Madame X - Madonna: Review

Madonna

is a legendary pop artist who has been releasing hit albums one after another since the early 80's and has amassed a level of commercial success that is almost completely unmatched, but has found less and less critical praise as the years have gone by, including two poorly received albums earlier this decade.

Review By Lavender:

I absolutely LOVE Madonna and there's no two ways about it. One album after another after another she has released some of the sharpest and most essential pop albums of all time throughout her career. Madonna, Like A Virgin, True Blue, Like A Prayer, Erotica, Ray Of Light and Confessions On A Dance Floor all make up a discography that topples nearly every other artist in pop music new and old. While the 2010's haven't been the kindest to pop's golden child I have found myself on the defensive side of both of the albums she's released so far this decade. 2012's MDNA was met with overwhelming hate upon its release and I still can't grapple with how so many people continue to miss the point completely. The tunes on MDNA refused to take themselves too seriously and the jangly overproduced and braggadocios pop bangers across the tracklist paint the picture of a veteran pop artist confident in herself. While the album is far from perfect she captures a vibe and rides it pretty consistently through the tracklist and if I had to score the album at the time I think I would have given it a 6, a far cry from many of the stunningly low reviews the album had received at the time. I was less fond of its follow-up project 2015's Rebel Heart and while this was certainly seen as an improvement on MDNA by most people I was still a little disappointed with the lack of credit people had given her. As a huge fan and a persistent defender of her music for the better part of my life it pains me as much as anyone to say that Madame X may be the worst misstep in Madonna's career so far and this series of tracks that dabbles in misguided politics and painfully shallow appropriation of latin music is a painful one to get through no matter how you slice it. 

My concern for this project started with its lead single and the albums opening track Medellin. The song isn't terrible but it is such a blatant whitewashing of latin music because its trendy in pop. Maluma is the feature and he is pretty awful but even Madonna's decent performance is lost on a song that is painfully generic and doesn't play to her strengths. This mediocre pulling from latin music infests this album and every few tracks there is a latin pop song that ranges from unoriginal to flat out terrible. Batuka is one of the worst with a horrible instrumental and some terrible mixing of Madonna's voice, these two styles just painfully clash and the result is awful. Fax Gostoso is a different take on it that sounds like Shakira doing a trap song and this track is exactly as appealing as that prospect sounds. It even seeps into the bonus tracks here as Bitch I'm Loca once again features Maluma in a little bit better performance but the track is yet another one of the worst here. 

Another facet of this album that makes it totally unbearable is that Madonna tries time and time again to introduce her old white woman politics into the music here and there's really no point to it. Dark Ballet is one of the most patience testing singles I've heard all year as it rides a patient instrumental with a terrible and nauseating refrain and a lyrics that can't make a point that's worthwhile. The track transitions into an absolutely terrible second half which mixes some terrible autotuned vocals with a dreadful circus instrumental and meets an obnoxious song with a headass state of mind. God Control is a MUCH better attempt at a song like this, the track features multiple passages in its six minute length many of which are actually enjoyable. The dancy instrumental in the first half channels Daft Punk and even though there is some more terrible autotune in the middle of the track it a decent one that features three minutes of good music in a six minute song. 

More bad politics and sheer cringe comes on Killers Who Are Partying a song where Madonna tries to put herself into the shoes of numerous oppressed peoples without a lick of self-awareness and it should come as no surprise that there is even more bad spanish on this track, please don't listen to this song I have no idea who thought it was okay. The final moment of bad politics comes on Extreme Occident with some terrible lyrics that manage to completely avoid saying anything of any value and it reminds me of one of the only tracks I truly disliked on Father John Misty's Pure Comedy, the song Two Wildly Different Perspectives. But at least that track delivers on some decent politics in its lyrics but Occident can't even do that. 

Thankfully that is a lot of the worst tracks out of the way, the only other track that brings in a strange idea that doesn't belong here is the bonus track I Don't Search I Find. I want to stress that this is completely true to you in case you didn't listen to this song or you stopped before you even got to the bonus tracks on the deluxe edition of this thing but this song is seriously a Eurodance tune, in 2019. I don't think enough people will believe that is true but I just want to stress it because this thing is seriously a true to form straight out of the late 90's Eurodance tune, and that's pretty much all I have to say about it.

Of course because it's a modern pop album there are some trap flavors to be found on this thing and while they aren't good they are far from the worst attempt at trap songs I've ever seen a pop artist make. The first one is titled Future but features Quavo which should be the only red flag you need to not listen to it, but if you persist you'll get nothing but generic trap drums and a terrible throwaway verse from Quavo that finishes off a bearable song. The second and MUCH more tolerable one is Crave which features Swae Lee of Rae Sremmurd fame and while this track isn't really anything special it is one I can tolerate and that says a lot on this album. The track features some decent sweet and simple refrains from both Madonna and Swae and while their harmonizing is a little dry it is far and away better than what Swae and Miley Cyrus gave us just a few weeks ago.

Immediately following Crave are two other manageable tracks that make for the most tolerable portion of the album. Crazy is a song whose title reflects how I'm sure many people will feel at this point on the album but the song is refreshingly mediocre. It is just a uninspired and underwritten version of a tune Madonna could have written in the 90's and even though it isn't that interesting it's nice to see Madonna fall short while actually playing to her strengths. Come Alive is far and away my favorite song here and while there are some ugly effects on Madonna's voice it is far better from a songwriting perspective than pretty much anything else here, mixed in with some tolerable lyrics and a catchy refrain this is certainly the best song here.

So while there is some conflicting reports on what the "official" tracklist is for this record the digital version ends with Looking For Mercy and I Rise. Two decent tracks that are a little bit boring, a lustful ballad and a motivational closer respectively but they thankfully help make the ending of this record another of its more tolerable moments.

So many veteran pop artists fall into the routine of making dreadfully boring versions of their old music and while Madonna has avoided that I would much prefer it to what we got on Madame X. The album even has a handful of songs I think could go towards making a decent album but the large majority of what is here sees Madonna working blatantly outside her comfort zone and makes me wish we could go back to the mindless bouncy pop days of MDNA. 1.5/10

Best Track: Come Alive

For more veteran pop music check out my review of Dido's Still On My Mind here.