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.
She’s back. After a series of so-so albums for the past decade, Madonna has released another piece of evidence in testimony of her status as the Queen of Pop.
The previous two Madonna studio albums, “MDNA” (2012) and “Hard Candy” (2008), have come off as transparent attempts at co-opting the latest waves of dance music. She used to be a step ahead of the mainstream, artfully cannibalizing underground dance club moves and turning them into pop gold. Now she was playing catch-up.
Madonna is in her renowned essence on her 13th studio album entitled Rebel Heart. Three years ago, the album, MDNA, garnered the hit, “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” the pop anthem featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. Nevertheless, this time, the queen is back to cause havoc.
Three stars out of four Madonna’s 12 previous albums — Like a Virgin, Bedtime Stories and her relatively epic Confessions on a Dance Floor, to name a few — confirm her branding technique, each connecting a concrete idea with themes conveyed through the songs, more or less. The outlier, her forgettable last album, MDNA, was […]
Redelijke popplaat ★★★★★ 3/5 Voor wie nog twijfelde: die achterwaartse val van Madonna, van een trappetje tijdens haar optreden op het BRIT Awards-gala, was dus níét voorbereid. Hij was echt. De 56-jarige reageerde er stoer op, heel wat stoerder in elk geval dan een paar maanden eerder op het uitlekken van haar nieuwe album Rebel […]
Only Madonna could turn an album that leaked three months before its release date into an event. Rebel Heart, her 13th studio album, is mired in the controversy of that leak, as well as her somewhat absurd declarations of famous Americans as “rebel hearts.” But the album is exactly the return Madonna needed as an […]
Madonna will try anything once. Including vulnerability, humility, sincerity and — believe it or not — acting her age.
The internet is a funny place – so full of porn and hate, but so often as obsessed with propriety as a Victorian maiden aunt. Recently, it decided that women of 56 can’t fall over; online wags reminding them that walking up stairs in capes is solely the preserve of youth.
Madonna named her 13th studio album Rebel Heart. The title fits the Madge mold of past titles: adjectives, a noun or two, perhaps a preposition, combined to suggest a loose theme. Like a Virgin, Ray of Light, Hard Candy, Bedtime Stories and her relatively epic Confessions on a Dance Floor confirm her long-player branding technique, […]
Many pop acts, and most female pop artists, inextricably link themselves to youth. Stars exploit the beauty, rebelliousness and vogue of a fresh bloom, the connection with the obsessiveness of teen culture, to become icons. The problem is people age. Even Madonna. Maybe especially Madonna, under the hot lights of three decades of scrutiny. I […]
Watching Madonna attempt to wrestle the 21st century into submission ahead of her new studio album, Rebel Heart, has been fascinating. A refugee from music’s monocultural heyday, Madonna has tried to seem nimble and flexible rather than an MTV relic. One stumble after another has dogged Her Madgesty, whether it’s her recent, painful tumble at […]
Madonna: Rebel Heart (Interscope) Verdict: No stumbles ★★★★★ 4/5 The omens for Madonna’s first album in three years have not been good. Not only was the Queen of Pop shaken when unfinished tracks were leaked online in December, but Radio 1 seems to have ruled that the 56-year-old’s music no longer appeals to its mainly […]
Madonna’s influence on modern pop culture is something that can never be taken away from her. For over 30 years the Bay City native has pushed the mainstream’s envelope, stamped down doors for female artists, and has weaved through musical styles more times than she has turned her nose up at hydrangeas. It’s an achievement […]
★★★★★ 4/5 The lyrics mine familiar tropes of sex, dance, religion and celebrity but the music pushes out from her electropop template If any confirmation were required of Madonna’s sustained cultural relevance, it was surely provided by a mere wardrobe malfunction out-shining the combined micro-celebrity wattage of the entire Brit Awards line-up. It’s fortunate, then, […]
Four Stars When it comes to Madonna, you just never know. The line between inspiration and cold calculation is blurred and her every move is studied and heavily discussed. Was her stumble at last week’s Brit Awards a genuine blunder? Or an ingenious way to promote her 13th studio album Rebel Heart, with its theme […]
When Madonna sings on the title track of her latest album, Rebel Heart (***1/2 out of four; out March 10), that she has “outgrown my past and I’ve shed my skin,” she is both protesting too much and engaging in understatement. Our most durable pop star has indeed reinvented elements of her look and sound repeatedly over […]
After attending a recent playback, Amy Pettifer gives her initial impressions of Madonna’s latest musical offering; ballads, EDM and all. Madonna’s 13th studio album has had an unfortunate start in life, with the impatient internet leaking most of its content in apparently embryonic forms way before its official release on March 9th. Additionally, the resounding […]
It’s been years since Madonna had released some new material, which would be good enough to please both critics and fans. We all remember the sweet, yet underwhelming disco-throwback Hard Candy offered us, and well as the carefree euro-dance of MDNA. Both of these albums, while containing some good songs, weren’t strong enough as a body of work. […]
Rebel Heart pairs classic songwriting and contemporary adventure in Madonna’s least desperate album in years, says Neil McCormick. “Who do you think you are?” demands a screeching voice on the self-explanatorily titled B*tch I’m Madonna. If anyone in pop has earned the right to assert herself so rudely it is surely Madonna Louise Ciccone, an iconic A-List […]
3,5 start out of 5: Madonna gets down with Kanye, Avicii and more on a supercatchy, sexed-up album For many years, Madonna avoided the Internet like gluten. But in December, the Internet decided to stop waiting for Madonna, and everything went wrong: Her music was stolen and leaked; her hasty, emotional responses on Instagram used […]
Discussing Madonna around a dinner table will likely garner her some ridicule. “Relevant” seems to be the last compliment people want to give her, these days. The typical naysayer will give praise for what she used to be but express disdain for her continued eminence in culture. Reasons for such contempt usually circle her 56 […]
The early ’80s Madonna bopping around in her Lucky Star video single-handedly fueled my lifelong fixations on the artist and pop music at large. I gave each phase of her recording career my full attention and was mostly rewarded for two decades following that initial exposure. While I certainly owe the superstar some gratitude in terms […]
Even after more than three decades in the game, Madonna is still full of surprises. In the early hours of Saturday morning, the New York megastar shocked the world by releasing six brand new songs from her forthcoming album Rebel Heart on iTunes. Anyone placing a pre-order will get the half-dozen new songs immediately, more will […]
Madonna Ciccone has done it again: The forty-four-year-old guitar player from London via Detroit has taken the pulse of the nation, if not the whole Women’s Wear Daily-reading world. American Life, her tenth album, isn’t much as a work of music — diluted Eurotechno from her producer Mirwais, built around acoustic-guitar vamps that are either […]
