Madonna
Confessions on a Dance Floor
Abba could be more popular now than ever, with sold-out stage shows around the world and box sets winning over staunch music critics. And, as another pop phenomenon, Madonna has been rather clever to sample the Swedish sensations on Hung Up, the blissfully commercial first single off her new album, Confessions on a Dance Floor (Gallo).
Hung Up is cross-generational marketing on an adrenalin-laden disco beat; just the thing to put her atop the charts once more. Even its music video alternates footage of hip-looking krumping youths of today with Madonna grooving by herself in an exercise studio in a tatty pink Seventies-style leotard and a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle.
She’s dropped the political posturing that grabbed headlines when she did American Life; this is Madonna for the party people, much like when she released Ray of Light.
The tracks here were tested pre-launch by gifted English producer Stuart Price — who also co-wrote much of the material with Madonna — as camouflaged mixes on unsuspecting club audiences in Europe to fine-tune their impact before being finally recorded.
This pre-emptive strategy certainly paid dividends. The finely crafted dance assault, which owes much to the machinations of Price, does not end with opener Hung Up. Though the tempo is slightly cut back on tracks like Jump, Get Together and the sweeping, trancey Forbidden Love, the underlying sonic energy is never lost, also due to the tracks being sequenced together.
Track three, Sorry, is another highlight; instant hit material, custom-built for the pop charts with its contagious chorus and melody. Future Lovers drives the beat up with futuristic production that should also sound good in a harder remix. Let It Will Be jumps out with Eighties-flavoured beats, and Isaac, featuring the vocals of Yitzhak Sinwani, brings to mind Sting’s Desert Rose.
There’s an unfortunate lyrical speed bump on I Love New York, which starts: “I don’t like cities, but I love New York / Other places make me feel like a dork” — and despite soaring into yet another cracking dance tune, the track is marred throughout by such infantile rhyming (Madonna said in a recent interview the song is meant to be ironic, but irony doesn’t smooth over the cracks). Then again, for the club-savvy generation at whom much of this album is likely aimed, the lyrics often matter less than the delivery does, so maybe one shouldn’t fault Madonna on this.
On How High, Madonna plugs in the vocoder and asks: “How high are the stakes? / How much fortune can you make? … / Should I carry on? / Will it matter when I’m gone?” We all know how much fortune she’s made, and there’s no way she’s stopping. Will it matter? As much as other good dance music of this decade will, most likely; only time will tell. Until then, these confessions demand to be heard.
ALSO ON THE SHELF
Franz Ferdinand
You Could Have It So Much Better (Universal)
Post-Strokes indie rock band Franz Ferdinand’s latest single, Do You Want To, makes me want to jump on lead singer Alex Kapranos and kiss him all over. “When I woke up tonight; I said I’m going to make somebody love me. Now I know that it’s you; you’re lucky lucky, you’re so lucky!” I love his arrogant way of dealing with the good things in life.
The group’s second album is as funky and groovy as one would expect. After their hyped eponymous debut album in 2004, it doesn’t sound as if Franz Ferdinand had any trouble making a second full-length (41 minutes, 13 songs) album. Again they make me struggle to keep my head and feet still.
I absolutely love Bob Hardy’s pumping bass lines and hi-hat brutaliser Paul Thomson’s funky drums. Nick McCarthy’s guitar riffs are tight; altogether this album is irresistible and highly infectious.
But it’s not all roses and sunshine. Having had You Could Have It So Much Better in my possession for almost two weeks now, it does get a bit too much at times. I will keep on playing it, but probably only when in a Saturday-night party mood. The slow songs I simply skip — especially Eleanor Put Your Boots On. Why does Kapranos sound like a Beatle having a downer?
Among the unstoppable new wave of indie rockers, including bands such as The Killers and Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand belong in the top. — Elvira van Noort