Madonna may be a 49-year-old working mom pushing 50, but she still loves her dance floor, her cat-suits, and her pop hooks.She’s also an expert chameleon, co-opting current musical tastes for her own pleasure.
In the case of “Hard Candy,” her final studio album for Warner Bros., following a landmark deal with concert promoter Live Nation, Madonna aims high, enlisting two of music’s heavyweight producers, Timbaland and the Neptunes.
The album jumps off the disco of 2005’s “Confession on a Dancefloor” with thunderous, uptempo club grinds but also some surprisingly dark moments. The Neptunes, the production duo of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, add retro-synth beats while Timbaland punches up the power R&B, along with Justin Timberlake and Nate (Danja) Hills.
Madonna co-wrote and co-produced the album’s 12 tracks, which swerve from the psychedelic-horn blitz of the Timbaland-produced hit “4 Minutes” to the swooping drama of “Voices.”
The album’s sound is not original: after all, the Neptunes and Timbaland are arguably the most successful hit makers in the business, and have done the urban dance pop treatment for the likes of Gwen Stefani and Nelly Furtado (Chad Hugo and Timbaland are even on the new Ashlee Simpson record-enough said). But while the tunes are not edgy, they still make you feel like dancing.