“This album is a non-metaphorical idea to prove the late first place in charts but still existing leadership in music industry by means of an exposed pop with fashionable electron and club beats.”
Alex Browning
Recently we’ve had a great chance to enjoy the release of a brand new Madonna’s work “MDNA”. It was released on March 23, 2012 by Interscope Records. MDNA received generally positive reviews from music critics. But this time I’d like to take of stock of the album and express my own independent view about this piece of art. I’d like to start with the sequence of the album’s songs.
1. I’m a sinner.
People find “Madonna way” antichristic and sinful. But as for her this is the way she exists. She is “like a train thundering through the hills”. Madonna is just doing what she can do the best way – to be a superstar. Madonna “lets those poisoned arrows fly” and keeps on singing “I’m a sinner, I like it”. As for the music it doesn’t give us anything new.
2. I don’t give a
Is to be the most provocative song of the album in which after the while of silence Madge kicks everyone’s ass and does it with her queen elegance and the absolute indigestion of being the second one. As for the song it is a combination of 21st century pop (which is actually just a new version of Madonna’s music of 80th and 90th) and a slight hip-hop with a Nicki Minaj recitative. I doubt this song to become a “teenage hip-hop brand” but let it be just a nice experimental collaboration. Nothing’s to be discussed, Madonna’s self-confident and taunting voice explains everything:
I’m gonna be OK
I don’t care what the people say
I’m gonna be alright
Gonna live fast and I’m gonna live right
The song is full of loud insolent “sayings” about the real status of Madonna, ‘cause it seemed that people just forgot that the real queen doesn’t need to put the crown on to be that one. So that we have:
There’s only one queen, and that’s Madonna
Bitch!
You (Madonna) are more original than Gaga
It’s good to be a smartass for a while, isn’t it?
3. Love spent.
This song is considered to be the best of the whole album. There is no deep meaning here, no wise thoughts, but it is still a great pop song.
It also seems to be a biographical song. She says that
“you can’t see
All that you need
Is life here with me”
Money were the reason for the “spent love” and for its walk away.
Its success is prompted by a qualitive computer processing work, simple lyrics and a very easy to remember refrain. I estimate this work as a strong and cool piece of pop.
4. Falling Free
Like “Love spent” it appears like a simple pop-prayer song accompanied by thin Madonna’s voice which becomes an independent weird pop song. There’s nothing special here but there is something more than mediocrity. It is some kind of a transcendental song for me. Listening to it we may have just controversial feelings. That’s why it’s not easy to confirm “Falling Free” to be good or bad pop song. Maybe it’s all Madonna?
5. Bang Gang
This is a very special song. It is sexy. When listening to it we can imagine the combination of blonde fatale woman, leather, tights, high porn hills on, guns and seductive lips. This can be compared with the beginning of Pamela Anderson’s career. The sound is represented by loud club beats, simple melody, and almost whispering voice. It describes the “Madonna-way” women, who can’t help being the first, who shot their boyfriends and remain the queens. Such women of course can’t be in the power of someone else.
But there is no doubt that this is song is about her ex-boyfriend. This man for Madonna was “The best thing she had”. So this “bitch” made Madonna feel like a looser, so she “made a decision, I would never look back” , because “You were building my coffin, You were driving my hearse”. After all, she says with cool bitchy voice
“Now if you’re gonna act like a bitch
Then you’re gonna die like a bitch”
“Now my lover is dead, and I have no regrets”
5. I’m addicted
It is a good experimental club-pop song with Madge vocals. Electron, club and pop beats create a powerful wave of sound. That is how 53 years old Madonna becomes young and rolls in clubs, dances to good teenage songs which still seems normal and sexy. After this bridge
I need this exchange
I don’t care if you think that I’m strange
Something happens to me when I hear your voice
Something happens to me and I have no choice
I need to hear your name
Everything feels so strange
I’m ready to take this chance
I need to dance
comes around the most powerful moment of the album. These beats bid your blood to run “like MDNA and that’s OK”. But still this song is not a masterpiece at all and to my mind is only half finished, even a bit dull, with no piquancy.
6. Girls gone wild
It resembles “I’m addicted”. The same features: pop club, no clever meaning, good refrain. That is a nice naturally pop song, but Madonna’s voice makes it seem just a bit special, doesn’t it? Listening to it, I imagine a 23 years old woman, but not a 53 one. Being still young in sole and sexy in movements Madonna keeps on rocking because “A good girl gone wild.”
7. Give Me All You Luvin’
A sarcastic song with some kind of justified arrogance. All the nowadays singers copy Madonna’s image of 90th and try to make sure that this is an actually new art. Madonna knows exactly how to make a whole world on a dance floor.
8. Masterpiece
This is dong is full of metaphors and good expressions. To my mind, it’s the best and most talented Madonna’s song. It is about being in love with a really great person. About how difficult love between two people may be. According to the song, love is like “masterpiece”, like “tiny particles of light”, but “it hurts so much to be in love with a masterpiece”, ‘cause “It can’t be fun to always be the chosen one.” Madge is so right singing “Nothing’s indestructible”, because “The “look but please don’t touch me” type” can’t be next to you, that’s why it hurts. But this song is like Vicodin for a tired soul, which pours a honey on it and heals the pain.
I’d give 5 from 5 to it. I would also compare it with a very light summer wind in a sakura garden.
As for SOME GIRLS, SUPERSTAR, TURN UP THE RADIO I can only admit that these songs the “weak pop spots” of the album. Only to Some Girls I would put 3 from 5, the other ones get only 2 from me.
But as for the album, it doesn’t have a brightly expressed conception. Indeed Madonna’s albums never have one. That means she is free in her music. As far as I have understood, it is mostly about some kind of reborn, ending up with old stuff and meeting the new experiences. My оценка to this album is 4 from 5. This is a really great work, it is a good step after screwed up “Hard Candy”, it is bright, it is pop, it is Madonna. But what dissatisfied me is that Madge is swimming a fashion stream. Dubstep, club, electron beats make this album be an ordinary thing for the USA. Nothing new is shown. But anyway this is a good example for younger generation. Madonna keeps being the queen, creating music, making videos. We all are MDNA addicted.
alexbrowning 
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