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Hard Candy is as a rare thing: a lifeless Madonna album.
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'4 Minutes,' with Timberlake, is already a top three Billboard Hot 100 hit, and harmonious ballad 'Miles Away' might be some of her best work yet. But it feels familiar.
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It's fun to hear here negotiate the contours of Top 40 pop for the first time since "Like A Prayer," without any European house music hose-head gumming up the pleasure and catharsis with mediative schmaltz. [May 2008, p.73]
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Thanks to the blunt force of her personality, Hard Candy feels perfectly concerted, without a whiff of desperation.
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We live in a Madonna world. And as long as she keeps releasing albums as vivid, relevant, distinctive and modern as this, we will for a some time yet.
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Quite evidently her attempt to court an urban audience after the disco leanings of this record’s immediate predecessor-–whatever 'urban' actually means nowadays-–Madonna’s sidestepping outside of her shimmer-pop comfort zone has resulted in a well-intentioned failure of an album that will be a commercial success regardless of any critical indifference.
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Candy finds her dropping her Kabbalah string on the dance floor and readopting an American accent to offer up an unpretentious, nonstop dance party.
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This time, Madonna is just another singer drawing on the chart appeal of Timbaland, Timberlake and Pharrell, which makes this particular piece of candy taste like a sour ball: It's appealing to fans, but it's not for everyone.
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Hard Candy sounds bloody expensive, but has precious little to declare except an infatuation with its own reflection in a nightclub mirror.
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MojoFlowing with an easy energy, it's the last track on an album that shows Madonna still firmly on the dancefloor, but with her eyes now turning to the USA. [June 2008, p.106]
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Overall, Hard Candy lacks subtlety and is overworked and overproduced.
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So yes, a solid enough album by the standards of most pop tarts, but from the mistress of innovation? Pretty mediocre.
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Overall, Hard Candy sounds a bit too much like Madonna’s trying to catch up with the American R&B princesses. Having said that, she holds her own for the most part, and when her own voice shines through, she reminds us why she’s outlasted so many.
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Whenever Hard Candy threatens to get boring, something always happens to recapture your interest, but the three songs in which Madonna actually seems to forge a genuine connection with her musical helpmeet leave the rest of the album in the shade.
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Timbaland's productions are the weaker links on this frustratingly ordinary album.
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It is overpopulated with recycled pop that is indistinguishable and artificial, something Madonna’s soothing arpeggiating vocals cannot alleviate.
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Madonna and some of music’s edgiest producers have again brought an underground sound to the forefront of pop music.
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Q MagazineHard Candy is the sound of pop's ultimate superbrand consolidating her success. [June 2008, p.134]
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Even when she wrestles with Pharrell's abrupt stylistic changes or lets herself get absorbed in a Timberlake melody, Madonna still finds her way back on top.
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The entire album is a self-declaration of Madonna's stamina, but it also reflects a woman who clearly feels like she's in a furious battle against time. Her legacy is already assured, so scoring another U.S. hit is just icing on the cake but she acts like she doesn't know it.
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Hard Candy is a serviceable and sometimes very good pop album that also happens to be a confusing and even dismal Madonna album.
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Hard Candy is a let-down after 2005's triumphant "Confessions on a Dancefloor." Still, your disappointment is tempered by the certainty that there'll be another Madonna album along in a bit, and it would be a foolish man who wrote off her chances of scaling the heights again.
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And though it sometimes plays safe, Hard Candy could be her most unpretentious and consistently enjoyable pop record since Like A Virgin.
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All in all, Hard Candy could be the greatest swan song to a pop career this side of Let It Be, if you wanna get all hyperbolic about it.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 398 out of 562
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Mixed: 89 out of 562
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Negative: 75 out of 562
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IanRMay 25, 2008
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SeanFDec 5, 2008Fantastic considering the worst song on the album was a number 1 Hit!
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Mar 27, 2020