[Nancy.]

[Nancy.]

Omg, love this new version of Frozen:

[Nancy.]

Q Magazine just gave the album 4 stars.

[Saph]

im hoping thats out of 5 not 10

[Nancy.]

Originally Posted by Saph

im hoping thats out of 5 not 10

It is. Q only give 5 stars.

[Nancy.]

Madonna confirmed for Pride NYC

[Nancy.]

The Times:

Madonna: Madame X review — probably her boldest album yet

Rating: 4 Stars out of 5 Stars

Ever since she emerged from New York in the early 1980s, Madonna’s moderate abilities in music, singing and dancing have been more than made up for in searing ambition, an ability to work with the right people at the right time and a brittle form of bravery, with outer toughness masking inner frailty. Now comes probably her boldest, certainly her strangest, album yet. Madame X veers between pop, Latin and clubby dance music, jumps from the personal to the political and is bound together by an exotic, breezy mood that feels strangely intimate, as if she is revealing a hitherto hidden part of her soul. She isn’t really, of course, but she does a good job of pretending she is.

Dark Ballet, recorded with the French producer Mirwais, throws all of these qualities into one three-part experimental epic. Over piano-led, minor-key pop, Madonna variously tells us that she can dress like a boy or a girl as she wishes, castigates the world for being obsessed with fame and concludes by saying that some unnamed people, at a guess Donald Trump and his team, are naive to think that we aren’t aware of their crimes. At one point she says something indecipherable in a half robot, half Disney princess voice. It is quite a trip.

Then there is Killers Who Are Partying, on which Madonna goes the full Bono as she identifies with Africa, poor people, exploited children and pretty much everyone else who isn’t a rich, old, golf-playing white man. “I’ll be poor, if the poor are humiliated,” she claims over a touch of Portuguese fado, and although you suspect that she isn’t really about to give up her life as the most successful female pop star yet and wander the Earth as a penniless ascetic, the sentiment is there. “I’ll be Islam if Islam is hated,” she continues. “I’ll be Israel if they’re incarcerated.” World peace through song may be a naive endeavour, as John Lennon found out five decades ago, but this flash of idealism at a time of rising global division is welcome nonetheless.

There are straightforward pop songs, such as the country-leaning Crave and the English/Portuguese Crazy, but the most captivating moments push the boat out. The Latin-tinged Batuka has a wayward quality reminiscent of Brazil’s late-1960s tropicalia movement and features the unequivocally Trump-bashing line “Get that old man and put him in jail”.

It wouldn’t be a Madonna album with a bit of overt sexuality and Faz Gostoso (“make it tasty”) pours the sauce over a samba rhythm, while on I Don’t Search I Find she reconnects with her core audience via the medium of high-energy, pumping house music. Finally comes I Rise, an empowerment anthem with a sample of the now-famous speech by the Parkland shooting survivor Emma González.

[Nancy.]

Madonna will be on the Graham Norton show on June 14th.

[Nancy.]

[Nancy.]

NME: Bold, bizarre, self-referential, and unlike anything Madonna has ever done before
Score: 4/5 stars

https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/ma...adame-x-review

Madonna’s latest persona ‘Madame X’ borrows her name from the historical figure Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau: a socialite and occasional muse who scandalised genteel French society when she bared naked flesh – her entire shoulder, would you believe it – in a portrait. And while Madge’s own eye-patch wearing interpretation prefers taking a more enterprising approach to the current job market (Madame X is a mother, a child, a teacher, a nun, a singer, and a saint many among other things) it’s a fitting moniker for a record that restlessly explores all sides of contemporary pop at full divisive pelt: visiting Latin pop, all-out Eurotrash, gloomily percussive trap, NYC disco, house, and reggaeton.


During its most reckless moments, ‘Madame X’ is bold, bizarre, and unlike anything Madonna has ever done before. The frantic ‘Dark Ballet’ harnesses gloomily spun strings and robotic overlord vocals; it’s as villainous and foreboding as ‘Ray of Light’s darkest moments, or her ‘Die Another Day’ Bond theme. Then, quite out of nowhere, an extended piano interlude morphs into a mangled, glitching excerpt of ‘Dance of the Reed Pipes’ from Tchaikovsky’s ballet ‘The Nutcracker’ – it’s brilliant, overblown ridiculousness. “I want to tell you about love…. and loneliness,” Madonna husks dramatically.

Touching heavily on both these things, ‘Madame X’ explores the state of the world (spoiler: it’s not doing great) at large – as well as Madonna’s place within it – from her new base in Lisbon. ‘Madame X’ isn’t flawless in its vision: at times, Madonna’s attempts to lead the future revolution can come off as ham-fisted. ‘Killers Who Are Partying’ features some absolute clanging missteps: booming lines like “I’ll be Islam if Islam is hated” and “I’ll be Native Indian if the Indian has been taken” seem like tone-deaf expressions of solidarity, especially from a wealthy white woman who seems to be planting herself at the centre of multiple minority narratives. And moments like ‘I Rise’s rehashed quote from the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre – “Freedom’s what you choose to do with what’s been done to you” – can border on inspirational fridge magnet territory, too broad to establish real connection.

‘Madame X’ is a far more interesting prospect when the focus moves back onto Madonna herself. ‘Crazy’ – produced by Jason Evigan and Kanye West collaborator Mike Dean – is a self-referential accordion bop: “I bend my knees for you like a prayer,” she sings, pointedly name-checking her 1989 album, and flipping from the original’s religious innuendo, towards doomed, dead-end infatuation “oh god, look at me now”. Elsewhere, the rhythmic whisper of “cha cha cha” on opener and lead single ‘Medellín’ recalls ‘Hard Candy’s ‘Give It 2 Me’.

‘Bitch I’m Loca’, meanwhile, is the sort of swaggering anthem that campy Disney villain Ursula might belt out from the depths: Maluma (who also appears on lead single ‘Medellín’) the ideal sidekick. “Where do you want me to put this?” he drawls with a comedy wink. “You can put it inside” she replies. It’s like Madonna’s diva sketch at the end of ‘Act Of Contrition’ turned Carry On… Madame X. Her cover of ‘Faz Gostoso’ – originally by Brazilian pop star Blaya – is equally great fun. And the House-inflected standout ‘I Don’t Search I Find’ – bringing to mind Shep Pettibone’s production on ‘Vogue’, and repurposing a quote from Pablo Picasso for its title – is just as playful. “Finally, enough love,” Madonna announces.

Throughout her forty year career, outrage has always tailed Madonna closely; a point which is referenced on the likes of ‘Extreme Occident’ and the vulnerable admissions of ‘Looking For Mercy’ (“flawed by design, please sympathise,” she pleads) . “People have always been trying to silence me for one reason or another, whether it’s that I’m not pretty enough, I don’t sing well enough, I’m not talented enough, I’m not married enough, and now it’s that I’m not young enough,” Madonna recently expanded, speaking to Vogue,

In reality, if age wasn’t the chosen topic of the moment, the star would be “too much” of something – anything – else: too sexual, too attention-seeking, too weird, too controversial, too outspoken, too unwilling to disappear quietly into the good night. Instead, Madonna will do no such thing, happiest dancing said night away to the beat of her own creative drum.


For the first time since ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’, perhaps, there’s a glint in Madonna’s eye; her visible, un-eyepatched one, at least. Sonically restless, ‘Madame X’ doesn’t imitate current pop trends as much as it mangles them into new shapes. A record that grapples with being “just way too much”, ultimately, it refuses to tone things down.

[Saph]

exciting!

[reece(:]

The damn autotune is back

[Nancy.]

Originally Posted by reece(:

The damn autotune is back

Hmm, I'm not keen on Dark Ballet at all, but i'm in love with what i've heard of God Control. That song sounds like a massive hit.

[reece(:]

Originally Posted by Nancy.

Hmm, I'm not keen on Dark Ballet at all, but i'm in love with what i've heard of God Control. That song sounds like a massive hit.

I didn't like Dark Ballet, could see what she was trying to do with it but think it missed the mark

[reece(:]

[Nancy.]

Originally Posted by reece(:

Yeah, that's God Control. Absolutely love it.

[reece(:]

Originally Posted by Nancy.

Yeah, that's God Control. Absolutely love it.

Sounds very disco

[Nancy.]

This is "I Don't Search, I Find", apparently and it's supposed to be very similar to her early 90's work. It even has the finger snaps of Vogue and spoken verses like Rescue Me and Erotica...

[reece(:]

Omg Sounds like the best is definitely yet to come

[Nancy.]

Originally Posted by reece(:

Omg Sounds like the best is definitely yet to come

Yes, exactly. Even the one with Anita is said to be good.

[Nancy.]

" I Don't Search, I Find":

[Smithy]

Album leaked

[Nancy.]

Originally Posted by Smithy

Album leaked

Hi
Yes, it leaked last night but the quality on some tracks are very low quality. It looks like they've stitched together the single files from different sources to form the album. I'm going to wait until Friday when I get the cd's and vinyls.

From what i've heard it's incredible though. Have you heard it. Smithy?

[Smithy]

Not yet, I really can’t be bothered with leaks anymore, I’ll just listen to it when it’s out properly on Friday

[reece(:]

God's Control is good, takes a good minute to get going though