Madonna
All through her career, it has been impossible to divorce Madonna’s music from her image, as they feed off each other to the point where it’s hard to tell which came first, the concept or the songs. Glancing at the aggressively ugly cover to Hard Candy — its blistering pinks and assaultive leather suggesting cheap bottom-barrel porno — it’s hard not to wish that this is the one time Madge broke from tradition, offering music that wasn’t quite as garish as her graphics. That is not the case. Hard Candy is all brutal hard edges and blaring primary colors, a relentlessly mercenary collection of cold beats and chilly innuendo. Sex has always been a driving force for Madonna, but she’s never been as ruthlessly pornographic as she is here, not even when she cut Erotica as a companion to her softcore coffee table book Sex back in 1992. For all of its carnality, Erotica was coy, belonging to the classic burlesque teasing tradition, but Hard Candy is utterly modern, a steely sex album for the age of Cialis. This new millennium is also an era when Top 40 has pretty much ceased to exist and a pop artist as sharp as Madonna knows this, so she has abandoned the idea of a big crossover hit — the kind that Erotica courted with such gorgeous, shimmering adult contemporary ballads as "Rain" and "Bad Girl" — and pitches Hard Candy directly toward her core audience of club-conscious, fashion-forward trendsetters. Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine @ allmusic.com Full Album Tracks Listing [MP3 Direct Download] Right Click and Save Target As… 1. Candy Shop 2. 4 Minutes [Featuring Justin Timberlake And Timbaland] 3. Give It 2 Me 4. Heartbeat 5. Miles Away 6. She’s Not Me 7. Incredible 8. Beat Goes On [Featuring Kanye West] 9. Dance 2night 10. Spanish Lesson 11. Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You 12. Voices All in rar file 