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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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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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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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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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'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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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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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.
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Madonna and some of music’s edgiest producers have again brought an underground sound to the forefront of pop music.
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