Rebel Heart Reviews

[groovyguy 63,869]

It's so awesome to see RH getting plenty of critical acclaim.

The ratings tend to be positive and the review complimentary when the reviewers actually discuss the music.

But the poor reviews seemed focused on the fact that she's 56 and should not be doing the Rebel songs.

[Breathless 5,286]

Some people are too fixated on age unfortunately.....

[groovyguy 63,869]

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20293-rebel-heart/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=album&utm_campaign=reviews

Rating 5.1 

 

It’s difficult to take Madonna at face value. She is on her third generation of pop iconhood, after all, and her work comes freighted with decades of discussions about sexuality, appropriation, and whether what she is doing is "shocking" or "fake" or "appropriate." In the run-up to Rebel Heart, a series of bad-press flare-ups—myriad Instagram-basedcontroversies, comparing her album leak to rape—suggested that maybe Madonna had slipped from our reality entirely. Yet, the surprise of Rebel Heart, her 13th album, is its groundedness, its centering of the Real Madonna in the mix.

 

In a way, Rebel Heart fits squarely into a growing canon that also includes Björk’s Vulnicura,Kim Gordon’s new memoir and the autobiography of Slits guitarist Viv Albertine: female artists of a certain age making mature, candid work about divorce, and the rediscovery of the artistic self that follows in the wake of the rupture of their domestic life. Rebel Heart, likeVulnicura, digs in on the vertiginous aftermath (most spectacularly on "Living for Love" and "HeartBreakCity"), and finds steadiness in the pure loves of children, the bedrock of self, and spiritualism. As is traditional Madonnaâ„¢, her lyrics reach for top-shelf Catholicism, conflating spiritual and sexual salvation in a way that never makes entirely clear whether the supplication is being offered at the foot of Christ or a bedmate.

 

On the absolution-seeking "Devil Pray", she sings about the futility of escaping pain and recites a garbage head’s shopping list of street drugs that offer brief relief—including, but not limited to, sniffing glue. As she chants "Save my soul/ Devil’s here to fool ya" a bed of throaty, orgasmic samples rises in the mix, a hundred tiny Madonna-voices in coital abyss. It is a strange, tender, comical thing, this Madonna song that cites huffing and invokes the presence of "Lucifer." But ultimately, it’s a boring stadium-throb lite-EDM song about seeking sobriety and/or big-G God. It’s also a Madonna-doing-Madonna cliche, which is too often the downfall of Rebel Heart.

 

The good news is that most of the time, Madonna-doing-Madonna seems in on the joke. There’s the masterfully campy "Bitch I’m Madonna", and then the 50 Shades of What-the-Actual-Fuck of "S.E.X.", which goes from trad break-you-off/come-inside talk to mentions of "chopsticks," a "dental chair," a "golden shower" and raw meat as erotic objects in a voice that sounds like she’s calling on her Creepy Frog phone while wearing a zipped fetish mask. On "Holy Water" she draws a comparison reminiscent of Lana Del Rey and Pepsi-Cola.

 

The deep production team on Rebel Heart—Ariel Rechtshaid and Diplo in particular—have previously done work referencing classic '80s Madonna, and seemingly have a good sense of what suits her voice and still-evolving mature-era aesthetic. The soulful diva house of "Living for Love" sounds like it should have been the single off the Mary J. Blige London Sessionsalbum, complete with celestial gospel chorus and piano 8s. It kicks off the album and serves as its thesis—Madonna as triumphant (yet vulnerable) phoenix from the flame, seeking good love and God, raving in the dawn after the darkness. Much of the 14-track domestic commercial version (as well as crushingly long 25-track super deluxe version) mines the same territory.

 

When she’s not hammering self-help maxims in the breakup zone, she is ordering the pop cosmos around her, much like she’s been doing since approximately 1985. "Bitch I’m Madonna" is a fantastic argument that the Sophie, Nicki Minaj, Diplo & Madonna album should come out, like, tomorrow and save everyone’s summer. It’s corny and glorious, its Nicki verse the most energizing 26 seconds of the album—and it’s also a convincing plea for big-tent EDM to get weird. On the surface it’s essentially the most artful Kesha song anyone’s ever made, but grows progressively more warped and bubblegum until it falls apart amid seizing saw synths. It’s Madonna as cartoon diva, but then it’s piggybacked by the pained ballad flipside: On "Joan of Arc" she opens up, as much as any ultra famous pop performer can in four minutes, about how hard it is to be the public Madonna, followed by paparazzi and dissected by trolls online. "Just hold me while I cry my eyes out," she sings. 

 

It’s a curious cocktail, one that makes it seem like she is actively taking on the mantle of What Madonna Means To Us In 2015. Rebel Heart finds her recoiling and resigning from it, refusing it, fucking with us, examining her own history and playfully crushing it under her boot heel. Yet, while some songs never quite make their point, others drill down on bad ones. The cringe-inducing "Body Shop"—wherein Madonna takes a body-as-a-car metaphor into mortifying territory that makes you wish for an Auto Wrecker: "You can polish the headlights/ You can smooth out the fender." (Bon Scott is probably spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken.) With songs like that sandwiched between unabashed bangers and tenderhearted treacle, and constant codeswitching from Madonna the character to Madonna the human being, Rebel Heart grows confusing and irreconcilably uneven as it progresses. As valiantly as the album tries, it’s hard to hit reset on the Madonna we’ve known and loved, after 30 years of campaigning for our hearts and minds.

[Fighter 28,889]

That review makes a lot of interesting apoints, i'm not surprised they gave it a 5.1, but i think its too low for this album.

[MadonnaLove 6,216]

This is scary it's too long I can't read this 

[stfan97 2,847]

http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/article13124297.html

 

3/4 stars

 

Madonna’s 13th studio album is an endurance test — both for listener and the indefatigable 56-year-old artist.

 

Just the gestation of this album, from conception to release, would take the discipline of the hardiest soul. Thankfully, that’s Madonna.

 

Instead of working with one main producer for musical cohesion as she’s done on her best albums, Like a Prayer (with Patrick Leonard) and Ray of Light (with William Orbit), Madonna corralled nine contemporary producers including Diplo, Kanye West, Avicii, Billboard and Blood Diamonds. Each track — and there are 25 of them on the Super Deluxe version — features Madonna writing with up to five songwriters apiece. Meantime, the demos were stolen and leaked online in December forcing Madonna to complete and rush-release the first batch of six songs. While performing the first single in England last month, she took a hard fall on stage.

 

Little wonder Madonna sings on the lovingly strummed title track: “I lived my life like a masochist… I took the road less traveled by/And I barely made it out alive/Through the darkness somehow I survived/Tough love, I knew it from the start/Deep down in the depth of my rebel heart.â€

 

To her credit, for all the trendy EDM hardware on the uptempo cuts like the reggae-spliced Unapologetic Bitch or the blaring electronic air horns that sound like mechanized barking robo-dogs on Bitch I’m Madonna, the focus never shifts away from the pop star. Rebel Heart, in total, is a true Madonna album, despite the unnecessary addition of guest rappers Nicki Minaj, Nas, Chance the Rapper and Mike Tyson (yes, the boxer) who add nothing but jarring clutter to their respective tracks.

 

Madonna’s melodically rich ballads HeartBreakCity, Joan of Arc, Messiah and the haunting Ghosttown anchor the album and rank among her best.

 

Better yet, her expressive singing reveals touching vulnerability and the vocal training she underwent for Evita 20 years ago. On Ghosttown, in particular, her rich, warm phrasing in her lower range recalls the much-missed Karen Carpenter. As such, Madonna is one of the finest voices to come out of a 1980s that gave us Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper and Anita Baker. She’s advanced far beyond the thin-voiced singer of her earliest Like a Virgin period.

 

Rebel Heart, with its dual themes of warrior and wounded, is also among the most personal of Madonna albums. Once again, she grapples with life after love and emerges hopeful on the retro, pop-gospel sounding Living for Love. Other songs tackle the burdens of fame and her now 32-year career (the lovely Wash All Over Me). For sheer musical fun, Addicted is an infectious slice of ’80s pop/rock.

 

Given its length, there are problems. More explicitly than she’s allowed herself in past recordings like the comparatively tame Erotica, Madonna touches on familiar tropes of sex mingling with religion. S.E.X. is a silly, Fifty Shades-level laundry list of desired bedroom aids. The Kanye-assisted Holy Water, a catchy ode to cunnilingus, is more memorable. But Madonna goes over the top by likening her bodily secretions to the sacred (“Bless yourself and genuflectâ€) and closes with a groaner of a line claiming that Jesus, or “Yeezus,†loves her, uh, reservoir, best.

 

If that’s a flaw to this otherwise impressive album, Madonna addresses it on the title track: “I spent some time as a narcissist/Hearing the others say, ‘Look at you, look at you’/Trying to be so provocative/I said, ‘Oh yeah, that was me.’â€

 

“Was?†She still is. Damn her critics and doubters. She needn’t try so hard.

[stfan97 2,847]

http://www.vmagazine.com/site/content/3930/rebel-heart-a-review

 

March 10, 2015. A new album release from Madonna should feel like a global holiday—a celebration of innovative music, groundbreaking videos, boundary pushing fashion, memorable album artwork, and dance moves that could only belong to the one and only club crawling space cowboy spiritually seeking disco geisha latino loving queen of pop. In contrast, the saga leading up to Rebel Heart's drop (in stores and online retailers today) has been well documented. A series of unfortunate leaks of an album's worth of unfinished material, questionable Instagram posts featuring world leaders Photoshopped into the album's artwork, and perhaps the biggest blow, her spill during her performance of the first single, "Living for Love," at the Brit Awards, while wearing a now infamous tied too tight Armani cape. Despite the noise, nothing can distract from the fact that Madonna's blonde ambition has always persevered through the controversy. And her 13th studio album, Rebel Heart, is one of the most challenging and ultimately rewarding records of her career.

 

Three decades in, she's still sharp-tongued and in search of the party, but Rebel Heart reveals more vulnerability than she's allowed since Like A Prayer. The temple and church of the devoted will recognize the familiar themes she continues to explore—sexual fantasy ("Body Shop"), lost and found love ("Heartbreak City"), salvation ("Devil Pray"), redemption ("Wash All Over Me"), and perhaps her most cohesive and powerful narrative, the triumphant and transcendent power of the dancefloor ("Living for Love"). Nostalgia has never been Madonna's thing, but on Rebel Heart, she takes a time out to reference some of her biggest hits and her rise to the top from the Lower East Side rock scene and vogue balls of the early '90s with "Veni Vidi Vici" and "Holy Water." 

 

While those songs reference her past, the producers and collaborators that make up the album are on point and very much of the moment—an eclectic assembly of hitmakers and rising talents that include Diplo, Kanye West, Avicii, Ariel Rechtshaid, Blood Diamonds, Sophie, and DJ Dahi. There are also cameos from Nicki Minaj, Nas, Chance the Rapper and spoken word from none other than Mike Tyson.  

 

While the various contributors provide a swinging pendulum of moods explored throughout the Deluxe Edition's 19 tracks, it's Madonna's singular voice and vision that keeps it all together. Club bangerz with the word bitch in the title ("Unapologetic Bitch," "Bitch I'm Madonna") give her an opportunity to shake it off, but it's the ballad, "Ghosttown," that serves as the album's highlight. Singing about a cold, mad world that's gone to hell, her message of love is one that should lift the spirits of even the most cynical and jaded, and deserves a spot in the canon next to "Live To Tell" and "Take a Bow."

 

Though she has nothing to prove at this point, Rebel Heart can't help but demonstrate that she's remained on top with reinvention and determination, and by taking the "road less traveled on"—a path that continues to inspire and influence the current crop of pop starlets. Sure to please long term fans, who have undoubtedly already purchased their Gold Ring tickets to her upcoming arena tour, it deserves to inspire a new generation of girls and boys ready to get off the bus in the middle of Times Square with hopes to rule the world, like the Rebel Heart before them.

[groovyguy 63,869]

Music Reviews: The Latest From Madonna, the Cast of 'Empire,' Will Butler and More

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/music-reviews-latest-madonna-cast-empire-butler/story?id=29622456#1

 

Madonna’s “Rebel Heart†(Super Deluxe Edition) ****

Madonna’s 13th studio album in its most expanded, 25-track form is actually a pretty astonishing piece of work. I’ll be honest. The “Material Girl†hasn’t delivered an album that has impressed me from end to end since “Music†in 2000, but this record is strikingly different.

“Rebel Heart†is a legacy record and by that I mean, Madonna is building upon her 33-year recording history while adding more to her body of work. So, you get the slick dance numbers (“Living For Love,†“Illuminatiâ€) next to ballads (“Ghosttownâ€, “Joan Of Arcâ€) and along the way quite a few surprises are tossed into the mix. “Body Shop†somehow sounds like it could be a hip-hop remix of a lost Ani DiFranco song, while the title track is a mid-tempo adult-alternative acoustic rocker.

Throughout the set, Madonna tosses in her favorite subjects of sex (“S.E.X.†“Best Nightâ€) and religion (“Messiah.â€) Sometimes, she manages to combine the two, as she does on the “Vogueâ€-quoting “Holy Water.†Nas drops a verse on “Veni, Vidi, Vici,†while Chance The Rapper appears on “Iconic.†Nicki Minaj makes her second appearance on a Madonna song on the weirdly spacy and trippy “B_____ I’m Madonna,†a song which makes up for its ridiculous lyrics with its innovative sense of bombast. The album often has a sultry club sheen, as if soundtracking some futuristic discotheque. This is Madonna’s modern pop record. If autotune and vocoders bother you, this may not be your album. To be honest, these effects bother me more often than not, but in this case, I understand their use. This is a celebration of Madonna’s career in all her brash glory.

In all, “Rebel Heart†shows that Madonna is still a vibrant force. She’s not afraid of controversy. She’s not afraid to go her own direction. She’s still, underneath it all, a punk kid wanting to cause a ruckus while she makes you dance. If you get this album, this deluxe edition is most recommended. While this album does not quite match the highpoints of career highlights “Ray Of Light†and “Like A Prayer,†in its fullest version this record stands as the most ambitious and sonically eclectic album of Madonna’s career. Its nearly constant stylistic shifts make you forgive its weaker spots. This is exactly the album she needed to make at this point. This album’s impressive immensity and diversity should silence many of her doubters. There’s only one Madonna and she should never stop being herself.

Focus Tracks:

“Ghosttown†Since “Live To Tell,†Madonna has always been best at ballads. This is a stunner. I wish it didn’t have the Autotune over the verses, but nevertheless this deserves a place among her biggest hits.

“Veni Vidi Vici†(Featuring Nas) Every superhero needs an origin story and this deluxe-edition track tells Madonna’s, starting with her days tagging and hanging out with graffiti artists on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the early eighties, up until the present day. You have to remember she used to be in the same circle as Jean–Michel Basquiat. Nas uses his verse to tell a bit about his own history, thus creating some cool cohesion.

“Inside Out†This is a sleek electro groove mixed with the tenderness of a ballad, even if it is full of erotic lines like “Let me love you from the inside out.†Again, this should be a single.

[groovyguy 63,869]

http://www.pridesource.com/article.html?article=70692

Why Madonna's 'Rebel Heart' Is Her Best Album In A Decade

BY CHRIS AZZOPARDI

Originally printed 3/20/2015 (Issue 2312 - Between The Lines News)

Like a virgin, Madonna is pure again. Cleansed of the unbecoming trend grabs that marred the icon's erratic predecessors - namely the sinfully juvenile "Hard Candy" and "MDNA," better but still pastiche - our Blessed Goddess steps back into her ray of light and applies a new shine to an old sound.

 

For once, Madonna doesn't keep nostalgia at bay. In fact, during "Rebel Heart," her most sophisticated release since 2005's "Confessions on a Dance Floor," she keeps wistfulness close by. The result is tangled, tortured but shockingly authentic, as she basks in all the heyday glory that earned the Michigan dreamer her seat and, eventually, a crown. Whatever life's done to Madonna lately - the kids are growing up; Madonna's growing up - she and "Rebel Heart" are better for it.

 

Witnessing the 56-year-old in self-reflection mode, a la "Ray of Light" and "American Life," is refreshing, and also, despite Madonna's refusal to actually age, befitting. She holds your hand during the perseverance paean "Ghosttown," a surging mid-tempo with a melancholic narrative reminiscent of "This Used to Be My Playground." The world hurts, Madonna muses, but love heals. The song is a pillar of hope, a theme recycled during the uplifting "Hold Tight"; like a hug as she reluctantly sends her children out into this "mad world," Mother Madonna is reassuring - "hold tight; everything's gonna be all right" - over a sonic spill of rumbling drums and electronic fuzz. Harnessing an organic energy that's been noticeably lacking from the fabricated Pharrell-produced pop confections of her most recent efforts, "Rebel Heart" gets into the groove by recapturing the rawness heard particularly on the under-appreciated "American Life." "Body Shop" encapsulates that quality best, the sexy innuendo taking a backseat to the very modest, Indian-influenced folk vibe. Her voice wispy and mesmeric, Madonna sounds like she's leading a yin yoga retreat.

 

Less effective are Madonna's unabashed attempts at relevancy, when the sexual provocateur essentially parodies her own cone-wearing self on "Holy Water," an exercise in excess. Have all the sex you want, Madonna. And by all means, make that pole your bitch. But album-audible moaning? Equating your bits to a Baptismal liquid? Love you, lady, but this just might be a good time to retire the fornication-fueled religious allegories.

The even weaker, slinky bedroom-bumper "S.E.X" doesn't even bother with thinly veiled metaphors (at one point she randomly drops "raw meat" like an afterthought) as she promises to "take you to a place you will not forget," but then she doesn't. And poof. Gone.

 

Most memorable about "Rebel Heart" is Madonna as a messenger of love, unity and peace - "the sorcerer down in the deep," as she puts it on the deluxe edition's penultimate powerhouse "Messiah." There's an ease about Madonna during these moments of musing, where she looks inward and sends her light outward, and the crown, though briefly, comes off. The ego is disbanded. For once, whether we like it or not, the icon, the diva, the high priestess of pop - she's real. "I can't be a superhero right now / Even hearts made of steel can break down," she laments on "Joan of Arc," a surprisingly direct acknowledgement of facets that have, particularly as of late, evaded the star's essence: sensitivity, candor and sincerity.

 

It all comes full circle with the title track "Rebel Heart," the closer. A blast from the past, a fully content Madonna recounts the trail she blazed for herself - and, obviously, others - through fierce determination and, you know (and she knows), by being a "narcissist." Madonna's "Rebel Heart" album is the nearly lifetime-long result of broken boundaries and bravado - and, for the first time in 10 years, it's beating stronger than ever. 

 

Grade: B

[luckystar 728]

That review makes a lot of interesting apoints, i'm not surprised they gave it a 5.1, but i think its too low for this album.

 

In only focused on bad things, in its opinion. 

The review is very subjective.

[Breathless 5,286]

Thanks Groovyguy! That latest review was very spot on! Great!

[groovyguy 63,869]

V‘s entertainment editor, Greg Krelenstein, breaks down all that makes Madonna‘s Rebel Heartgreat! Check it out this amazing review:

 

http://drownedmadonna.com/madonnas-rebel-heart-is-one-of-the-most-challenging-and-ultimately-rewarding-records-of-her-career/20150324

Madonna’s “Rebel Heart†is one of the most challenging and ultimately rewarding records of her career.

 

March 10, 2015. A new album release from Madonna should feel like a global holiday—a celebration of innovative music, groundbreaking videos, boundary pushing fashion, memorable album artwork, and dance moves that could only belong to the one and only club crawling space cowboy spiritually seeking disco geisha latino loving queen of pop. In contrast, the saga leading up to Rebel Heart’s drop (in stores and online retailers today) has been well documented. A series of unfortunate leaks of an album’s worth of unfinished material, questionable Instagram posts featuring world leaders Photoshopped into the album’s artwork, and perhaps the biggest blow, her spill during her performance of the first single, “Living for Love,†at the Brit Awards, while wearing a now infamous tied too tight Armani cape. Despite the noise, nothing can distract from the fact that Madonna’s blonde ambition has always persevered through the controversy. And her 13th studio album, Rebel Heart, is one of the most challenging and ultimately rewarding records of her career.

 Three decades in, she’s still sharp-tongued and in search of the party, but Rebel Heart reveals more vulnerability than she’s allowed since Like A Prayer. The temple and church of the devoted will recognize the familiar themes she continues to explore—sexual fantasy (“Body Shopâ€), lost and found love (“Heartbreak Cityâ€), salvation (“Devil Prayâ€), redemption (“Wash All Over Meâ€), and perhaps her most cohesive and powerful narrative, the triumphant and transcendent power of the dancefloor (“Living for Loveâ€). Nostalgia has never been Madonna’s thing, but on Rebel Heart, she takes a time out to reference some of her biggest hits and her rise to the top from the Lower East Side rock scene and vogue balls of the early ’90s with “Veni Vidi Vici†and “Holy Water.†

 

While those songs reference her past, the producers and collaborators that make up the album are on point and very much of the moment—an eclectic assembly of hitmakers and rising talents that include Diplo, Kanye West, Avicii, Ariel Rechtshaid, Blood Diamonds, Sophie, and DJ Dahi. There are also cameos from Nicki Minaj, Nas, Chance the Rapper and spoken word from none other than Mike Tyson.  

While the various contributors provide a swinging pendulum of moods explored throughout the Deluxe Edition’s 19 tracks, it’s Madonna’s singular voice and vision that keeps it all together. Club bangerz with the word bitch in the title (“Unapologetic Bitch,†“Bitch I’m Madonnaâ€) give her an opportunity to shake it off, but it’s the ballad, “Ghosttown,†that serves as the album’s highlight. Singing about a cold, mad world that’s gone to hell, her message of love is one that should lift the spirits of even the most cynical and jaded, and deserves a spot in the canon next to “Live To Tell†and “Take a Bow.† 

 

Though she has nothing to prove at this point, Rebel Heart can’t help but demonstrate that she’s remained on top with reinvention and determination, and by taking the “road less traveled onâ€â€”a path that continues to inspire and influence the current crop of pop starlets. Sure to please long term fans, who have undoubtedly already purchased their Gold Ring tickets to her upcoming arena tour, it deserves to inspire a new generation of girls and boys ready to get off the bus in the middle of Times Square with hopes to rule the world, like the Rebel Heart before them.

[groovyguy 63,869]

A great Croatian article claims that the PR album is so good that it can stand by itself as the best one in 17 (!) years.

http://www.jutarnji.hr/madonnin-najbolji-album-u-zadnjih-sedamnaest-godina/1320776/

[groovyguy 63,869]

"The refocus on Madonna’s voice and originality as an artist is a welcome change from her previous albums such as MDNA and Hard Candy."

 

http://www.impactnottingham.com/2015/04/album-review-madonna-rebel-heart/

The question of whether Madonna, thirty-two years into her career, can remain relevant to today’s music scene is a question that comes up repeatedly when listening to Rebel Heart, her thirteenth studio album. Following 2012’s MDNA, which was considered a disappointment by both the critics and the general public, and improving upon it, was always going to be the challenge facing Madonna. However,Rebel Heart presents some of Madonna’s strongest songs in years.

 

‘Living For Love’ opens the album with strong EDM influences, a rousing chorus, and uplifting lyrics. With the image of Madonna memorably performing the song at February’s BRIT Awards still fresh in everyone’s minds, the song stands up to repeated listens and it is a shame it wasn’t a bigger hit in the UK upon its single release. The first half of the album contains many of the tracks released in early December 2014 after Madonna was targeted by leaks. They are also some of the best on the album, although from the titles Rebel Heartmay be forgiven for re-treading old themes, such as religion, sex, and Nicki Minaj rap verses. ‘Devil Pray’ is a particular favourite, bringing Madonna’s voice to the forefront with sensual production and a compelling instrumental breakdown. ‘Unapologetic Bitch’ and ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ also manage to sound distinctly ‘Madonna’ without sounding too trend-chasing, something she has not pulled off as successfully in the past. Also, importantly, they’re just a whole lot of fun to dance and sing along to.

 

 At 19 tracks long, the album is an exhausting listen, whilst also a significant achievement.

 

 

Where Rebel Heart really shines is on the slower moments, with guitar parts and a focus on lyricism that casts back to her earlier albums such as Music and American Life. ‘Joan of Arc’ is surprisingly vulnerable, while ‘Ghosttown’ is one of the highlights of the album, sounding both euphoric and edgy. Meanwhile, ‘Body Shop’ manages to sound like nothing else on the album, with Middle-Eastern influences and an impressive beat. Madonna also manages to retain her knack for an introspective ballad, with both ‘Messiah’ and ‘Wash All Over Me’ having strong melodies that come later in the record. Similarly, to be found on the Deluxe Edition is the lovely ‘Rebel Heart’, which acts as a great stripped-back moment to end the album. The refocus on Madonna’s voice and originality as an artist is a welcome change from her previous albums such as MDNA and Hard Candy. The effort put into this album really shows, and ultimately it feels good to hear Madonna re-focusing on her own music.

 

The refocus on Madonna’s voice and originality as an artist is a welcome change from her previous albums such as MDNA and Hard Candy.

 

However, her use of producers such as Avicii, Diplo and Kanye West does sometimes misfire, and though the successes are more prominent than the failures on Rebel Heart, songs such as ‘Illuminati’, ‘Holy Water’ and ‘S.E.X.’ perhaps should have remained as demos. At 19 tracks long, the album is an exhausting listen, whilst also a significant achievement. Ultimately, Rebel Heart does act as a partial return to form for Madonna, with some great songs and occasional filler.

 

7.5/10

[Queen 572]

for me Rebel Heart is top 3 Madonna album.