Is this really the cover for the new Madonna album?

It immediately reminded me of this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v655/lixnixn/marusha.jpg

Tuomas OTM

Urgh I'm gonna have to avoid record stores for 6 months so that I don't have to face that picture all over promo posters

It's less 90s rave and more mid-90s British pop compilation - there's one sleeve that looks pretty much exactly like that but I can't remember what it is.

Also, she looks terrible on that cover. And ugh the font.

fuck me. granny porn. no ta.

The font is kinda 90s pop compilation style, but the background is pure rave.

Also kinda vulvaish, especially together with her wide open legs.

But seriously, I think Marusha pulled this off much better.

What an utter train wreck

like she cares.
its all about contract closure and onto the next paymasters isn't it ?
it is truly dreadul.
even worse than the Blackout cover, which is saying something.

is tuomas baiting us to post raving-tuomas.jpg

reminds me of that film where juno cuts off that guy's dick.

i can't understand why artwork like this keeps getting greenlit

im thinking madonna probably had some say in it.

and she thought it'd be edgy.

maybe it's "ironic"

put a phone number underneath and put copies in phone boxes the length of Tottenham Ct Rd and you'd have yourself a nice little earner.

So far this album is just ok.

is tuomas baiting us to post raving-tuomas.jpg

If you mean that one pic with the raving guy, that's not me. Though I have nothing against rave aesthetic, I just thought Madonna should have gone all the way - the font and her pose don't really fit in. Like I said, Marusha knew how to do it back in 1994.

And yeah, the title reminded me too of the film where the girl goes after the pedophile. Is "hard candy" a common expression in English?

R. Spiralli OTM

i believe this is the hard candy referred to:

http://www.thesweetieshop.co.uk/acatalog/WerthersOriginals.jpg

Well yeah, but I meant like an euphemism for something else.

Here, have some ribbon candy. BOYS LOVE CANDY!

hard candy, esp Werther's, is something elderly people give to young people that they are especially fond of.

in the style of AiB's post.

Love to hear her cover this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uAIUyJfKsTs

and she thought it'd be edgy.
maybe it's "ironic"

This is the dilemma I had with Liz Phair and she was only 36 at the time, compared to 49-year-old Madonna.

Liz Phair cover >>>>>>>>> this

exclusive interview in Vanity Fair 2112 :

"Can't believe the record label accepted the idea !
I was asked for ideas, so I went to one of my homes, dug out a photo that me and the husband made when we were pissed and decided to make our own updated version of Erotica, gave it to the label, and the suckers accepted it cos they couldn't be arsed to do anything extra for the final album.
Its dreadful, and I really regret it know, I mean I'm a grandmother in a few months time, and theres my craggy crotch all over the bloody place, again"

dug out a photo that me and the husband made when we were pissed

i call bullshit

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/513/hcbackcoverxn2.jpg

o_0

It's less 90s rave and more mid-90s British pop compilation - there's one sleeve that looks pretty much exactly like that but I can't remember what it is.

NOW That's What I Call Madonna!

Not really "Now" as it is more about a compilations specializing on a very particular kind of "modern" typical 90s pop. "Now" would include everything on the hitlists, but reminds me of a kind of pop/hit compilation that wouldn't include anything by Oasis, Blur or Pulp and certainly not The Beautiful South or Simply Red.

But, yeah, I know what Matt means here

god she looks so old there

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/1924.jpg

i think she looks totally hot but i'm not excited about the album

I'm not saying she should "look her age" or anything. She's still a very attractive lady. But that picture just isn't flattering. And she normally knows how to make herself look good in public photos (sometimes sleezy and cheap, but still good), so I'm surprised.

yeah exactly she's very good at image management which makes me think she said "how can i make myself look like an aging self-parody" and came up with this

bad move taking cues from peaches

i thought-

reminds me of that film where juno cuts off that guy's dick.

-- banriquit, Friday, April 18, 2008 8:45 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Link

referred to-

is tuomas baiting us to post raving-tuomas.jpg

-- and what, Friday, April 18, 2008 8:43 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Why does the sticker on the back say "Drowned Madonna", is that her new name?

Have you ever googled anything at all?

Goowhat?

j/k - I agree with Tuomas that it's more pleasant and interesting to ask people on here. Chances are someone will know the answer and some extra info you don't necessarily find in the first two Google results. (in this case, though, it's the first result and it's a fan site)

So it's the name of her fanclub? What a weird name, as if they wanted her to die...

It's not her official fan club, that would be Icon Madonna. Drowned Madonna is an independent Madonna fan site. I'm guessing its name might have something to do with her 2001 Drowned World Tour, named after the single Drowned World/Substitute for Love from her 1998 album, Ray of Light. The Drowned World was originally the working title of that album, after the 1962 J.G. Ballard science fiction novel of the same name, in which solar radiation melts earth's ice caps and leaves most of civilization submerged.

Also, I don't give a shit about Madonna and didn't know any of this an hour ago, nor did I get all of this information from the first two google results. I just barely bothered. It's "more pleasant" to be catered to and pampered, so what?

album cover is crepey

http://www.vachss.com/av_novels/novels-i/hard_candy_tpb3_lg.jpg

http://www.vachss.com/av_novels/novels-i/hard_candy_tpb1_lg.jpg

http://www.vachss.com/av_novels/novels-i/hard_candy_hc.jpg

http://www.vachss.com/av_novels/novels-i/hard_candy_mm.jpg

The review of Madonna's new disc in this month's Rolling Stone begins with some interesting imagry:

Dominance isn't just a fetish for Madonna, it's her religion. It's no accident that she opened each show on 2005's Confessions on a Dance Floor tour by clenching a riding crop in her hand, jerking a gagged male dancer around by a leather leash. And she never puts down the whip: Since 1986's True Blue, Madonna has claimed writing or production credits on every one of her songs, even when she worked with dance-music artists such as William Orbit, Mirwais Ahmadzaï and Stuart Price. So itís surprising that her eleventh studio album — her final one for longtime label Warner Bros. — is an act of submission. For Hard Candy, Madonna's midlife meditation on her own relevance, she lets top-shelf producers make her their plaything.

Hm. Four-star review, BTW.

Haha the mainstream media is actually endorsing it elsewhere:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20192427,00.html
"Hard Candy" - Entertainment Weekly Review
Nothing spiritual here! Madonna finally gets back into the groove with an old-school dance CD.
You've seen the video for "4 Minutes," Madonna's flirty duet with Justin Timberlake. Perhaps you've heard that roughly half of her new album, Hard Candy, was produced by the Neptunes, with the remainder entrusted to the team of Timbaland, Nate "Danja" Hills, and Timberlake. Maybe you know that Kanye West pops up on one song ("Beat Goes On"). Between the fountain-of-youth dalliances and hookups with hip-hop kingpins, we know what you're thinking: Just how massive is this midlife crisis of hers?
Pretty major, probably, but she makes it work with this surprisingly rejuvenated set. Now 49, Madonna has spent the last decade unevenly exploring moody trip-hop, chilly Eurodisco, and ethereal electronica-all of which are absent here. Candy finds her dropping her Kabbalah string on the dance floor and readopting an American accent to offer up an unpretentious, nonstop dance party. In tunes like "Give it 2 Me," she's unabashedly reviving the celebrative spirit of early singles like "Lucky Star" and "Holiday," filtering it through hip-hop's sonic boom. She's not above nicking from other carefree singers and eras, either. The giddy opening track, "Candy Shop," has an easygoing synth hook that Jam & Lewis might've devised for Janet Jackson in her 80's prime, while the scrumptious deep bass of "Dance 2night" gets closer to the thump of 70s disco than anything Madonna's ever done in or out of a leotard.
If you're looking for softness, of course, you've come to the wrong place. "Catch me on the floor/Working up a sweat/That's what the music's for," she asserts in "Heartbeat," coming soon to a pilates class near you. In the most exciting club banger, the aforementioned "Give It 2 Me," she threatens, "When the lights go down and there's no one left, I can go on and on and on." Often willfully vapid, the lyrics offer candy as a metaphor for sex, sex as a metaphor for dancing, and dancing as a metaphor for world domination. In fact, there's so much perspiration-soaked determination that you may detect a slightly scary C+C Music Factory-meets-Ayn Rand vibe.
Offsetting the grind are a few actual confessions on this dance floor - enough to give the tabloids speculative fodder. "You always have the biggest heart/When we're six thousand miles apart," she complains in "Miles Away." (There, the Timba-lake arrangements get a bit too close to "What Goes Around...Comes Around" for comfort.) In "Incredible," a mini-masterpiece of domestic woe in which the Neptunes do their best work, Madonna recalls how spectacular the sex used to be, over a furious house beat. Then she makes a desperate plea for reconciliation: "I am missing my best friend...Let's finish what we started." With this crowd-pleaser of a CD, she may be sending a similar message to fans, too.
Grade: B+
DOWNLOAD THIS: "Incredible"
Backstory:
Last summer Timbaland told MTV News he'd cut 10 tracks with Madonna, but only five made the album. He described one caffeinated lost track, "La La," where "all these different names for coffee is the hook." We can only mourn the album that might have been: Coffee Shop.

who's heard this? there's fakes all over the shop.

What I've heard strikes me as a successor to Music, another tour through the latest dance trends, except she's so busy dancing and staring at Justin's ass that she farms out the songwriting more often than usual. This may change when I finally get my hands on a "real" copy, but this is, well, another ok Madonna album with some sassier-than-usual lyrics ("If I was a drink I'd be a lemon drop).

saw the single/video. it was okay. the belt on the cover = teh lolz

In "Incredible," a mini-masterpiece of domestic woe in which the Neptunes do their best work, Madonna recalls how spectacular the sex used to be, over a furious house beat. Then she makes a desperate plea for reconciliation: "I am missing my best friend...Let's finish what we started."

vomit

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3iw2YVt9HQA

pharrell needs to use these bmore experiments on someone who gives a shit

this album is shite.

ok, so I think the first single sucks and all but MAJOR PROPS ON THE ALBUM COVER MADGE.

"Miles Away" is a nice track. Too bad about the rest of it.

I actually dig the track with Kanye on it ("Beat Goes On"). Makes me nostalgic. Haha, the demo version with Pharrell was laughably horrible, though.

Is this really the only thread on this album? Wow, no one gives a shit!

haven't heard it yet but yeah Madonna feels irrelevant again now - getting Timbaland in feels a bit of a desperate move (it didn't so much with Bjork because there was more potential there for something unusual, whereas it sounds like Madonna just wants to make an R&B party album but several people outside that sphere fresher than her already done that)

i could be wrong and end up loving this as much as Blackout or at least thinking it's as good as Loose but doubt it

No, it's not as good as Blackout.

i hear it's pretty bad...

i hope that's wrong.

Picking Timbaland and Pharrel Williams to produce here was obviously a very, very bad idea and that goes without saying.

It seems like Pharrel has understood a thing or two about Madonna's style though, as some of his production are actually quite nice electro pop numbers. The Timbaland ones are mostly disasters though, sounding way too much like the typical worthless throwaway chart R&B of the past years.

On a positive, the album is slightly more tuneful that Timbaland productions usually are. At least some of the tracks. But the beats are generally too dominant, too staccato, too syncopated and with extremely annoying bass drums.

She should have worked with Richard X or Fred Ball/Pleasure instead. Would have given much better results.

Wow - this is entirely terrible: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjfDK5DAOSE

Does "Give It 2 Me" sample "Got To Give It Up" or what??