Metascore
64

Generally favorable reviews - based on 34 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 34
  2. Negative: 2 out of 34
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  1. Apr 17, 2012
    40
    [The music] is not exactly bad, but has about as much creativity and passion behind it as a spreadsheet.
  2. Mojo
    Mar 30, 2012
    60
    She gets into her stride with French electronic maestro Martin Solveig. [May 2012, p.84]
  3. Mar 29, 2012
    60
    A few breakdowns and builds fly off the rails on the clubbier numbers, but the better songs balance shiny, modern production with exuberant melodies and timeless songwriting.
  4. Mar 27, 2012
    50
    An album that's competent, but equally perfunctory.
  5. Mar 26, 2012
    50
    MDNA runs the gamut of quality from ghastly to mediocre to brilliant, but it's not the unmitigated disaster that many feared.
  6. Madonna may have done this stuff first, but nowadays Lady Gaga does it better. MDNA? Meh-DNA.
  7. Mar 26, 2012
    60
    It's Madonna's conservatism that drags her latest record down to the status of a ragtag collection.
  8. Mar 26, 2012
    50
    Continuing Hard Candy's pattern of awful try-hard title and 'show the young uns you've still got it' bangers, it's disappointing in its lack of ambition.
  9. Mar 26, 2012
    40
    It's a retread of almost everything she's said before in the past 30 years, and though ultimately catchy, it lacks any subtlety or nuance to make you feel this is doing anything but reaching.
  10. Mar 26, 2012
    60
    It [the song "I'm a Sinner"] makes you crave her next album, not this one.
  11. Mar 26, 2012
    50
    The album offers evidence that the singer has fallen behind, that she is no longer setting the conversation in a genre she essentially invented - blending Top 40 pop with club music.
  12. Mar 26, 2012
    45
    Large chunks of MDNA are shockingly banal, coming across not so much as bad pop songs per se, but as drably competent tunes better suited to D-list Madonna wannabes.
  13. Mar 23, 2012
    40
    Madonna's infinite varieties have certainly staled.
  14. Mar 22, 2012
    60
    MDNA turns out to be just another Madonna album. It's already had the biggest single-day pre-order in iTunes history: business as usual for the most remarkable business enterprise in pop.
User Score
6.6

Generally favorable reviews- based on 700 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Mar 26, 2012
    10
    The queen of pop is always at her best when people try to write her off. On MDNA Madonna successfully returns to what she does best:The queen of pop is always at her best when people try to write her off. On MDNA Madonna successfully returns to what she does best: high-energy disco mixed with soulful ballads. Full Review »
  2. Apr 1, 2012
    9
    Absolute cracker of a record! Some of the best songs of her career here. Not your average POP album. An eclectic mix of music genres with aAbsolute cracker of a record! Some of the best songs of her career here. Not your average POP album. An eclectic mix of music genres with a Madonna flavour. Sadly the user average is brought down by "reviewers" rating it 0, but then gave Gagas very mediocre Born this Way a 10...suss much? Full Review »
  3. Mar 26, 2012
    8
    MDNA is a return to form after the lackluster Hard Candy. The album feels a lot more like a Madonna album and manages to take risks where herMDNA is a return to form after the lackluster Hard Candy. The album feels a lot more like a Madonna album and manages to take risks where her more recent releases have failed to do so. The singles are a bad indication of how good the album actually is, Give me all your luvin' the first single that failed to ignite the charts is the worst song on the album, whilst Girl Gone wild though good is so generic it hurts. MDNA has some song though better than your average filler track by the likes of Pink and Gaga, are still very much by-th-numbers filler tracks, Turn up the radio for example is fun but doesn't really try very hard, as the bubble gum style superstar. Where the album is better is on tracks like I'm a sinner, love spent and falling free (all William Orbit productions) where the vocal, lyrics and music work together with love spent being a personal favourite with its banjo segments that are just so bizarrely amazing. Masterpiece is another good track, a lovely melody, flickers of spanish guitar and one the better songs lyrically. The stand out track is the darkly harsh revenge song Gang Bang, though a long track, it sublimely sinister and sexy as hell and thankfully lifts the first half of the album up.

    MDNA is both fresh, rehashed and commercial. Its very odd how she can stand out and yet blend in. She always kind of done this, especially with the albums Music and Ray of light, and though MDNA isn't as flawless as Ray Of Light nor as clever as Music it finds a middle ground, probably on par with Confessions on a dance floor, which was as a whole album amazing but with only 2 or 3 stand out songs you couldn't take it in small doses and miles better than the kind of boring American Life and the mis-guided Hard Candy. I would reccommend Hard Candy to all Madonna fans and to casual listeners I'd recommend downloading Gang Bang, I'm a sinner and Masterpiece. 8/10
    Full Review »