March 13, 2012

"SUPERSTAR" PREVIEW!

Here is a preview of "Superstar". The song features the voice of Madonna's daughter, Lola. Are you ready for MDNA? Have a listen...

For the preview of...
I'm Addicted - click here!
Love Spent - click here!
Gang Bang - click here!

March 12, 2012

MADONNA'S NEW LINE OF FOOTWEAR UNDER 'TRUTH OR DARE' LABEL

Madonna is making her fashion mark again with a line of footwear under the new Truth or Dare label. The collection will launch for fall '12. Footwear will be the brand's second product launch, following a fragrance that will debut in April.

The initial footwear offering consists of more than 60 styles, including flats, heels, booties and over-the-knee boots, set to retail for $89 to $349. Many of the dance-inspired looks will feature studs and cap-toe details. Madonna's stylist, Arianne Phillips, will serve as the creative consultant. But Madonna herself will also have constant input into the line's development. "Her fingers are really on this brand," Phillips told Footwear News. "The first thing I did was remind her of all the shoes she wore over the years, and we took the styles that we can't live without. You can always depend on her to bring her style and provocateur quality, but she also has a very feminine perspective."

The shoe collection comes with the support of big retail players, including Nordstrom, Asos.com and Macy's, which also was the launch partner for Madonna's first retail project: the Material Girl line that hit in August 2010. This time, select stores will feature special displays to promote the Truth or Dare brand, and Selfridges in the U.K. will create a pop-up shop. The line also will debut at The Bay in Canada. Looking ahead, the plan is to expand the brand globally to Germany, France, Spain and Italy in 2013.

In addition to shoes, the Truth or Dare brand will launch intimates later this year.

March 10, 2012

MADONNA WORKING REALLY HARD ON TOUR REHEARSALS

The Queen of Pop herself posted some pictures she took on her phone during the rehearsals for the tour on her Facebook page. She seems to be working really hard. Have a look...

"bruises on my leg from rehearsal"
"cut my lip from rehearsing Girl Gone Wild"
"heart shaped bruise on my ass"

March 09, 2012

"GIRL GONE WILD" MUSIC VIDEO - PREVIEW

Have a look at this preview of the Queen of Pop's upcoming music video of "Girl Gone Wild". The premiere of the full music video will happen in two weeks.


March 08, 2012

"GANG BANG" PREVIEW!

Have a listen to a preview of "Gang Bang", it has just been uploaded by the official Madonna YouTube channel.
-For "I'm Addicted", click here, and for "Love Spent", click here.-


March 07, 2012

"LOVE SPENT" PREVIEW!

Have a listen to a preview of "Love Spent", it has just been uploaded by the official Madonna YouTube channel. -If you missed the preview of "I'm Addicted", click here!-


TRACK-BY-TRACK REVIEW OF MDNA

The online edition of Britain's tabloid newspaper 'The Daily Mirror' has just posted a Track-by-track review of "MDNA" (below). -Last week, we've also published a review by Matthew Todd from Attitude Magazine, if you haven't seen it yet, click here!-
Girl Gone Wild
Take her track Celebration, zoop it up and make it bigger and better. It's a club track that feels young vibrant and fresh for an artist like Madonna. It's techno-pop-ready-for-radio-heaven. Very Benny Benassi and very much one for the kids – without it feeling like a mum-of-four is singing it. Phew.

Gang Bang
Let's get dirty and keep it mucky throughout. A stripped back filthy electro beat makes you want to get down. It's different to anything she's ever done. I especially liked the ending where she sings in a Human Nature stylee: “If you're gonna act like a bitch, then you're gonna die like a bitch.” And a shotgun noise kicks off. Boom.

I'm Addicted
Euphoric and addictive. This song needs to be played loud and for the satisfaction of a dance floor. It's heavily Benny Benassi and by the end you want to get up and squeal: “I'm addicted to your looooovvvvve.”

Turn Up The Radio
Why this wasn't the lead single on MDNA I'm not very sure. It's a stonker of a pop song. Her vocals are finally clear (well, not as worked on) and it gave me 'the tingle'. It's ready to go and an instant Madonna pop classic.

Give Me All Your Luvin'
The track that divided opinion from the start. Notably, the song sounds a lot better on speakers that can make your skin quiver through bass. But it feels far more forgettable pop compared to much of the album.

Some Girls
Finally, an Orbit song. This is probably the most cosmic of his tracks he's done with M. Her vocal is almost tinny and echoes. Bit rocky towards the end but it's an exciting introduction to a new wave Orbit.

Superstar
This was the one I wasn't immediately keen on – but the one that's in my head. It's lyrically very simple and definitely one that the star could pull a guitar out for to perform on tour. She sings: “Ooh, la la you're a superstar/ooh la la love the way that you are.” It's a little rockier than the others and more conventional.

I Don't Give A
This is probably the most interesting track on this album. She's nearly rapping again, there's a hip-hop feel. It feels like the Human Nature of Erotica – and clearly sending out messages about her marriage breakdown. She sings: “I tried to be a good girl / I tried to be your wife / I diminished myself / And I swallowed my light / I tried to become all / That you expect of me / And if I was a failure / I don’t give a …”

I'm a Sinner
Back to William Orbit and the Ray of Light guitar has been found. This track immediately reminds you why Madonna and Orbit worked so well first time around – there's even a return to the Erotica dirty whisper voice. It starts fairly slow but builds and builds to an orgasm of techno. Enjoy the ride on this one.

Love Spent
There's a gypsy string twang, a hauntingly high vocal and it's not instantly Orbit. Later in the song you realise it couldn't be more like him. It's about giving so much love that you're spent and, like the previous song, climaxes like a beauty.

Masterpiece
The theme song to W.E. brings the tempo right back down to a chilled vibe. This is the song that makes us realise that despite most of this album making us want to dance, the star is still able to chill out and relax those dancing shoes. It really feels like the come down song that gives you a big hug.

Falling Free
Well this one was a surprise. It made me instantly want to hear her singing it with just a guitar and a mic stand. It would be an acoustic dream. Her vocals are crisp and penetrate. It's obviously a song about letting go – but will she ever truly let go of the career she's worked so hard for?

Madonna, MDNA, March 26, Interscope Records.

March 06, 2012

"I'M ADDICTED" PREVIEW!

Madonna's official YouTube channel has just uploaded a preview of "I'm Addicted". Have a listen...

Update March 7: Click here for the preview of "Love Spent"

March 04, 2012

"GIRL GONE WILD" AVAILABLE ON iTUNES WORLDWIDE VERY SOON!

Madonna's official website (Madonna.com) has confirmed that "Girl Gone Wild" would be added to international iTunes stores very soon, since it's only available in the US, Canada, and Mexico since March 2nd. Stay tuned!

March 02, 2012

THE VERY FIRST "MDNA" REVIEW BY ATTITUDE MAGAZINE

Have a look at the first review of MDNA from Attitude Magazine.

Review by Matthew Todd, Attitude Magazine.

There's a fun moment at the end of the video to the first single Give Me All Your Luvin’, when Madonna flings a baby doll off camerĪ± and away from her breast. It isn’t a subtle marker of starting anew with her loyal audience of gays and good-time girls, but it is comically satisfying nonetheless. Party Madonna is back and she wants us to know it.

Teaming up with producers Martin Solveig, Benny Benassi, The Demolition Crew and old hand William Orbit, MDNA is a dose of what she does best. While that may seem like just dance music, there is more to Madonna’s oeuvre than that.

Girls Gone Wild, the biggest pop stomper on the album, kicks off with a reference to Act of Contrition from Like a Prayer. The production might sound like she¹s been listening to a fair bit of Rihanna, but who’s counting. Madonna brings her own authority, creating the kind of anthemic party song that she does best, the kind where everyone from your three-year-old niece to your 60-year-old mother gets up on the dancefloor. Much of MDNA is about having fun, but despite that, this is a dark album. If Like a Prayer was her divorce record and Hard Candy suffered, one senses, from being put together as her relationship with Guy Ritchie was falling apart, then MDNA is a fuck you ­ to her marriage, the life that came with it, and partly to herself for losing her identity in a partnership. She’s out to recapture who she is, and she has demons to slay.

The strangely titled Gang Bang sees her singing in a weird theatrical drawl about taking revenge on a lover who ruined her life. ‘Shot you dead, shot my lover in the head…I’m going straight to hell…I’ve got a lot of friends there’, she deadpans before yelling, ‘Drive bitch, die bitch!’. It’s kind of stupid, kind of amazing, kind of funny and kind of fucked up ­ but gives the album one vital ingredient to Madonna¹s success that all contenders, apart from Lady Gaga, have never clued up on: drama.

The Solveig-produced I Don¹t Give A..., is one of the album¹s tour-de-force moments. Beginning by recounting a typical day, it becomes intensely honest, and is, as is her way, a telling-off of her critics. Love her or loathe her, Madonna has made her name by raising a middle finger to, well, just about everyone. ‘Wake up, this is your life, children on your own, gotta plan on the phone, meet the press, buy a dress, do all this to impress…do ten things at once and if you don¹t like it I don¹t give a….’ It’s here that she makes specific reference to her ex-husband. ‘I tried to be the perfect wife…I diminished myself…it swallowed me…if I was a failure then I don’t give a…’. The track builds to a genius, choral, almost Tim Burton-esque conclusion.

This strongest, most immediate section of MDNA continues with Turn Up the Radio, which begins like a delicate ballad as she pleads with the listener to stop for a moment, to get away from the world through music. It may sound trite but there¹s urgency in its simplicity. It transforms into the album’s most pounding moment, reaching a climax that threatens to blow the speakers. Some might find it unusually generic, but she makes it her own and fans will be happy to have a dancefloor filler that will shake the clubs and would happily find a slot on the next series of Glee.

One of the later highlights is Superstar, surely the sweetest song Madonna has released since Cherish. It twirls along, an open-top summer anthem, serenading a new lover with a hypnotic chorus. It¹s simple and pretty and a perfect song to sing on her summer concerts ­ and should definitely be a single.

MDNA ends, as recent Madonna albums do, with deep melancholia, from the Orbit-produced Falling Free, one of the saddest songs she’s ever written, through to the confessional I Fucked Up on the Deluxe Edition, accompanied by Beautiful Killer, a fun, 80s-sounding, strings-laced tribute to French actor Alain Delon.

Overall, this might not have the serious pop intensity of Confessions, it’s not as drastically new or experimental as music critics might like, but it’s fun, fucked up, dancey and full of drama. It’s what her fans have been waiting for: a wallop enough of an album to put her back up there, at checkmate against Lady Gaga, who, despite her brilliance, doesn’t quite give you songs that are as easy to disco dance to as some of these are. Is Madonna still ‘the Queen’ as Nicki Minaj gabs at one point? On the strength of MDNA, it’s hard to argue against.

[Note to Monsters: Lady Gaga is frikkin’ amazing, too. Don¹t kill us.]

4 STARS ****

MDNA is released on March 26 on Interscope