey, more poppy and acoustic and retains an equally anthemic chorus. The song builds and builds but ends about a minute and a half too soon. And making the album’s title track only available on the deluxe version is a highly questionable decision.
Demo: *****
Final mix: ****

SUPER DELUXE VERSION

BEAUTIFUL SCARS
Somewhere between the leaks and the final product, this has seen a radical overhaul. It began as a mid-tempo, guitar driven pop tune – a painfully honest appeal to be accepted exactly how she is, warts and all. ‘I wont apologise for being myself/ Take me with all of my beautiful scars,’ she sings. Here it’s been given a 90s lounge/house meets disco overhaul with sprinkling of Daft Punk-style robotic vocals towards the end. The autotune is a little overdone but the melody remains strong.
Demo: ****
Final version: ***

QUEEN
Another brand new song that escaped the hacker’s clutches. A companion piece to GhostTown, the middle 8 is a glorious, rousing, uplifting highlight but it’s hard to see where this might have fitted in with the standard and deluxe versions. ‘May God bless you all,’ ends the song. ‘Long live the Queen,’ we respond.
Final version: ***

BORROWED TIME
This has been given a different beat and more synths. It echoes the message back in 1986 with True Blue’s Love Makes The World Go Round and more recently, the Live 8 giveaway Hey You, that we should be making more love and less war. ‘We’re only here to love like there’s no tomorrow/ Our time is only borrowed,’ she reminds us in re-recorded vocals. It’s a pleasant enough song worthy of its place on this version.
Demo: **
Final version: ***

GRAFITTI HEART
This brief, two and a half minute demo was a throbbing, fast-pace pop stomper with a ‘woah woah’ chorus. Lyrically, there’s little change on the final mix (there’s a few re-written lines) but the production has a much slicker, rebuilt arrangement. There are more synths and more of a sense of urgency as it rattles along like a Disclosure offcut.
Demo: **
Final version: ***

AUTOTUNE BABY
One of the most original of the songs here – and another not to have leaked - kicks off with a sample of a crying baby, then autotuned and used as an instrument. And as the chorus begins, the gentle piano turns it into a cute and catchy song and very different to the starkness of its verses. Not that dissimilar to the vibe of Nelly Furtado’s Loose album.
Final version: ****

ADDICTED
One of the strongest of the demos to leak, this ode to a bad boy boyfriend it strangely relegated to this super deluxe version. It’s a pretty fantastic track with an instantly familiar chorus and there’s very little difference between the original and this, with the exception of some new vocals. The production is very David Guetta like which isn’t a bad thing.
Demo: ****
Final mix: ****

Verdict:

After two years of globetrotting, Instagraming, hashtagging, working with some of the biggest names in songwriting and production and then the largest music leak the pop world has ever seen, we have the final product.

Was it worth the wait? Much more yes than no. It’s an uplifting album, sometimes tongue in cheek, sometimes playful, other times confessional and for the most part highly enjoyable. And you hear something different each time you play it. There are no other commercial artists out there who, 30 years into their career, are so willing to embrace experimentation and push the envelope like Madonna does. Hard Candy and MDNA felt phoned in, this does not.

There are moments of utter genius on Rebel Heart, from the title track to Messiah, Heartbreak City, Iconic and Joan of Arc. But too many times they are offset with the jarring electro r’n’b and juvenile lyrics of S.E.X, Bitch I’m Madonna and Holy Water.

Her hybrid of styles often works, with elements of Erotica, Confessions, Bedtime Stories and even the better moments of MDNA. But with too many producers at the helm, we wonder if bringing in one executive producer to oversee everyone else could’ve been a wiser choice to give it more cohesion.
However, the joy of iTunes means you can create your own tracklisting and an album that takes some beating.

GT rates Rebel Heart: 4/5
Rebel Heart is released on 9 March. The single, Living For Love, is released on 2 March.

Words: John Marrs

[Nato80 1]

Does anyone know if the final version of rebel heart is anything like the previous demo?  With the bridge "rebel heart" left in.  Such a classic almost 80's sound and made the song great.  Especially for the title track.  Would be such a shame to leave it as the apparent final mastered version!  I will be so sad on March 10th is this is the case!

[Mador 9]

TELEGRAPH 4/5

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/11431568/Madonna-Rebel-Heart-review-shes-in-the-game-again.html

[Frank 43,985]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/11431568/Madonna-Rebel-Heart-review-shes-in-the-game-again.html

 

“Who do you think you are?†demands a screeching voice on the self-explanatorily titled B*tch I’m Madonna. If anyone in pop has earned the right to assert herself so rudely it is surely Madonna Louise Ciccone, an iconic A-List superstar for over 30 years. It helps that the track in question fizzes with bright energy, a handclapping rave anthem powered by a fantastically wonky synth line that sounds like a vintage arcade game played on an electronic kazoo, and topped off with a snappy Nicki Minaj rap. Madonna delivers the melody like a playground nursery rhyme, chanting about bad behaviour in a butter-wouldn’t-melt sing-song voice.

It could almost be a riposte to the BBC Radio One playlist committee, who have apparently decided the 56-year-old Madonna is no longer relevant to their demographic, relegating her current single, Living For Love, to the middle-aged ravers of Radio Two. It is hard to age gracefully in the competitive field of chart pop. Rock offers different models for the older star: dedicated muso, serious singer-songwriter, nostalgic purist. Pop demands the energy of youth, eternal engagement with the subject matters of sex and courting and a wide-eyed fascination with novelty: new sounds, new styles, new effects. Madonna has been such a trend setter over the decades it has been dispiriting to see her struggling to keep up, like an ageing hipster misusing contemporary slang. Her last two albums were over-pushy, over-sexed and overly reliant on importing chart styles from hot production teams. Rebel Heart is much, much better and the key to the change seems to be Madonna herself. For the first time in years, she doesn’t sound desperate. Indeed, she sounds like she might be having fun.

It is slightly surprising under the circumstances. Her 13th album has been aggressively targeted by hackers and beset by a series of leaks, with mixes and demos popping up all over the internet, leading Madonna to complain, somewhat histrionically, of “artistic rape.†What early versions revealed were numerous collaborators reworking and reshaping every track, including such adventurous hit-makers as Kanye West, Avicii and Diplo. There is, nonetheless, a quality of coherence to the finished album and it really does centre on the star. The tone switches dramatically between dynamic contemporary electro groove adventures, singalong pop and lush synthetic ballads, while veering emotionally between introspective vulnerability and strident defiance. Yet every track adheres to robust, classic songwriting principles, a kind of melodious elegance of structure gleaming through no matter how inventively deconstructed the arrangement. And Madonna sounds relaxed and confident, singing with the sweetness and freshness of her youth, yet with much greater technical accomplishment.

 

If we can overlook ludicrous techno folk song Devil Pray, in which Madonna informs us that drugs are bad, she has (mostly) checked her tendency to hectoring self-justification and holier-than-thou lecturing. Dance pop tracks like Illuminati and Iconic reflect a contemporary trend for fast, furious and funny mash ups of conflicting ideas, constantly teetering on the edge of collapse but pulling out another beat or hook to keep things moving. Body Shop has a bubblegum lightness that harks back to True Blue, the epic synths of Wash All Over Me recall Ray of Light’s rich depths, while oral sex slow burner Holy Water manages to be sacrilegious and ear-burningly naughty. She may be chasing the pop zeitgeist rather than setting it these days but at least Madonna sounds like she’s in the game again.

 

*************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2015/02/24/op-ed-madonna-still-has-message-are-you-listening

 

I know I’m not the only gay man to have a secret special connection to Madonna.

My identification with the singer began out of an obsession with her 2005 song “Hung Up†in high school. Between ninth-grade history assignments on the World Wars and my class book report on Lord of the Flies, I secretly looped “Hung Up†on my Discman most nights as I studied.

Being a 15-year-old closet case in an all-boys high school meant that I was only allowed a nightly dose of queer transcendence with the thrusting beats in Madonna’s Confessions album. It was an addictive rush and a brief respite from schoolyard bullying and homophobic bullshit.

Fast-forward 10 years and Madonna’s 13th studio album, Rebel Heart, is due for release next month, as her return to the center stage begins. Madonna is now all about something new: With a recent performance at the Grammys and a new identity as a Spanish matador, new photo albums on her Instagram account (what ever happened to coffee table books? Sex, anyone?), and a new sound via her Rebel Heart record to no doubt recruit more fans to her dedicated army of followers.

But after her Grammys performance, Madonna became the butt of jokes across the Internet, in news reports, and in magazine fashion op-ed pieces. The “Living for Love†performance, which saw the singer don a matador outfit and tame a band of wild and ferocious “bulls†as she sang about needing more erotic satisfaction, was not received with the warmest welcome.

If we flash back to the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s, Madonna was regarded as a transgressive and chameleon-like icon of music and pop stardom. She was someone to be reckoned with. Madonna would invent and reappropriate trends, styles, and sounds in an exciting and transformative way, earning herself the title of “The Queen of Reinvention.†However, the Madonna of today is commonly a parody of her former self, seen to be clinging on aesthetic and musical narratives designated for the younger pop star and rejecting the traditional timeline of “aging gracefully.â€

For me, as a loyal but discerning fan of the legendary songstress, I can straddle both sides of the fence and see why the backlash against the Queen of Pop persists today. Madonna has always thrived on subverting and complicating the gender and sexual narratives for women. She was supremely popular in the 1980s and 1990s because her music, including such choice tracks as “Like a Virgin,†“Papa Don’t Preach,†or “Express Yourself,†offered us an image of a woman unapologetic and direct in desire for sexual satisfaction.

Madonna told us she wanted sex and she knew how to get it.

As her image solidified and her popularity grew, Madonna continued to push boundaries. In her infamous coffee table book, Sex, she was photographed performing sexually explicit acts with men and women alike. Not only was she exposing her body — especially in a time when titillating sex and nudity was the key, not necessarily full exposure — but also playing with the categories of sex and sexuality. Her fluid erotic exchanges with men and women between the covers confused and excited fans and foes alike, galvanizing her transformative and transcendental potential to mind-fuck with America and its values on sex.

But as is often the case with icons of music, people say, what’s she done recently that’s good? It’s all well and good to talk about the “old Madonna†but what about the Madonna of today?

For me, her 2012 album, MDNA, was Madonna’s return to top form. In the three music video she released from the record, Madonna played with three modern and popular aesthetic types — Technicolor or “airbrushing†culture, black-and-white, and Instagram filters — and challenged three identities she has been labeled with as a woman and star: mother, gay icon, and media spectacle.

In “Give Me All Your Luvin’,†she embraced the iconicity of Marilyn Monroe and maternity to demonstrate her ability to move between these identities and not only retain an enduring sex appeal, but play cheekily in all these roles. She shows how her sexuality and her femininity are performances, just as the image of Marilyn Monroe is as manufactured as Madonna’s own.

Then in “Girl Gone Wild,†Madonna plays the singular female with a band of (presumably gay) male dancers worshipping her prized body. This may be a convoluted cultural studies analysis but to me the video demonstrates Madonna’s enduring appeal to the gay community and many queer fans desperate to experience, touch, and “wrangle†(as takes place in the video) the iconic singer and savor the sublimity of “the Madonna.â€

For years, Madonna has exploited her name, her femininity, and her womanhood to underscore culture’s socio-political construction of all three. By continuing to release music — whether it’s good or bad, that’s up for the New York music press to decide — she is actively rejecting the narratives around woman and aging. Madonna is saying, I’m still here and I still have aesthetic, musical, and cultural challenges and concepts to share with the world. If you don’t like me, fuck off.

Madonna remains an easy target to mock and joke about. Many continue to mock her age (56), her histrionics on Instagram (yes, she smashed an iPad and called it an “iPodâ€), and her seemingly grueling fitness routines, which are often spread across the scandal sheets. But because she is the best-selling female artist of all time and has had a lifetime of achievements that are undoubtedly never going to be replicated, her status as an icon is unquestionable.

Although the music for each forthcoming record may have a sound that some fans (or foes) don’t like, the very act of releasing another album is an exciting and important prospect in itself. She is rejecting the expectations of female pop stars of a certain age and saying that since I’m Madonna I can continue to break the rule.

As for me, during my time as the young confused queer, Madonna offered the excitement of knowing that I too can gain self-sufficiency, independence, and knowledge. I too could mock and subvert the cultural and social stereotypes pushed onto me as a gay male.

Ironically, one of those stereotypes eventually become that I should like Madonna’s music. And still today, I proudly do.

[toymix 282]

Great reviews!!!!

[Breathless 5,286]

Lool, this cracks me up!

GHOSTTOWN
First heard when she rush-released six tracks on to iTunes following the ARTRAPE debacle, it’s a mid-tempo, radio-friendly ballad only tainted by the occasional and completely unnecessary first-verse autotuning. Later, vocally, she hasn’t sounded this warm since the Ray Of Light long player. ‘When it all falls down/ We’ll be two souls in a ghost town,†she promises, altogether more plausible than her last ode to the spirit world in which she offered to a sex up a spook in Supernatural. A rumoured – and deserved - second or third single.
Final mix: ****

[Frank 43,985]

http://attitude.co.uk/attitude-reviews-madonnas-rebel-heart/

 

The jury’s still out on whether the leak of demos for Madonna’s 13th studio album has helped or hindered its success. On one hand it forced a compromised, staggered release, rather than an explosive comeback; on the other hand, the leak – plus the Queen’s newfound love of Instagram – have stirred up a level of public interest that was absent for her past two album campaigns.

 

Opening with Living For Love – a banger created by the curious mix of Diplo, the London Community Gospel Choir and Alicia Keys – Madonna plays the role of the scorned lover rediscovering her inner strength, (“After the heartache, I’m gonna carry onâ€) a theme which persists throughout on songs like Unapologetic Bitch. You might be able to rejoice in being fierce and triumphant at some points, but there are few opportunities for a good joyous song and dance. There are a few too many mid-tempo ballads, like Hold Tight (not Ryan Tedder’s finest offering), Wash All Over Me and Messiah, the best of which are probably Ghosttown and the beautiful Joan of Arc – a fresh sounding pop guitar tune treading new territory for her, and which could carry serious currency as a single.

 

 

Her work with Avicii is presented best on Devil Pray, Heartbreak City and the title track, while Kanye West’s production makes a real moment of the Yeezus-esque Illuminati. Her anti-Vogue rap of suspected Illuminati members is probably the only time Rihanna and Queen Elizabeth will feature side by side. Other Kanye assisted-numbers like Holy Water and S.E.X. are (dare I say) a little reductive. S.E.X. is Nicki Minaj-worthy, but it should be beneath Madonna in 2015.  Inviting a lover to taste her ‘heaven’s door’ on Holy Water, she settles on a hook that – despite distortion – is clearly claiming “Yeezus loves my pussy bestâ€. That’ll be news to Kim.

 

Clearly more comfortable with looking back these days, on much of the album, the Queen of Pop is surprisingly self-referential; from the sample of Vogue on Holy Water and Justify My Love on Best Night, to the blast of Holiday chords on Veni Vidi Vici – a song which, like the title track, reflects on how she overcame adversity to achieve her destined fame. With songs like Iconic and Bitch I’m Madonna, she also revels in her own status and fame; her own ‘bow down bitches’ moment.

 

Everyone has their own opinion of what Madonna should do next, meaning inevitably not everyone will be content with this delivery. Regadless, it does sound like she is attempting to tick too many boxes . There are moments where she’s absolutely owning a strong, middle-of-the-road, ‘age appropriate’ style of music that could see her lauded by music critics and the general public; there are modern, relevant tracks like Living For Love that deserve mainstream radio play; and then there are moments where she drags the tone down with a song like S.E.X. –harking back to a dated need to shock that so easily allows her good work to be overlooked.

In a sense, there are probably about two or three very different albums struggling to get out of Rebel Heart. While all of the songs work in their own way, they’re not a convincing set. Plus, with 19 tracks (and that’s not including the extra songs tacked on to the super-deluxe edition), one can’t help thinking this would be a stronger effort if half a dozen lesser tracks had been shaved off. It’s also disappointing – and confusing – that the anthemic title track is resigned to the final spot on the deluxe version. There is pure brilliance when its chorus kicks in and she cries “So I took the road less travelled by/And I barely made it out aliveâ€, but I fear few will have the patience to stick around for it; not to mention that its position here doesn’t hold much promise of a single release for what is arguably one of her best pop songs since Hung Up.

 

Rebel Heart won’t be joining the ranks of Like A Prayer or Ray Of Light, but it’s fair to say that it’s superior to Hard Candy and MDNA. With a strong promotional campaign, and a few well-selected singles, 2015 could really be a year when the Queen shows her hard earned skill and reputation can still be put to use in a difficult modern landscape. After all: bitch, she’s Madonna.

 

7/10

 

Ben Kelly

[Frank 43,985]

MOJO MAGAZINE - UK

 

Like an X-rated episode of Loose Women, the new Madonna album comes pre-loaded with controversial positions, brash swagger and sexual frankness. More than once or twice, it goes a little too far. “Kiss it better, make it wetter,†coos the singer on Holy Water, spikily minimalistic paean to, ahem, personal moistness risque mix of the sacred and profane since 1992’s Erotica.

 

It’s a typical of roughly half the album – trendy producers provide a colourful variety of contemporary habitats while Madonna declares that she’s still here, protesting perhaps slightly too much. Some collaborations work better than others. The glacial Ryan Tedder-enabled Hold Tight is melodious but bland; Diplo’s signature wasp-farts and harsh siren blasts on Unapologetic B*tch are too familiar from M.I.A. records. Conversely, all Kanye West’s contributions – including the aforesaid Holy Water, equally suggestive S.E.X. (I’m an open door / Let you come inside of meâ€) and agreeably bonkers Illuminati, where Madonna imagines a nightclub full of the not-so-secret rulers of the world: Google boogie-woogieing with Jay0Z et al – are extraordinarily clever.

 

Best of the lot are Joan Of Arc – a grab bag of well-worn Madge The Martyr tropes re fame and the media (“Each time they take a photograph / I lose a part I can’t get backâ€) transformed by classic pop structuring and a beautiful vulnerable vocal – and Body Shop. The latter, with sonic input from up-and-coming Blood Diamonds and Dahi, sounds like nothing else she’s ever done: witty and pretty, with an almost indie wistfulness, heightened by church-hall handclaps and distant kid-choir ‘heys’. The central metaphor is hardly Shakespearean – Body Shop’s hero is buffing her headlights, oiling her cylinders and whathaveyou – but it’s in subtler tradition of cheeky R&B double-entendre. It makes you smile, not blush.

 

Madonna has admitted that winnowing 30-odd tracks to album length weighed heavily on her, and it’s resulted in a significant absurdity; you’ll have to buy the deluxe edition of Rebel Heart to acquire the title track, scooting along on its acoustic guitar strum like Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car backed onto the dancefloor. This and the defiant Veni Vidi Vici, complete with stirring Nas cameo, are at least as good as anything on the ‘standard’ album.

 

Still – too much decent material is a nice problem to have. With its focus on personality and reining-in of EDM banging, Rebel Heart is the first Madonna album for a while that’s at least as must for listeners as it is for dancers. Sometimes this shines too hard a light on what she has to say – as on the party-pooping just-say-no-to-acid-and-glue-prudery Devil Pray. But when her touch is lightest and her instinct for a hook is at its keenest, it underlines a known fact: no one does music like Madonna.

 

3 out of 5 stars

[groovyguy 63,869]

http://thequietus.com/articles/17298-madonna-m-track-by-track-review

Madonna's Rebel Heart: A Track By Track Review 
Amy Pettifer , February 25th, 2015 10:26

After attending a recent playback, Amy Pettifer gives her initial impressions of Madonna's latest musical offering; ballads, EDM and all

Madonna's 13th studio album has had an unfortunate start in life, with the impatient internet leaking most of its content in apparently embryonic forms way before its official release on March 9th. Additionally, the resounding story surrounding the tracks that have been properly released is a somewhat negative one; plummeting iTunes ratings, lopping from the Radio 1 playlists and sneers following her recent Grammy's performance – where she paraded the stage, dressed as a bejewelled matador rather than obediently crooning from a stool.

 

The go-to criticism concerns her employment of a coterie of acclaimed, "of the moment" producers (including Diplo, Avicii, Billboard and Kanye West) to elevate her 'brand', but it's baffling that this criticism should be so selectively applied. Surely every other mainstream pop artist is working in this way? Is there some cloaked ageism at work, or perhaps just disbelief that a 56 year old artist has anything of quality still to offer? It's fair to say that her more celebrated records hang somewhat distantly in collective memory – Ray Of Light from 1998 containing her best, post 80s work – but maybe that's about to change.

 

Rebel Heart tracks a left ventricle/right ventricle split between the spirit of a defiant, angry trailblazer, and a more insouciant, romantic soul. It's a darker return to the club culture roots that spawned one of the most successful and iconic female music careers in living memory, and it seems – on some level – to face up to the missteps of her more recent releases.

 

If that is the mission it's an in-depth undertaking, the full album contains nineteen tracks. Deep breath, here goes…

 

Living For Love

It makes clear sense to start the record with this track, even if, as we dig deeper it's not the best of those on offer. It's a rallying cry of an independent spirit that refuses to be broken and the most out and out club anthem on the record. 'Living For Love' gives the clearest, bell clanging message that the collective amity of the club is where M feels most at home. It's that spirit that galvanised her musical mission in the first place and she returns to it staunchly here. You get the sense it's all about the joyful communication of this statement rather than any kind of virtuosic performance, as the sheer heft of Diplo's production relegates her voices to its reedier registers.

 

Devil Pray

'Devil Pray' sets out Rebel Heart's thematic tone of Madonna as a devoted disciple, drawn to a darker kind of prayer. It's also the first moment on the album when her voice emerges clear and clean from the EDM scrum, over steady hand claps and guitar, whose country edge is reminiscent of 'Don't Tell Me' from 2000's Music and characteristic of Swedish producer Avicii's own output. The refrain cuts to an intoned, warning list of narcotic distractions ("we could do drugs, and we could smoke weed and we could drink whiskey") before a pitched down voice joins in a plea for M's soul to be saved. This is the first of many deft, warping, mood changes from acoustic to electro that populate the album – listen out for the imperfect waver of her voice on the word 'astray' in verse two. A precious little ghost in the machine.

 

Ghosttown

Canadian producer Billboard lays out a desolate sonic landscape of single organ chords and dusty beats for this you-and-me-against-the-world ballad. M's voice is crisp and unfettered, save for the occasional auto-tuned trill that gives this the edge of an apocalyptic cri de coeur. 40 seconds in and a teasing, distortion filled pause can mean only one thing – a massive chorus about to drop - and this one does with a half time, heart thumping beat and repetitive round. You could imagine Rhianna or Lady Gaga singing the same chorus, but M, despite being a weaker singer, licks it in the emotional truth stakes, particularly on this more melancholy end of the spectrum. Singing with a tremulous tonality, her voice hangs in uncluttered space, the lyrics positioning her as the dark-glowing, guiding light. A brilliant, desperate and rousing anthem.

 

Unapologetic Bitch

The phrase that's etched through and through Madonna like Blackpool rock. But this song is about calling out a rat bag ex-lover, rather than being an over-arching statement of staunch independence. Diplo uses every air horn in his artillery, morphing slide guitar into lasers and corralling a rasping dancehall groove. M spits rhythmic lyrics of the generic revenge-sass variety ("poppin' bottles that you can't even afford"), throwaway in comparison to the hooky tune itself. The refrain, "you never really knew how much you loved me till you lost me", is the killer nugget of this track, along with the drum break and squalling dub sirens in the final third. Wicked good.

 

Illuminati

The first of the Kanye produced cuts on the album features brittle hits, blips and a buzz-saw break that's just a little more interesting than the verse; a patter list of the famous names that form the assumed new world order. M however, reckons it's the beautiful freaks of the club that hold the power, not these celebrity cyphers; she's interested in the sweat-slicked celestial bodies, 'shining like illuminati.' It's scuzzy and repetitive with a danceable hook – but her voice is at its thinnest and the dynamics a little lacking. Despite all this, it does contain the great lyric, "It's time to dance and turn this dark into something", which could be the album's epigram.

 

Bitch I'm Madonna

Cooing opening notes are a misleadingly sweet introduction to what is actually a berserk slice of EDM that refuses to rest, rhythmic or sonically for more than 10 seconds at a time.  M sings 'I just wanna have fun tonight' over ridiculous bpm, trilling with pitched up vocals that you'd be forgiven for thinking had bled from the hands of PC Music's AG Cook. The beat slithers between a creaking boom-bap and a stuttering chorus rhyme of the cheekiest, playground wind-up variety. M demands 'Who do you think you are?' in a roar replete with riot grrrl rage before Nicki Minaj – in whom M seems to have found a kindred spirit – oozes a characteristically flawless verse. This track is the irreverent, batshit apex of the Madonna/Diplo collaboration – ending with the wry, doomy coda of a maniacal, metallic belly laugh.

 

Hold Tight

Shakira's 'Whenever, Wherever' as seen through the murky lens of a lost generation. There are the same military beats – the carnival rat-a-tat – but the key is more minor and the sense of hope a little more distant. While again, the workaday "together we're gonna last forever" lyric is less gripping than the song's architecture, it's still a galvanising anthem of shoulder-to-shoulder survival that's collective and communal, rather than intimate and romantic. The chorus gallops euphorically over twinkling arpeggio, picked out by a Juno whistle reminiscent of Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill'.

 

Joan Of Arc

'Joan Of Arc' begins as an acoustic ballad, speaking plainly and plaintively of detachment and loneliness in the face of the press – "each time they write a hateful word / dragging my soul into the dirt / I wanna die". Left at this self-sorry tempo you'd be tempted to switch off, but the chorus does a 180 and picks up to a skippy, romantic melody that underscores M's tears. It could be a Taylor Swift song and that's a compliment, her lyrical echoes in simple poetics like, "I don't wanna talk about it right now / even hearts made out of steel can break down." The chorus builds in warm revolutions over skittering drums and strings as M bolsters herself against the slings and arrows of her outrageous fortune. Is the Joan Of Arc metaphor a bit of a stretch? Yes. Is this the sweetest and catchiest song on the album thus far? Also yes.  

 

Iconic

You might have heard mention of Mike Tyson featuring on Rebel Heart and here he is, sampled giving a rousing speech over rapturous applause, setting the tone of ambition, sweat and graft. 'Iconic' is a Ted-talk of well-worn, motivational encouragement ("if you don't use your voice/someone else will speak for you instead") cloaked in a club anthem with M's vocal echoing like the announcer in the ring. The pre-chorus is the memorable hook; a stomping rhythm to be sung en masse, with a high euphoric melody like a precocious, pre-recession club classic. The sonically sparse verse breaks down to machinic stabs and grinding electronic gears over the title mantra before Chicago's Chance The Rapper has his moment to "shine like a beautiful star" on one of only three guest verses on the record. It's all over in a flash though and makes less of an impression than M's repurposing of the Twinkle Twinkle rhyme to hopefully intone 'want to be a superstar / that's exactly what you are."

 

Heartbreak City

No prizes for guessing what this one's about. Lamenting piano chords support a lone vocal that drips with reverb as a tale of a broken love unfolds - "You split me down the middle / fucked me up a little." It's the kind of baroque pop, dealing in love and death, that made Lana Del Rey so tantalising, but again, M attains the edge by being the voice of experience rather than doe eyed innocence. Her lyrical delivery is purposeful, hard – devastating in the cold detachment of clipped consonants. She's angry but controlled, expressing in a deeper vocal register – a Bassey-esque bass. There's staccato drums, dramatic male back up vocal and doomy piano that echoes DJ Shadow's 'Midnight In A Perfect World'. Breathy, exhausted, emotional.

 

Body Shop

Seemingly out of nowhere pops this ever so light, sunshiny sketch that could be a cut from Damon Albarn's Mali Music. There's warm, rolling, clapped percussion and fingers on strings with M delivering a gem of a verse, in a style that could not be further removed from either hard-hitting dancefloor belt or quivering electro-drama. The lyrics seem composed only to create a bubbling, breathy, percussive patter that feels improvised and loose but also totally integrated with the music around it. Important to note that this song is not about the ethical bath products brand – more like, love is a highway, M is a battered car and with some careful / dextrous repairs it will be possible to get back on the road. The chorus melody is pure, laidback jouissance and feels somehow like vintage Madonna. Also fun are the residues of her anglophile phase in the lyric that suggests "We could go on a bender." Nice.

 

Holy Water

Day turns to night and we're firmly back in the club with M demanding 'Bitch get off my pole" – it's rich with Nicki vibes, without Nicki actually making a second appearance. Sex has always been one of M's favourite subjects, particularly when it's hand in daring hand with religion; here she performs a kind of erotic baptism while a Moroder-esque bass underscores her sermon. It's one of many strong choruses that take you somewhere unexpected, in this case ecstatic moaning, arcade game music and 'Ashes To Ashes' style synths ricochet, pin-ball fashion. It's the second cut that Kanye has had a hand in and I'd guess he's partly responsible for the cheeky genius of inserting a sample from M's own seminal 'Vogue' into the latter half of the track – it's iconic stab of "strike a pose" setting up a rhythmic base for the similarly spoken refrain, "If you like it please confess / Bless yourself and genuflect." A cunning turn from the Holy Madonna and Baby Yeezus.

 

Inside Out

The holy metaphors continue in another enticing combination of dark, bare verse giving way to bittersweet chorus. Made with notable hip-hop producer and Kanye collaborator Mike Dean, there's a near perfect matching of an underwater bassline to pick out the clear, processed call of her voice. These are the best tracks – when her vocal hangs, almost alone. In this context she sounds ageless and so familiar; you remember that crazy production is a necessary vessel but not always a match for the ubiquity of her iconic vocal. The track remains restrained, with piano chords and strings while M's lyric demands a love based on "full disclosure" asking 'let me love you from the inside out' – a chorus that might be the most catching and anthemic of the album.

 

Wash All Over Me

The last song of the regular album track-list hits a note of resignation, albeit in a quietly grandiose manner. Through piano chords and a contemplative melody, M is figured as a stranger in a strange land, the world around her changing; you can almost picture her trudging in slow motion through experiential quicksand, probably wearing Balenciaga. Something unsettled lurks under the steady chords, fading up to a chattering, military beat as the chorus rouses – it has all the melancholy pleasures of 'The Power Of Goodbye' one of M's finest moments, but it's older, wiser and more accepting of endings. This is a beautiful vocal, pure for the most part, sparingly synthesised and buoyed by gospel backing. "If this is the end then let it come/ let it wash all over me," she sings – a still defiant anthem for days of luxuriant ennui.  

 

Best Night [Deluxe Version]

This noirish booty call, dealing a more private, less showy erotica – opens with doomily seductive, 80s electro as she permits, "You can call me M tonight." There's a touch of fellow Dancetaria regular Sade, particularly on the sultry chorus hook ("I'll make this the best night of your life") which appears to be sung in some other person's voice – with M recognisable on the tinny peaks of the harmonies. Later there are further call backs to her own classic catalogue, in this case it's 'Justify My Love', whose "wanting / waiting" refrain creeps over a spoken word passage, squalling Indian flute and a pattering of drums. This time round she's in control however, calling the shots rather than waiting for permission.  

 

Veni Vedi Vici [Deluxe Version]

A dusky rap origin story with lyrics built around the titles of some of her greatest hits, "and when it came to sex, I knew I walked the Borderline / and when I struck a pose, all the gay boys lost their minds". A welcome, playful break from some of the more generic pop lyrics on the record. The chorus chimes over acoustic guitar with M singing 'I came, I saw, I conquered', sounding totally girlish and insouciant. The final guest verse comes courtesy of Nas - not always the most scintillating of rappers - but actually this bravura slice of his own turbulent biography is bang on, particularly against Diplo's slightly (and aptly) nostalgic shotgun beats and euphoric, crunching horns that score the crescendo. The track swoops from this bombast back to the acoustic sweetness of M's chorus – the least defensive and most personal feeling track on the record by far.

 

S.E.X [Deluxe Version]

Pure unadulterated filth with no room for the euphemisms rife in 'Holy Water.' This chatty, sassy, spoken word demands, "Tell me what you know about sex"; the subtext being that you know basically nothing. Everything is laid bare over twinkling, skittering bass, synth hits and string arpeggio. As it winds up, M reels off an S&M shopping list, the track ending with the slam of a dungeon door.

 

Messiah [Deluxe Version]

A final blast of witchy, alchemical drama to set you on your way, through the forest, into the desert, out into the night – thankfully with M to guide you. The orchestral underscore of flowing violins (sparsely used on this record so far) calls to mind the gravitas lent to 'Papa Don't Preach' – particularly when married with that deeper, velvety tone that sometimes ekes from M's throat. The keening chorus speaks of candle covered altars and necromancy, a love potion spell to a heart-beat drum.

 

Rebel Heart [Deluxe Version]

The last song on the album feels like the first to properly spring into aural life in an unapologetically major key. For all the dark defiance and isolation that has permeated the previous 18 tracks, the title song is epitomised by totally bright, upbeat guitar, violin scale and finger clicks. The song relates the story of its singer - who she was and how she became who she is – which is really the record's underlying conceit. The desire to make the most contemporary sounding pop and mainstream dance music while quietly acknowledging your part in building the scene and popularising stylistics that are the foundation of current trends. In these lyrics – which are more auto-biographical and therefore more interesting – she accepts "hell yeah, this is me / right where I'm supposed to be," building to a very sweet, very chart, very chorus-y crescendo – a bit of pop magic dug, nonetheless, from the "depths of her rebel heart."

[Rod Erick 70]

Finally...a well-written track-by-track review.

[groovyguy 63,869]

^ Pretty well written but I strongly disagree with this part:

 

Ghosttown

Canadian producer Billboard lays out a desolate sonic landscape of single organ chords and dusty beats for this you-and-me-against-the-world ballad. M's voice is crisp and unfettered, save for the occasional auto-tuned trill that gives this the edge of an apocalyptic cri de coeur. 40 seconds in and a teasing, distortion filled pause can mean only one thing – a massive chorus about to drop - and this one does with a half time, heart thumping beat and repetitive round. You could imagine Rhianna or Lady Gaga singing the same chorus, but M, despite being a weaker singer, licks it in the emotional truth stakes, particularly on this more melancholy end of the spectrum. Singing with a tremulous tonality, her voice hangs in uncluttered space, the lyrics positioning her as the dark-glowing, guiding light. A brilliant, desperate and rousing anthem.

[stfan97 2,847]

Hold Tight

Shakira's 'Whenever, Wherever' as seen through the murky lens of a lost generation. There are the same military beats – the carnival rat-a-tat – but the key is more minor and the sense of hope a little more distant. While again, the workaday "together we're gonna last forever" lyric is less gripping than the song's architecture, it's still a galvanising anthem of shoulder-to-shoulder survival that's collective and communal, rather than intimate and romantic. The chorus gallops euphorically over twinkling arpeggio, picked out by a Juno whistle reminiscent of Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill'.

 

And except there is no such lyric in the final album version. 

[Rod Erick 70]

@groovyguy....I get your point. I was also giving the monitor a raised left eyebrow when I read that. However, reading the next sentence with the author describing M's voice as being truthful and emotional...I got the author's point.

 

M's voice may not be as powerful when compared to her influences, her contemporaries, and all the other singers she influenced...but she is one vocalist where the vocal power lies in her ability to make the listener feel that she knows what she is singing about (Live To Tell, Power of Goodbye, Rain, Deeper and Deeper, etc.). A lot of people will publish covers of this song on YouTube when this is released and some might even try to out-sing our beloved M, but it is only that 'iconic' tone (the term of the article's author) of hers that will make Ghosttown really soar.  

[groovyguy 63,869]

@groovyguy....I get your point. I was also giving the monitor a raised left eyebrow when I read that. However, reading the next sentence with the author describing M's voice as being truthful and emotional...I got the author's point.

 

M's voice may not be as powerful when compared to her influences, her contemporaries, and all the other singers she influenced...but she is one vocalist where the vocal power lies in her ability to make the listener feel that she knows what she is singing about (Live To Tell, Power of Goodbye, Rain, Deeper and Deeper, etc.). A lot of people will publish covers of this song on YouTube when this is released and some might even try to out-sing our beloved M, but it is only that 'iconic' tone (the term of the article's author) of hers that will make Ghosttown really soar.  

That's why I disagree with her being described as a weaker singer.

 

There are quite a few articles on her vocal. A brief summary of her vocal based on the articles I've read:

Madonna has a rich tone. And her vocal range is 3 octaves 2 notes [G2- B5] (approx). She is a versatile vocalist and adapts her vocal style to the music she's singing well. The middle of her range is her strongest suit: it's solid, with a warm coloring and a clear timbre. Her chest voice is bright and sharp. While her head voice can be either soft and delicate, or direct and solid. 

 

For Evita, Madonna had to take vocal lessons, which increased her range. So her voice grew much deeper and fuller. Her singing is usually still very close to speech: every word is carefully articulated, the words are clearly understandable, and the pitches resemble the speech melody of the sentences. It is called speech quality singing. There is not much resonance of the back or higher cavities of the vocal tract but rather the sound is resonated in the mouth. The vocal folds can be thin or thick or something in between. This is also called mixed voice which is basically a healthy production.

 

In Madonna´s newer songs there is less nasality, sometimes thicker cords, not very much vibrato but nevertheless control which can unfortunately let her down in live performances doing all the other stuff. That is when we may hear her singing off key.

[groovyguy 63,869]

Posted by stfan97:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/madonna-rebel-heart-20150225

Rebel Heart  

3 1/2 Stars

Madonna gets down with Kanye, Avicii and more on a supercatchy, sexed-up album

For many years, Madonna avoided the Internet like gluten. But in December, the Internet decided to stop waiting for Madonna, and everything went wrong: Her music was stolen and leaked; her hasty, emotional responses on Instagram used terms like "rape" and "terrorism," provoking (you guessed it) Internet outrage. Her swift solution was to put six songs online immediately, with a promise that 13 more would follow in March. But some of those 13 new songs have turned what might have been a modern-day pop treasure into a diamond struggling to escape the rough.

 

Rebel Heart is a long, passionate, self-referential meditation on losing love and finding purpose in chilling times. It's also a chance for the Queen of Pop to floss a bit and reflect on how she painstakingly carved a path others have happily twerked down in the years since her 1983 debut. The über-fit 56-year-old star gleefully enunciates "bitch" on the refreshing, reggae-tinged "Unapologetic Bitch" and the frenetic, Nicki Minaj-assisted "Bitch I'm Madonna," both featuring Diplo's ear-tingling airhorn blasts. She quotes herself on three songs, calling back to iconic passages from "Vogue" and "Justify My Love" before whisper-rapping about her past hits in "Veni Vidi Vici."

 

The album opens with another kind of flashback — the classic-sounding house jam "Living for Love," a buoyant song about moving on after a breakup. The stellar "HeartBreakCity," meanwhile, is a dramatic plunge into post-relationship hell. The singer grappled with her divorce from Guy Ritchie on her past two albums, but now that she's back on the market, there are new fools to smack down.

 

Her co-pilots this time aren't the electro mavens who assisted on 2012's glossy MDNA nor the pop titans who lent a hand on 2008's dancier Hard Candy — they're trendier talents like Blood Diamonds and established hitmakers like Kanye West. Sometimes these collaborations gel perfectly, like on "Illuminati," West's grimy take on the Internet's favorite conspiracy theory, and "Devil Pray," where Avicii helps Madonna revive the strums-and-beats vibe of 2000's Music. And Minaj's verse on "Bitch I'm Madonna" is pure fire.

 

Unfortunately, cameos from Nas, Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson don't elevate their respective songs. And Madonna lets her own appetite for over-the-top sex songs run wild on a handful of cringy tracks like "Holy Water" (an ode to oral sex featuring the unfortunate line "Yeezus loves my pussy best") and "S.E.X.," which spells out an unconventional list of bedroom aids including "chopsticks, underwear, bar of soap, dental chair."

The album is at its strongest when Madonna shoves everyone to the side and just tells it to us straight. So it's fitting that she wraps up the deluxe edition with the title track, recalling how she went from weird kid to narcissist to spiritual thinker over Avicii's bright, orchestrated production. Deep down, Madonna does have a rebel heart — and you can't fault her for reminding us that pop music is all the better for it.

 

 

 

[groovyguy 63,869]

http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/madonna-rebel-heart

Rebel Heart 3.5 stars

Perhaps more so than that of any other pop artist, living or dead, Madonna's career can be handily split into distinct eras, and further subdivided into periods or phases: her commercial peak in the '80s, her provocateur years in the early '90s, her electronic renaissance in the late '90s and early aughts, and so on. It's the evolution, or so-called reinventions, that these shifts represent that many wholly credit, erroneously, for the singer's unprecedented longevity. But when the final history is written on one Madonna Louise Ciccone, with the benefit of distance and hindsight, it's likely her career will be viewed in just two halves: the pair of decades leading up to and including 2003's American Life, a 20-year big bang of ubiquitous, propulsive forward momentum that culminated in the deconstruction and rejection of the material world that created the biggest female pop star of all time; and the years that followed, which have found the queen uncertain about how to maintain her throne, often looking back rather than toward the future.

 

Case in point: Of her 13th studio album's myriad pleasures are its numerous reminders of Madonnas past, from the '90s-house throwback of lead single "Living for Love" to samples and lyrical nods to "Vogue," "Justify My Love," and Truth or Dare. Madonna's fans are as varied as her countless visual and sonic diversions have been over the years, and there's a little something for everyone here, including those pining for a return to the lush, spiritual introspection of Ray of Light (specifically, on the exquisite "Wash All Over Me" and the regal "Messiah"). Madonna has always been ironically self-referential, repeating formulas and quoting past hits, but in recent years those winks and nods have seemed more like tics, the side effect of an artist who's simply said and done it all, and whose effective banishment from an increasingly ageist radio industry has led her to believe she needs to remind us that, bitch, she's Madonna.

There are moments throughout Rebel Heart where Madonna carves out new, exhilarating territory for both herself and mainstream pop at large. "Devil Pray," perhaps her best song in 15 years, reimagines the Animals as a folktronica band with witch-house tendencies, her ruminations on salvation and the existential pitfalls of sniffing glue riding an unexpected low-end groove. Armed with an Arp bass synth, some barking alarms, and copious amounts of Auto-Tune, co-producer Kanye West (who's also name-checked in the lyrics) gives "Illuminati" the Yeezus treatment, lending Madge's treatise on the age of enlightenment a portentous industrial edge; her rapped verses about the titular secret society are clean and tight enough to make you forget about "American Life."

Though less inventive, other songs, too, find Madonna exploring new sounds or revisiting them in novel ways, like the Eastern-flavored "Body Shop," a reminder of how agile both her vocals and lyrics can be; as extended metaphors for sex organs go, the track is the clever, more sophisticated cousin to 2008's crass "Candy Shop." Espousing the power of art in a practical sense as a vehicle for change and a symbol of freedom, "Graffiti Heart" is what Artpop aspired to be. Drawing on Madonna's connection to pre-fame friends Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring in order to authenticate the kind of inspirational anthem that only an artist who emerged from the rubble of Warhol and AIDS could, its personalized missive is far more effective than the more general platitudes of, say, "4 Minutes": "Whattya got? Show me your Basquiat/He didn't keep it all to himself/Even with Keith, out on the street he died/Fighting so you can do it as well."

Rarely have stars as big as Madonna made themselves so accessible to both the media and public, and she's often spoken of the challenges of sussing out the starfuckers from those worthy of her company. But she's never addressed the subject as frankly as she does in "HeartBreakCity," a piano ballad that builds to a inconsolable frenzy of chanted background vocals, martial drums, and, perhaps not coincidentally, a sample of "They Don't Care About Us" by Michael Jackson, an icon who, unlike Madonna, succumbed to the traps of fame. Her survival is, no doubt, partly credited to the hardened exterior she's erected over the years, transforming from the soft, vulnerable vixen of Bedtime Stories into the pop-music equivalent of Joan Crawford. Finally, "Inside Out," which juxtaposes her sensual invitations and supple vocals with an industrial soundscape of ominous, sinuous bass and crackling hip-hop loops, gives us a glimpse of the unabashed romantic hidden beneath the maschinenmensch. She might as well be serenading herself when she begs, "Cynical smile, time to take off your mask."

It's these moments that render the album's fumbles all the more frustrating. Like its predecessor, 2012's MDNA, Rebel Heart is all over the map, not just musically, but lyrically and vocally. Madonna has always been a versatile artist, but also a surprisingly coherent one, adept at threading seemingly disparate styles together using lyrical themes or sonic continuity, and thus setting an incredibly high standard for both herself and pop music as a whole. She was wise to largely abandon Avicii's chintzy (yet admittedly infectious) synth hooks in favor of more forward-minded production from the likes of DJ Dahi and Blood Diamonds, but the album would have benefited from more of those up-and-comers and less of established names like the overrated Diplo.

With so many producers with disparate modes at the helm, Rebel Heart feels overworked, the duality of its title muddied by the inclusion of garish party jams like the infuriatingly catchy but lyrically cringe-inducing "Bitch I'm Madonna" and sex songs like "Holy Water," ostensibly lumped under the "rebel" banner using only the broadest of interpretations. The latter track is a welcome bit of percolating electronica, and she deserves props for effortlessly deploying the word "genuflect" in a pop song, but Madonna's Catholic baiting feels like a reflex at this point. Despite her well-documented reputation, you could count her sexually provocative songs on one hand up to this point, so the fact that she nearly doubles that number here in one fell swoop suggests she's either consciously taking the piss out of her Dita Parlo persona or making some kind of comment about women of a certain age unapologetically flexing their libidos. Which would be all well and good if the lyrics rose above Janet-grade ("Oh my God, you're so hot, pull my hair, let me get on top," she sings on the lazily titled romp "S.E.X.").

The sheer number of songs on the album (19, not counting six more on the "super-deluxe" edition) practically guarantees these missteps; an apparent lack of internal editing would suggest a lack of vision. From "Hold Tight" to "Borrowed Time," however, there's a timely recurring theme of love triumphing even during the end times. A decade of disco-Madonna makes it easy to forget that she's a skilled balladeer, and the post-apocalyptic "Ghosttown," about the last two lovers on Earth, takes a generic, contemporary-pop template (think "Halo") and stamps it with her singular style a la 1994's Babyface-penned "Take a Bow." Rebel Heart is too long, too unnecessarily fussed over, to join the ranks of Like a Prayer, Erotica, and Ray of Light, but tucked inside this lumbering mass of songs are 10 to 12 tracks that would, under any other circumstances, make for Madonna's best album in at least a decade.

[momosfantasy 973]

I don't understand why so many of these reviews treat "Holy Water" and "S.E.X." as being done to be "shocking". It seems pretty evident to me that both of these songs are meant to be more fun and sassy (ala " Body Shop") than an attempt to scandalize suburban mothers. Not every song she does needs to be a Serious Artistic Statement. Can't the lady just be silly and have some fun? That, to me, is the point of the "Rebel" aspect of the album. I appreciate the ballads and the serious side of her too, but personally I've bounced around to and enjoy these two songs more than the title track or "Messiah" ( don't kill me, I like that song too). But I like upbeat music, and both these songs are just FUN to me. Life's too short to take everything so seriously all the time. I guess I just don't see why so few reviewers are willing to see the humor and frivolity in so much of her work.

[groovyguy 63,869]

Great review that sounds 4 stars but only 3 stars given

 

TIME OUT Madonna – ‘Rebel Heart’Two events have blighted the release of Madonna’s thirteenth album. One, obviously, was her spectacular tumble at The Brits, but another was the online leak in December of 13 demos earmarked for the record. So in a perverse way, it’s fitting that ‘Rebel Heart’ feels like a Madonna album for the internet era. Available in editions with 14, 19 or 25 tracks, it’s a disparate, drawn-out collection that’s begging to be condensed into shorter playlists.No matter which version you buy, you’ll find Madonna alternating between showing off, getting off and taking stock. On ‘Holy Water’ – a brilliantly ridiculous hymn to cunnilingus – she manages all three on the same song, dropping a reference to her classic hit ‘Vogue’ and boasting that either Jesus or Yeezus ‘loves my pussy best’. Her voice is so heavily distorted that it’s left to us to decide whether she’s taunting the Vatican or Kim Kardashian.Some of the sassy stuff is excellent, especially the catchy, trap-tinged ‘Iconic’ and defiant dancehall of ‘Unapologetic Bitch’, on which Madonna tells a selfish ex-boyfriend: ‘I’m poppin’ bottles that you can’t even afford.’ The house-flavoured lead single ‘Living for Love’ is also a highlight, its resilient lyrics gaining additional pathos following last night’s already legendary mishap. ‘Lifted me up and watched me stumble,’ Madonna sings. ‘I’m gonna carry on.’But ‘Rebel Heart’s very best moments come when Madonna gets reflective. She shows her vulnerable side on ‘Joan of Arc’, a sublime electro-folk ballad, while the affecting title track finds her confronting her past as a ‘narcissist’ over some wistful acoustic guitar chords.It all adds up to a sprawling and varied selection box that’s definitely worth cherry-picking from. ‘Rebel Heart’ may lack cohesion, but she’s definitely not down for the count: this contains some of the best music Madonna’s made in a decade.

[Esteban 129]

'Rebel Heart' review: Madonna's latest is intensely personal

New York Daily News (Jim Farber)

 

 

Imagine a world where Madonna hates being photographed, where she considers quitting her career and admits to suffering haunting demands that she “act like the other girls.â€

It’s the same world where pigs fly and figure skaters crowd the deepest recesses of hell.

Yet, somehow, that’s the world occupying significant parts of Madonna’s revelatory new album, “Rebel Heart.â€

More credibly than any previous work, Madonna’s latest pulls back the curtain on her life, letting us see her hurt and yearning.

It also finds her licking her wounds over a breakup with a far less powerful boy toy — presumably the decades-her-junior dancer Brahim Zaibat, who she saw for three years, ending in 2013.

Maddy has said that she chose the album’s title to express two sides of her character: the defiant warrior and the aching lover.

While a decent portion of harder, bitchier odes do turn up, the album as a whole presents the softest, most sincere portrait of the star we’ve ever had. In the process, “Rebel Heart†coheres, offering a swift rebuke to whoever prematurely dribbled out its tracks in a dizzying variety of leaks.

 

Along the way, the long, 19-song album offers its share of groaners, missteps and songs more indebted to trendy production than solid craft. But its best moments boast some of the most finely structured pop melodies of Madonna’s 32-year career.

The slam-dunk opener, “Living for Love,†stands with her great gospel-soul songs of the past: “Like a Prayer†and “Express Yourself.†Of the ballads, “Ghosttown†rates with her best: “Live to Tell†and “Crazy for You.â€

The way the producers recorded Madonna both bolsters the melodies and lends her depth. They’ve honeyed her voice: Madonna hasn’t sounded this rich since the sumptuous “Evita†soundtrack. In “Ghosttown,†her deep tone has some of the autumnal ache of Karen Carpenter.

All this isn’t to say Madonna doesn’t chirp, sneer and bray in places. In “Holy Water,†she’s in late-period Joan Crawford mode, putting down all comers with an unseemly pride. Then, in “Bitch I’m Madonna,†she nicks a slogan from someone far beneath her, referencing Ms. Spears’ old “It’s Britney, Bitch†line.

Madonna’s harder side finds a focus in “Unapologetic Bitch,†where she plays a spurned sugar mama. She revels in banishing an entitled young stud back to his impoverished past, a mirror, most likely, of the breakup with Zaibat.

 

The same scenario reels through two other songs: “HeartBreakCity†and “Living for Love,†though in the latter, the loss becomes a spur to celebrate a love that may yet come.

The music in “Living for Love†implicitly references the past, but in other passages Madonna invokes it directly. The lyrics to “Veni Vidi Vici†offer a virtual career retrospective. The title track brings an even broader life assessment — looking back at her attempts to fit in as a youth, as well as her years of acting out with provocative gestures for their own sake. Never before has Madonna copped to the latter motivation in a song. In the end, she accepts the consequences, and embraces the bravery, of her character fully enough to create her own answer to “My Way.â€

The beauty of the song’s melody helps ease its self-involvement. As a lyricist, Madonna has always had trouble making her personal songs universal.

On the other hand, her persona has such cultural resonance at this point, it has become part of all pop fans. Her name is a metaphor for strength and endurance. That makes her potent enough to admit where she’s weak in “Joan Of Arc.†Here, she says that each critique drives her to private tears. In “Wash All Over Me,†she ponders either running from, or accepting the end of, her career.

It’s hard to imagine Madonna expressing things like this before, let alone making them ring true. That’s “Rebel Heart’s†peak feature: It presents a 56-year-old woman who, in the best possible sense, sounds her age.

[Rod Erick 70]

Anyone read the TIME review? One has to sign in to continue reading the whole article. I think it is a favorable review since the title is:

Madonna Stays in Vogue With Rebel Heart

[groovyguy 63,869]

http://www.metacritic.com/music/rebel-heart/madonna

Metascore

69

Generally favorable reviewsbased on 5 Critics

 

Critic Reviews

• [*]

Positive:4 out of 6

[*]

Mixed:2 out of 6

[*]

Negative:0

80 New York Daily News (Jim Faber) Feb 27, 2015

80 The Telegraph (UK) Feb 25, 2015

70 Rolling Stone Feb 25, 2015

70 Slant Magazine Feb 26, 2015

60 Uncut Feb 25, 2015

60 Q Magazine Feb 25, 2015

 

 

 

 

[groovyguy 63,869]

Material Girl bares all on patchy 13thRecent Madonna albums have tended to recycle clichés and trends – detrimentally in MDNA’s case – in a bid to keep the 56-year-old at pop’s cutting edge. Rebel Heart almost gets the balance right, but at 19 tracks, most in the industrial party-pop style of cheeseball producers Diplo and Avicii, there’s simply too much going on. Booming, off-kilter electro-rap cuts written with Kanye West called “S.E.X.â€, “Illuminati†and “Iconic†(featuring a Mike Tyson cameo) are certainly bracing, while on “Joan Of Arc†and “Veni Vidi Vici†she’s candidly confessional. Ultimately, the message seems to be, she’s a survivor – and she just about gets through this.

6 out of 10

[groovyguy 63,869]

Updated: List of Reviews with links

http://www.madonna-infinity.net/forums/index.php?/topic/832-rebel-heart-reviews/?p=18949

[groovyguy 63,869]

'Rebel Heart' review: Madonna's latest is intensely personal

New York Daily News (Jim Farber)

 

 

 

the reviewer just answered a fan that he gave it a 4/5 which will be published in the prints.