Madonna

Madonna, the ultimate cougar, is back with the new LP “Hard Candy”—and this time she’s out for blood. Abandoning the purple onesie and disco ball, she has reinvented herself yet again, this time as M-Dolla: the prize-fighting urban pop queen. If the album cover is any indication, she’s back with a vengeance, determined to keep her competition at bay.

As heavily reported, she collaborated with today’s top hip-pop hitmakers: Pharrell, Justin Timberlake, Nate Danja Hills, and, of course, Timbaland. “Beat Goes On,” the most retro of the set, even features a Kanye cameo. Why is she working with these guys? She’s never dabbled with hip-hop production before, and what’s more, she’s rarely been one to collaborate with other artists.

As a definitive source of what’s to come, it seems odd that Madonna would choose to follow her followers. Why would she hire the people that everyone hires? Mariah, Gwen, Nelly, Britney, J. Lo and even Ashlee turned to these men to help them find a new sound. Madonna, however—after the massively successful disco redux “Confessions on a Dancefloor”—didn’t need to hire the most obvious and dependable people in the music industry to produce her new album.

Perhaps this is an attempt to once again dominate American radio, which has given her a chilly reception for nearly a decade. Perhaps it’s also a surefire way to go out with a bang: she’s leaving Warner Records, the only label she’s ever called home, and attempting to prove she’s worth the $120 million Live Nation offered her to jump ship. Whatever the reasons behind her decision to work with these hitmen, the results are quite brilliant. The album may initially sound like everything else on the radio right now, but we’re soon reminded that this is Madonna, and Madonna will never sound quite like anyone else.

Yes, she’s been around for a nearly a half century and she’s still singing about dancing and having a good time. But whoever said 50-year-old women don’t like to sing and dance? She chooses to stay superficial once again, employing distinctly vapid lyrics—the words ‘dance’ and ‘floor’ manage to make it into every song—and reverting back to her “Holiday”-era Minnie Mouse-esque vocal range. But the beats are what dominate this tasty treat.

Fortunately, the first single “4 Minutes” is not indicative of the album as a whole. The song, reminiscent of Timbaland’s recent Flo Rida production “Elevator” and Nelly Furtado’s (superior) “Promiscuous,” is hooky and catchy but tries too hard to be like everything else on the Billboard Hot 100.

In fact, many of the Timbaland/Timberlake productions sound similar to their collective past hits. Pharrell’s tracks, on the other hand, actually bring something new to the table while still retaining his trademark bells and whistles (literally). The Williams’ produced second single “Give It 2 Me” is an innovative standout, creating the first-ever audio strobe light in the choruses.

Each track tends to be quite schizophrenic, most likely the result of Madge and her collaborators each bent on making their own influence known. This is probably why the majority of the record’s tracks range from four and a half to six minutes in length, becoming not radio-ready singles but explorations of musical themes. Every time a song is about to exhaust a sound, it moves on to something completely unexpected, particularly on “Incredible,” the juicy center of “Hard Candy.”

On “She’s Not Me,” Madonna directly attacks her producers’ past sirens, singing, “She’ll never have what I have / She’s not me and she never will be.” It’s a cheeky kiss-off to anyone who thinks the Queen of Pop is ready to relinquish her crown. She even goes after her co-writer’s sound on “Miles Away,” the song that chronicles a couple’s attempt to stay together even with an ocean between them. With its dreamy chorus and hooks aplenty, it’s an overt attempt to mimic JT’s “What Comes Around…Goes Around;” but in the end, it’s better.

“Who is the master? Who is the slave?” By the time Justin sings this question on the final track, “Voices,” it’s clear who comes out on top. This album proves Madonna could hire anyone and her influence would still outshine anything they could contribute.

Maybe M-Dolla—by doing what everyone does—is being ironic, beating them all at their own game. “Hard Candy,” however, is definitely the last time she’ll be able to get away with selling sex, so the real challenge to stay on top will most likely come with her next record.

—Staff writer Christopher C. Baker can be reached at ccbaker@fas.harvard.edu.