All through her career, it has been impossible to divorce Madonna's music from her image, as they feed off each other to the point where it's hard to tell which came first, the concept or the songs.
Glancing at the aggressively ugly cover to Hard Candy -- its blistering pinks and assaultive leather suggesting cheap bottom-barrel porno -- it's hard not to wish that this is the one time Madge broke from tradition, offering music that wasn't quite as garish as her graphics.
That is not the case.
Hard Candy is all brutal hard edges and blaring primary colors, a relentlessly mercenary collection of cold beats and chilly innuendo.
Sex has always been a driving force for Madonna, but she's never been as ruthlessly pornographic as she is here, not even when she cut Erotica as a companion to her softcore coffee-table book Sex back in 1992.
For all of its carnality, Erotica was coy, belonging to the classic burlesque teasing tradition, but Hard Candy is utterly modern, a steely sex album for the age of Cialis.
This new millennium is also an era when Top 40 has pretty much ceased to exist and a pop artist as sharp as Madonna knows this, so she has abandoned the idea of a big crossover hit -- the kind that Erotica courted with such gorgeous, shimmering adult contemporary ballads as "Rain" and "Bad Girl" -- and pitches Hard Candy directly toward her core audience of club-conscious, fashion-forward trendsetters.
| Title/Composers | Performer | Listen | Time | Size | Size | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Candy ShopMadonna, Pharrell Williams | Madonna | Play | 04:15 | 9 MB | 29 MB |
| 2 | 4 MinutesNate Hills, Madonna, Timothy Mosley, Justin Timberlake | Madonna | Play | 04:03 | 9 MB | 29 MB |
| 3 | HeartbeatMadonna, Pharrell Williams | Madonna | Play | 04:03 | 9 MB | 28 MB |
| 4 | Miles AwayNate Hills, Madonna, Timothy Mosley, Justin Timberlake | Madonna | Play | 04:48 | 11 MB | 33 MB |
| 5 | She's Not MeMadonna, Pharrell Williams | Madonna | Play | 06:04 | 13 MB | 36 MB |
| 6 | IncredibleMadonna, Pharrell Williams | Madonna | Play | 06:19 | 14 MB | 47 MB |
| 7 | Dance 2nightMadonna | Madonna | Play | 05:03 | 11 MB | 36 MB |
| 8 | Spanish LessonMadonna, Pharrell Williams | Madonna | Play | 03:37 | 8 MB | 26 MB |
| 9 | Devil Wouldn't Recognize YouNate Hills, Madonna, Timothy Mosley, Justin Timberlake | Madonna | Play | 05:08 | 11 MB | 36 MB |
| 10 | VoicesNate Hills, Hannon Lane, Madonna, Timothy Mosley, Justin Timberlake | Madonna | Play | 03:39 | 8 MB | 26 MB |
| 11 | The Beat Goes On | Madonna, Kanye West | Play | 04:26 | 10 MB | 31 MB |
| 51 mins | 118 MB | |||||
| 51 mins | 363 MB | |||||
| Artist | Job | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marcella Araica | Engineer |
| 2 | Graham Archer | Assistant Engineer |
| 3 | Giovanni Bianco | Art Direction |
| 4 | Stevie Blacke | Mandocello, Mandolin, Strings |
| 5 | Vadim Chislov | Assistant Engineer |
| 6 | Andrew Coleman | Engineer, Guitar, Mixing |
| 7 | Alex Dromgoole | Engineer |
| 8 | Chris Gehringer | Mastering |
| 9 | Nate Hertweck | Assistant Engineer |
| 10 | Nate Hills | Composer |
| 11 | Steve Klein | Photography |
| 12 | Hannon Lane | Composer |
| 13 | Hannon B. Lane | Keyboards, Producer |
| 14 | Madonna | Composer, Executive Producer, Primary Artist, Producer |
| 15 | Wendy Melvoin | Guitar |
| 16 | Timothy Mosley | Composer |
| 17 | The Neptunes | Producer |
| 18 | Monte Pittman | Guitar |
| 19 | Fareed Salamah | Assistant Engineer |
| 20 | Mark "Spike" Stent | Engineer, Mixing |
| 21 | Ron Taylor | Digital Editing |
| 22 | Timbaland | DJ, Drums, Featured Artist, Guest Artist, Producer |
| 23 | Justin Timberlake | Composer, Featured Artist, Guitar, Producer, Vocals (Background) |
| 24 | Julian Vasquez | Assistant Engineer |
| 25 | Dan Warner | Guitar |
| 26 | Kanye West | Primary Artist |
| 27 | Pharrell Williams | Composer, Guest Artist |
| Quality | Format | Encoding | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | MP3 | 320kps 44.1kHz | MP3 is an audio coding format which uses a form of lossy data compression. The highest bitrate of this format is 320kbps (kbit/s). MP3 Digital audio takes less amount of space (up to 90% reduction in size) and the quality is not as good as the original one. |
| CD Quality | FLAC | 16bit 44.1kHz | FLAC is an audio coding format which uses lossless compression. Digital audio in FLAC format has a smaller size and retains the same quality of the original Compact Disc (CD). |