Madonna
MDNA
(Polydor)
What's this? Madonna praying for forgiveness for having offended God at the start of her 12th studio album? Surely not, because within seconds she's rhyming "hypnotic" with "erotic" on Girl Gone Wild and lining up songs called Gang Bang, I'm A Sinner and, on the deluxe explicit edition, I F***** Up. At the age of 53, the Material Girl knows she's competing head-to-head with Rihanna and Lady Gaga in a racier pop world (although the very thought of this is like granny slipping you the tongue during a Christmas kiss). MDNA is a better pop album than predecessor Hard Candy, but there's no future classic here: only a proliferation of simplistic hooks, lyrics that swing from awful to inane and banging production from William Orbit and others that's often so hard-edged it bullies rather than seduces you onto the dancefloor. This is not necessarily a sound old-school fans will warm to, although closing ballad Falling Free suggests Madonna still has more to give if only she'd leave the next generation to get on with its own thing.
Alan Morrison
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