Email

Mad Madonna still a ray of light

Hell hath no fury like Madonna scorned.

In the four years

since she recorded her last studio album, Madonna blew up her marriage to Guy Ritchie, made a tedious film about two

supposedly glamorous Nazi sympathizers and allowed herself to be upstaged by M.I.A.’s middle finger in front of 111 million

people. Distracted by ventures into clothing lines, fitness centers and international adoption, she drifted from her roots as

a pop diva with a knack for popularizing cutting-edge electronic music.

Rage, however, seems to have focused the

Material Girl on what she does best. With “MDNA,” she’s made her best record since 1998’s “Ray of Light.” It’s a collection

of club tracks and confessionals that drops white-hot disco bombs with laser-guided precision.

Working with

“Ray of Light” producer William Orbit, Italian electro producer Benny Benassi and French DJ Martin Solveig, she serves up a

succession of intoxicating grooves that stand up to anything Lady Gaga and Beyoncé have sent up the charts.

Where

Madge manages, at 53, to actually outpace her far younger peers is her willingness to lay bare the raw, jarring emotions of

the past few years. Her break with Ritchie has inspired surprisingly catchy observations of hearts imploding — Sean Penn and

Warren Beatty never worked her into such a lather.

“I Don’t Give A” and “I F – – ked Up” (available as a bonus track

on the deluxe edition) capture two facets of the horror of being newly divorced. The first rails against the process — “You

were so mad at me, who’s got custody? The lawyers suck it up, didn’t have a prenup” — but pledges that she’ll survive and

move on. The second expresses the guilt and remorse of a woman who accepts her own role in the split: “I f — ked up, I made

a mistake. Nobody does it better than myself.”

Yet even at her darkest, Madonna keeps intact her legendary instincts

for a killer hook. “Gang Bang” is a straight-up hater’s anthem. “I thought it was you, and I loved you the most,” she chants,

“but I was just keeping my enemies close.” As the Orbit-produced bass track grinds through the mix like a tank tread, she

merrily pronounces herself a proud assassin: “Bang bang, shot you dead, shot my lover in the head.” It’s an exquisite

kiss-off that’s equal parts meditation on spite and rump-busting dance-floor workout.

Advertisement

While most of the album wades through the debris field of her failed marriage, there are

glimpses of brighter times. “Girl Gone Wild” leans on Benassi’s thumping house production for a party track that could have

easily been a single from her 2000 album “Music.” Then there are the breath-like keyboards on LMFAO’s remix of “Give Me All

Your Luvin’ ” (another deluxe-edition cut) that sound like they were lifted straight from one of the Material Girl’s “Express

Yourself” sessions.

Managing to find substance in fury and freedom in tears, “MDNA” is an uplifting testament to

resilience. Better still, it’s evidence that Madonna has finally returned from her sojourn as a would-be Renaissance woman

and to deliver an album with the guts and groove of her finest work.

Related posts

Jussie Smollett’s conviction in 2019 attack on himself is overturned

International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas officials

Prosecutors barred from consulting Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ jail cell notes