Most pop stars reach a point where they accept the slow march of time, but not
Madonna. Time is
Madonna's enemy -- an enemy to be battled or, better still, one to be ignored. She soldiers on, turning tougher, harder, colder with each passing album, winding up with a record as flinty as
MDNA, the 2012 record that is her first release since departing Warner for Interscope. That's hardly the only notable shift in
Madonna's life since the 2008 release of
Hard Candy. Since then, she has divorced film director Guy Ritchie and has seen her '80s persona co-opted and perverted by
Lady Gaga, events so cataclysmic she can't help but address them on
MDNA.
Madonna hits the divorce dead-on, muttering about "pre-nups" when she's not fiercely boasting of shooting her lover in the head, and she's not exactly shy about reasserting her dominion over dance and pop, going so far as to draft
Nicki Minaj and
M.I.A. as maid servants paying their respect to the queen. Whatever part of
MDNA that isn't devoted to divorce is dedicated to proving
Madonna remains the preeminent pop star, working harder than anybody to stay just on the edge of the vanguard. All this exertion leads to an excessively lean album: there's not an ounce of fat on
MDNA, it's all overly defined muscle, every element working with designated purpose. Such steely precision is preferable to the electronic mess of
Hard Candy, not least because there's a focus that flows all the way down to the pop hooks, which are as strong and hard as those on Confessions on a Dance Floor.
MDNA does echo the Euro-disco vibe of Confessions -- "Love Spent" consciously reworks the
ABBA-sampling "Hung Up" and it's also evident on the malevolent pulse of "Gang Bang" or the clever "Beautiful Stranger" rewrite "I'm a Sinner." ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine