https://www.drownedmadonna.com/2019/06/03/m...re-record-ever/

 

Promising review from The Sun

"I Don’t Search I Find harks back to the Nineties with an ambient trance beat"

 

Colour me intrigued! :o Tbh it all sounds very exciting. I think those who haven't been too impressed with the songs released so far should definitely still give the album a chance because it sounds like there's a lot more to offer.

Graham Norton confirmed for June 14th too

Graham Norton confirmed for June 14th too

I noticed that on DrownedMadonna but the guests for the 14th June show have already been announced:

 

Among the guests on Graham’s sofa: acting legend Sir Ian McKellen, talking about touring and turning 80; director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionnaire) and actors Lily James and Himesh Patel, talking about their new comedy fantasy Yesterday; and singer Sheryl Crow, who performs her new single Still the Good Old Days.

Perhaps it's for the following week. To be honest, I'd rather Madonna have some post-release promotion sorted out.

In a way I would rather it be shown the next week.

 

It could potentially help it’s second week drop be smaller.

 

 

Yeah, that was my thinking. The first week sales will be fine thanks to pre-orders and its many formats, plus there's no way she's going to beat Bruce Springsteen to number one, so she may as well think about giving the album some sort of longevity.

This review from The Times has me hyped:

 

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.

I don’t search I find sounds epic.

 

A love / hate review from The Guardian:

We all get old, but never at the same age. Some of us are old when we’re children, bringing briefcases to school and talking to adults at family parties; others leave uni with the thrill that they never have to go clubbing again. Most of us think we’re doing pretty well, then we find ourselves nodding appreciatively at something in a Boden catalogue and suddenly death is real.

 

For years, Madonna outpaced all of this. In 1996, Evita looked like ushering in her middle age, but she did an about turn, delivering convincing, idiosyncratic trip-hop on Ray of Light (1998) and convincing, idiosyncratic electro on Music (2000). Confessions on a Dancefloor (2005) was even better, its Abba samples and smooth deep house a way for her to stay out past 4am with dignity, rather than trying to score ketamine off teenage fashion influencers at the afters, musically speaking.

 

But she couldn’t run forever. Perhaps it began pre-Confessions, when she kissed Britney Spears as if to parasitically extract her youth. Certainly by Hard Candy in 2008 she was playing catch-up, spurring Timbaland and the Neptunes to some of their tamest work, a good five years after their pomp. MDNA (2012) tried to keep pace with stadium EDM, while Rebel Heart (2015) struggled to get its head around a newly global, musically cosmopolitan pop market, and just randomly glued hip collaborators together. The woman who had once led was following, and sluggishly.

 

To her credit, she has not done what many in her position would then do: lick their wounds and sell a jazz standards album to Radio 2 listeners. With Madame X, Madonna instead grits her teeth, puts on a glitter-encrusted eyepatch, looks in the mirror with seriously reduced depth perception and says: “Bitch, I’m Madonna.” And by drawing on the Latin influence of not just reggaeton-crazed recent pop but also her new home base of Lisbon, she has, at 60, produced her most natural-feeling, progressive and original record since Confessions.

 

It’s also one of her most bizarre and sprawling, and features some of her worst ever music. Killers Who Are Playing finds this American multimillionaire – already not shy of white saviourhood – play empath to the world’s huddled masses: “I’ll be Africa if Africa is shut down. I will be poor if the poor are humiliated. I’ll be a child if the children are exploited …” We pause for presumably more of the same, this time in Portuguese, and then: “I’ll be Islam if Islam is hated. I’ll be Israel if they’re incarcerated. I’ll be Native Indian if the Indian has been taken. I’ll be a woman if she’s raped and her heart is breaking.” It’s well intended but fails to read the room – the room here being the entire planet.

 

The dog’s dinner of Dark Ballet, aired in part at Eurovision, features vocodered vocals sung to a melody from the Nutcracker, and irritatingly gnomic pronouncements about commerce blinding us to reality. Extreme Occident, only available on the deluxe version for a very good reason, sees Madonna trying to “recover my centre of gravity” in a politically polarised world – a really worthwhile topic, but expressed in witless lyrics. “I guess I’m lost / I had to pay the cost / The thing that hurt me most …” (at this point you’re ready to bet your house on the final line being about a ghost, but no) “… Was that I wasn’t lost.” Tablas arrive with stupid kneejerk exoticism. It ends with her asserting “life is a circle” about 20 times.

 

These shockers are suitable only for schadenfreude lovers or scholars of extreme camp, but another of these wildly messy tracks actually matches its vaulting ambition. God Control was presumably made after an all-nighter on Reddit – a rambling “Wake up sheeple!” screed that confronts gun reform, disenfranchised youth, democracy and the man upstairs. One section has her rap “Each new birthday gives me hope / that’s why I don’t smoke that dope”, and that her only friend is her brain – all with the peppy naivety of Tom Tom Club’s Wordy Rappinghood. And all of it set to hi-NRG disco with cascading strings and Daft Punk vocoders, for over six minutes. It is – only just – brilliant, and will become an equally beloved and despised curio among fans.

 

All this baroque weirdness knocks the album off its axis, but most of its 64 minutes are actually full of very decent pop songcraft. Future is her go at pop’s next big trend, roots reggae, and while there is a slight, perhaps unconscious but audible white-person Jamaican accent, it is catchy and full-bodied, producer Diplo shamelessly ripping off the brass from Outkast’s SpottieOttieDopaliscious. She returns to Deeper and Deeper-style house on I Don’t Search I Find, its strings and fingerclicks a clear nod to Vogue. Crazy is beautiful and brilliantly catchy, a midtempo soul ballad that you could imagine Ariana Grande singing, but which has clever detailing like an accordion that has surely been influenced by Lisbon’s fado scene. The most emphatically Latin tracks are all strong, particularly Faz Gostoso with Brazilian superstar Anitta, whose frenetic beat is somewhere between baile funk and Angolan kuduro – another Lisbon-influenced rhythm that also flits through the polyrhythmic Come Alive. Bitch I’m Loco, the second track to feature Colombian star Maluma after lead single Medellín, is reggaeton roughage, but will be satisfying enough booming out of a club system. Perhaps there isn’t an absolutely diamond pop chorus on Madame X, but the singles I Rise, Crave, and Medellín all have elegant, sinewy melodies that twine around you rather than jabbing you into submission.

 

Throughout, there is more density and musical adventure than at almost any other point in her career (perhaps this is the influence of Mirwais, who produces numerous tracks here and gave Music its fiendish intricacy). Her voice is remarkably plastic, pitched down one minute and up the next, into a Sia-like bleat and out into robotic polyphony. Often, around the seabed of the mix, is a swirl of aqueous psychedelic sound, profoundly different and much more interesting than her earlier R&B and EDM minimalism.

 

Killers Who Are Playing ends with the questions: “Do you know who you are? Will we know when to stop?” The untamed, batshit Madame X suggests that Madonna doesn’t have the answer to either – and that her strength is in never knowing.

Are the reviews not coming out too early ?

I think there was some sort of album party yesterday which is why we're getting the reviews. It helps build the hype before release week, I guess!

I have absolutely NO idea what to expect with this album now :lol:

 

I like two of the songs heard, and don't enjoy the other two. These reviews have confused me further... guess I'll just have to wait until I listen.

 

I am thinking it may be a mixture of sounds and vibes, much like Rebel Heart as opposed to a consistent sound and style a la Confessions et al.

It seems like there will be a mix of sounds but I'm getting the vibe that there will be a running thread that strings them altogether. Probably a lot more consistent and thought out than Rebel Heart was, I reckon.

NME:

Bold, bizarre, self-referential and unlike anything Madonna has ever done before, 'Madame X' finds the star with a glint in her eye (the one without an eyepatch, that is)

 

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 40-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 told 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.

This is getting really promising reviews in general I think... I'm getting the sense that it will have it's share of awful tracks like her other recent albums have had but it sounds like we'll be able to make a decent album once the dross is cut out.

 

I Don't Search I Find sounds like it has the potential to be great! *.*

Track-by-track review from The Sun (Dan Wootton unfortunately):

 

BOLD experimentation, controversial political comment and downright epic pop.

 

That’s why Madonna’s highly anticipated new album marks yet another phase of her groundbreaking chart career.

 

For the creator of some of the biggest pop choruses in history to throw caution to the wind and create some of her most daring music ever, at the age of 60, is a welcome reminder of why Madonna has remained at the cutting edge of music for four decades.

 

It’s further proof that none of her young rivals are coming anywhere close to making pop music this exciting and boundary-pushing.

 

Here’s my track by track rundown of what you can expect from Madame X, a global trip of an album, out next Friday.

 

MEDELLIN: From track one, it’s clear Madonna’s new home on the Iberian peninsula has provided the inspiration for the Spanish sound that runs through the album. The chemistry with Colombian rapper Maluma is sizzling. Slow down papi, indeed.

 

DARK BALLET: One of Madonna’s most experimental and thrilling tracks, this is the album’s mission statement as she sings: “I can dress like a boy, I can dress like a girl. Cos your world’s obsessed with fame, cos your world’s in so much pain, cos your world’s in flames.”

 

The intro is reminiscent of the title-track of American Life, which makes sense as Madame X is her first major collaboration on a studio album with French producer Mirwais since their divisive 2003 record.

 

But beyond the intro of the Joan Of Arc-inspired song, things really get creative, as a sparse piano is introduced and the track slowly reveals itself to be an exhilarating multi-genre experience. Imagine Madonna making a 2019 version of Bohemian Rhapsody.

 

Between edgy beats and random sounds, we’re treated to the kind of heavy breathing, blowing and airy gasps not heard since Erotica, although rather than sounding orgasmic, here we’re entering a desolate, altogether more disturbing territory.

 

Key lyric: “People tell me to shut your mouth – keep your beautiful lies because I’m not concerned.”

 

GOD CONTROL: A strong one-two punch of edgy Madonna tracks. Long rumoured, Madonna takes on the issue of gun control in the US with this heady six-minute plus track where powerful lyrics and gun shots run under a swirly electric beat that becomes euphoric. There’s a Vogue-style rap for good measure too.

 

Key lyric: “People think that I’m insane, insane people think I’m mad.”

 

FUTURE: Performed at Eurovision with the rapper Quavo, the reggae-infused track is a message of hope following the bleak God Control. It’s a Sunday afternoon in the park vibe, very of the moment.

 

BATUKA: This features Portuguese instruments and Madonna recorded it with locals.

 

The powerful chanting chorus became a family affair with her daughters contributing some vocals. And I’m told son David Banda is even credited as one of the writers.

 

The song feels like the beginning of a revolution. Queen Madonna is rallying her troops, ready for battle. It’s empowering and – helpfully – feels like you can actually dance to it.

 

KILLERS WHO ARE PARTYING: Here Madonna invokes many minority groups – full list: gay, African, poor, children, Islamic, Israeli, Native American – and a woman, in one of the more controversial moments on the album.

 

Key lyric: “I’ll be a woman if she’s raped and her heart is breaking.”

 

CRAVE: Already released, this sweet grower of a song sees Madonna layer her vocals to great effect as she sings of the risk of her cravings, presumably romantic or sexual, “getting dangerous”. The closest we get to a Madonna love song on the album.

 

CRAZY: My highlight track, this is a soaring, stripped-back pop masterpiece. The chorus is musically joyous but the lyrics are full of the pain of being let down by a lover or family member. It’s the “last time I wake up for you”, she insists. Her Eighties prowess is still in full effect when she wishes to access it.

 

Key lyric: “If you think I’ve been foolish then I’ll only let you fool me once, so baby shame on you.”

 

COME ALIVE: Another moment of spectacular pop, smack bang in the middle of the album. The ethereal song has no traditional chorus, but great use of Auto-Tune and a fabulous choir.

 

EXTREME OCCIDENT: Middle Eastern beats power another experimental moment where Madonna examines her place in the world and decides “life is a circle”. She remains defiant, with the ongoing theme being her unwillingness to bend to the way society tries to mould her: “I don’t want to blend in, why do you want me to?”

 

This has been an ongoing thread throughout Madonna’s career. When will her detractors get the message?

 

Key lyric: “I guess I’m lost, I paid a handsome cost.”

 

FAZ GOSTOSO: Most out and out fun moment on the album – a Latin celebration of how to move your body and party. The street party vibe near the end of the track is total euphoria.

 

BITCH I’M LOCO: Maluma returns for the naughtiest track on the album, where Madonna sexes it up once more.

 

The highlight is the two of them speaking with each other flirtatiously towards the end. When he asks her, “Where do you want me to put this?” she replies: “Oh you can put it inside.”

 

Ooh la la!

 

I DON’T SEARCH I FIND: Harking back to her Ray Of Light and Confessions era, Madonna pushes her vocals over a stomping club beat.

 

She appears to pay tribute to her own career with various self-referential moments, including the famous clicks from Vogue and an Erotica-esque spoken-word section.

 

LOOKING FOR MERCY: My second favourite moment on the album, this is Madonna at her most vulnerable as she appears to open up about her personal life in more detail, singing, “I’m looking for love”.

 

Key lyric: “Somebody teach me to love, somebody help me to rise above.”

 

I RISE: The perfect sunset to a very vibrant album. Powerful, haunting and lyrically one of the most consistently strong on Madame X.

 

After spending the album telling everyone not to criticise her, or tell her what to do, it’s smart to end the record by saying: “I rise up above it all.” So whatever you say has little consequence anyway.

 

Madonna will still continue to be Madonna.

 

And judging by Madame X . . . thank God for that.

So Dans favourite from the album is the Mirrors second least favourite and his second favourite was also among the low points of the album according to the Mirror.

 

A lot of the reviews are but contradictory like one reviewers highlight is another’s low point and vice versa.

 

I feel this is gonna be an album where everyone’s thoughts / personal feelings are different.

 

I kinda think that there might not be a big fan favourite either and everyone’s favourites will be different.

 

I think the albums gonna be very diverse sounding (not like a Erotica / ROL / Confessions) where you can instantly tell what era it’s from.

 

So far this album reminds me way more of Music than it does American Life.

 

I’m really intrigued to hear God Control, Batuka and Killers Who Are Partying.

Edited June 7, 20196 yr by Jordan Lee

"...including the famous clicks from Vogue and an Erotica-esque spoken-word section"

 

I'm dying to hear 'I Don't Search I Find'!! I hope it doesn't disappoint.

A Twitter accounts been leaking parts of the album.

 

Like 30 seconds roughly of some of the tracks.

 

Batuka and Bitch I’m Loca we’re some of the ones on there.