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MDNA ALBUM DISCUSSION (CONTINUED)


Ai Papi Si.

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I noticed that it's not as loud as most of my other recent CDs too. Could it be in response to the Loudness war? If so, maybe it's a good thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

This is one thing I fear about the inevitable remasters for Madonna's catalogue. LAP is in desperate need of remastering, but I fear they'll simply make everything louder like they often do now (Michael Jackson's Dangerous album is one example).

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Guest Fukujima

I've noticed, in my car, on my iphone, and my computer speakers, certain songs have muffled vocals. Especially I'm Addicted. Maybe it's intentional sometimes, but I feel like I can barely hear her. Gang Bang too. The music overpowers her. I understand that, in Gang Bang, she is basically whispering, but I feel like you should still be able to hear her over the music. Especially in the "you had to die for me baby" parts... barely audible.

yep i noticed the same, very annoying at times :rant:

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I noticed that it's not as loud as most of my other recent CDs too. Could it be in response to the Loudness war? If so, maybe it's a good thing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

This is one thing I fear about the inevitable remasters for Madonna's catalogue. LAP is in desperate need of remastering, but I fear they'll simply make everything louder like they often do now (Michael Jackson's Dangerous album is one example).

I'm sure that since most music (if not all) is louder than before, our ears must have gotten used to it and anything registering below this "norm" now we think of as not a good master/recording.

Since the vinyl has a different master(from what I read) maybe it sonically sounds different.

Which leads me to my next question... does anyone know if this vinyl is a limited pressing?

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It's quieter than literally all other albums I've ever purchased from iTunes. I also put my CD in my car to listen to it on a good sound system, and it sounds quieter than all other albums.

Comparing the average volume in a sound editing program of the "MDNA" songs purchased from iTunes with recent dance tracks by the likes of Rihanna, also from the iTunes Store, it's safe to say those claims are bullshit. If anything, the album is mixed pretty loud.

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Guest I'llTeachYouHowTo...

my album sounds fine.

anytime her voice seems 'buried' in the mix it just seems like that was how it was meant to be, to me. otherwise, its flawless.

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Alright, so after being worn out last night I finally had my first listen. :shock::dramatic::wow: Here are some initial thoughts:

I first tried programming it to play the already heard singles I knew first but that damn stupid micro CD player in my bedroom skipped in the middle of the song to the next track, so I just had to put it on as intended - and GMAYL and Disasterpiece came in most handy for piss breaks. :demonic:

I just LOVE how she made the deluxe version a 2CD thing - it means I don't have to buy the standard edition with the uglier cover just to hear that in case there's any tracks I don't like a la the Clean version of Erotica. BUT, the funny thing is you don't have to do that at all. It's such a shame this deluxe format shyt is all the range now cause it would have suited perfectionist Madonna down to the ground and we could have so many bonuses.

Clearly this album is Madonna's Bionic as the bonus tracks are actually some of the best. I was shocked when "Birthday Song" - which is the best birthday song since Rihanna Stevie Wonder wasn't on the standard edition, or, more swearing aside "I Fucked Up". Those were clearly songs that would get some of the biggest attention.

I expected "Birthday" to be another bitter track about ageing and her telling the ageist h8rz to go get fucked, but it's just nice and fun - a perfect track to play for her then and really in the birthday spirit and it seems like it's always her birthday, thankfully GMAYL is really the only song with mention of time. Fabulous. "Beautiful Killer" is ALREADY the 22nd best Madonna song EVER and will only go higher. :dramatic: And LMFAO deliver her best remix in 15 years.

But anyway, as soon as the fabulous GGW finishes we're into super cool territory with "Gang Bang". Orbit's signature style hasn't changed at all and there are allusions to past works - this really feels like a better update of COAD which the album art hints at, with its cross between Erotica and COAD.

Lyrically it's better, but the only criticism I could make is the lyrics, while there aren't the big clunkers she's been prone to recently, at points it seems made up entirely of cliches and well worn sayings - my favourite though was "far from the maddening crowd" which is just too fabulous. It's also better than Hard Candy which even when musically good had a disinterested feel, clearly all stops were pulled out here.

There appears to be a couple of lesser tracks near the middle or toward the end, but I wouldn't say they were filler as it always keep the pace up and has some interesting about it, and no doubt these couple of tracks I was less keen on will prove to be big growers.

"Turn Up The Radio" is super amaze, this is clearly at heart another of her 60s psych records, way better than GMAYL and that and Disasterpiece are by far the weakest moments. One other track I believe sounds like GMAYL in parts with the backing track.

Finally, "Falling Free" falls into the tradition of serious weighty Madonna album closers that's been the case since American Life. But it's a much better take on those last few album closers, none of which I ever was that keen on. This one has all that depth but is gorgeous and especially interesting.

As soon as the album finished I scrambled to find that much discussed thank yous in the booklet and well it wasn't there! :confused: Or I couldn't see it, it was a dense load of stuck together text about the album credits which was really unreadable. I was almost expecting to see Guy Ritchie's name on the credits. :lol:

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That's funny... on my copy "you had to die for me baby" is pretty loud.

Maybe the cd will be different. I'll be picking that up within the next day or so. Right now I'm just referring to the digital iTunes version.

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Guest groovyguy

http://boyculture.typepad.com/boy_culture/2012/03/critical-mass.html#more

Critical Mass

6a00d8341c2ca253ef0167644a43de970b-400wi

In honor of the release of MDNA, I'll be on Larry Flick's Sirius show Thursday, April 5, in the morning, chatting things up with him and with my new pal Sergio Kletnoy. Should be interesting, or if not interesting then at least fun.

I would characterize MDNA's reviews as "positive" (not "lukewarm," as Reuters went with in an effort to be fair and balanced), but something that surprises me among the critics and fans who are not intoxicated by it is that they seem to have a very all-or-nothing take, in their case opting for the latter. Much as I love the maligned "Girl Gone Wild," I can definitely see how some people would not like the album's dark, aggressive club bangers; much as I adore the ballads and introspective mid-tempo numbers, I guess I can see how some dance fiends would not be wild about those. But there is such a diversity on MDNA—or, if you're not feeling it, a bipolarity—that I can't really wrap my mind around hating all of it.

6a00d8341c2ca253ef0167644b018d970b-400wi

If you hate "Love Spent" and hate "Gang Bang" and hate "Masterpiece" and hate "Love Spent"...what did you ever find appealing about Madonna in the first place?

Read More

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Alright, so after being worn out last night I finally had my first listen. :shock::dramatic::wow: Here are some initial thoughts:

I first tried programming it to play the already heard singles I knew first but that damn stupid micro CD player in my bedroom skipped in the middle of the song to the next track, so I just had to put it on as intended - and GMAYL and Disasterpiece came in most handy for piss breaks. :demonic:

I just LOVE how she made the deluxe version a 2CD thing - it means I don't have to buy the standard edition with the uglier cover just to hear that in case there's any tracks I don't like a la the Clean version of Erotica. BUT, the funny thing is you don't have to do that at all. It's such a shame this deluxe format shyt is all the range now cause it would have suited perfectionist Madonna down to the ground and we could have so many bonuses.

Clearly this album is Madonna's Bionic as the bonus tracks are actually some of the best. I was shocked when "Birthday Song" - which is the best birthday song since Rihanna Stevie Wonder wasn't on the standard edition, or, more swearing aside "I Fucked Up". Those were clearly songs that would get some of the biggest attention.

I expected "Birthday" to be another bitter track about ageing and her telling the ageist h8rz to go get fucked, but it's just nice and fun - a perfect track to play for her then and really in the birthday spirit and it seems like it's always her birthday, thankfully GMAYL is really the only song with mention of time. Fabulous. "Beautiful Killer" is ALREADY the 22nd best Madonna song EVER and will only go higher. :dramatic: And LMFAO deliver her best remix in 15 years.

But anyway, as soon as the fabulous GGW finishes we're into super cool territory with "Gang Bang". Orbit's signature style hasn't changed at all and there are allusions to past works - this really feels like a better update of COAD which the album art hints at, with its cross between Erotica and COAD.

Lyrically it's better, but the only criticism I could make is the lyrics, while there aren't the big clunkers she's been prone to recently, at points it seems made up entirely of cliches and well worn sayings - my favourite though was "far from the maddening crowd" which is just too fabulous. It's also better than Hard Candy which even when musically good had a disinterested feel, clearly all stops were pulled out here.

There appears to be a couple of lesser tracks near the middle or toward the end, but I wouldn't say they were filler as it always keep the pace up and has some interesting about it, and no doubt these couple of tracks I was less keen on will prove to be big growers.

"Turn Up The Radio" is super amaze, this is clearly at heart another of her 60s psych records, way better than GMAYL and that and Disasterpiece are by far the weakest moments. One other track I believe sounds like GMAYL in parts with the backing track.

Finally, "Falling Free" falls into the tradition of serious weighty Madonna album closers that's been the case since American Life. But it's a much better take on those last few album closers, none of which I ever was that keen on. This one has all that depth but is gorgeous and especially interesting.

As soon as the album finished I scrambled to find that much discussed thank yous in the booklet and well it wasn't there! :confused: Or I couldn't see it, it was a dense load of stuck together text about the album credits which was really unreadable. I was almost expecting to see Guy Ritchie's name on the credits. :lol:

oh loomie, always so right. :inlove:

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Guest groovyguy

http://www.updt.me/go?item=madonna-s-new-album-mdna-is-turning-her-into-a-techie&t=fb

Madonna's New Album MDNA Is Turning Her Into A Techie

Back in the greed-is-good 1980s, Madonna styled herself as a material girl. Avarice hasn’t exactly disappeared in the intervening years, but the “Like A Prayer” singer has updated herself to fit the present zeitgeist, if the launch of new album MDNA is any indication.

For the album’s debut yesterday, Madonna decided to forgo the typical round of morning talk shows. She instead opted for an interview at Facebook’s New York headquarters, a live Twitter chat, and a giveaway on Spotify—two lucky listeners who play MDNA at least three times in the next two weeks will receive free tickets to one of her upcoming shows.

Madonna’s most unusual promotion, however, involves Fab.com. The nine-month-old design-focused retailer boasts 3 million members and has dedicated its homepage to MDNA, which it’s selling in both physical and digital format for $7.99, half the price of most other outlets.

“We’re on MDNA over here,” says Jason Goldberg, Fab’s founder and CEO. “It’s kind of our way of giving a big fat kiss to our members for how they’ve embraced us over the past nine months.”

It’s also a boon to Fab.com. Goldberg says his site is seeing two to three times its typical traffic because of the promotion, and expects to sell tens of thousands of copies of the album, which should move hundreds of thousands of units on the whole.

Goldberg wouldn’t discuss the details of his agreement with Universal Music Group, parent company of Interscope, the label that’s home to Madonna. But he did confirm that there was a “collaboration” of some sort.

What’s the nature of that collaboration? Hard to say for sure, but it probably means that Universal gave Fab.com a discount on the wholesale price of the record—like they did with Amazon and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. A source told me that the Amazon negotiated to pay a wholesale price of $7 for the album, which the online retail giant briefly sold for $0.99.

If Fab.com is paying the same price for MDNA, it’s a great deal for everyone involved: Madonna and her label sell tens of thousands of additional albums to an audience they might not have otherwise reached, while Goldberg’s site gets a marginal profit and a boatload of additional web traffic.

Says Goldberg: “It’s a match made in heaven.”

Just like a prayer.

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Guest groovyguy

http://idolator.com/6232792/william-orbit-madonna-kreayshawn

William Orbit Talks About Working With Madonna — And Kreayshawn Is Next

madonna-girl-gone-wild1-500x375.jpg

Madonna has developed quite a strong relationship with producer William Orbit over the years — the two packed quite a punch (and snagged a few Grammys) for their work on 1998’s Ray Of Light, and the two have teamed up for six tracks on Madge’s latest dancefloor mainstay, MDNA. Though the LP sounds totally current and on trend with the sound of dance-pop today — dubstep breakdowns, four-on-the-floor beats, Nicki Minaj — Orbit swears they kept their ears closed from listening to the Top 40 while creating the album. “We never played tracks by everybody else, all the current artists. It’s a dangerous road to go down,” he tells MTV. “It doesn’t work.”

“We liked what we’re doing in this current time and space,” Orbit continued. “What we tended to do was watch old French films from the ’60s or listen to music that was so far away that it wasn’t, in any way, relevant.”

While sharing an amusing anecdote about the one time they did listen to any current music, Orbit reveals a surprising collaboration — he’s been working with Kreayshawn, too.

“There was a moment when we were waiting for Pro Tools to reboot, or something like that, and we were just looking at links on YouTube,” he recalled. “And I was showing her Kreayshawn, and I’ve been working with her, and I really like her. And she’s obviously got this track out called ‘Hoes on My Dick’ [with the line] ” ’cause I look like Madonna.’ And, I played it for Madonna… then she was saying afterwards ‘Hoes on my dick, ’cause I am Madonna.’ That was about the only time we looked at any serious contemporary pop music.”

From Madonna to… Kreayshawn? We’re not sure if going from the Queen of Pop to the “Gucci Gucci” girl will be a total breeze for Orbit, or if he’s seriously got his work cut out for him.

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The tracks I care the least for now are I'm a Sinner, Beautiful Killer, and I Fucked Up. But I'm sure I'll like them over time. Sinner gets stuck in my head though.

It's amazing how different everyone's tastes are. Those are 3 of my 5 absolute favorites.

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I'm sure that since most music (if not all) is louder than before, our ears must have gotten used to it and anything registering below this "norm" now we think of as not a good master/recording.

Since the vinyl has a different master(from what I read) maybe it sonically sounds different.

Which leads me to my next question... does anyone know if this vinyl is a limited pressing?

My cd sounds BRILLIANT. I had the deluxe leak and is nothing compared to the real thing. I just talked to some friends yesterday about it. If physical cds dissappar, are we condemned to a worse quality in music??? Because nothing compares to a real original cd being played in a high fi cd player with good speakers.

By the way, i love cd2. Beautiful Killer is one of my fav songs in the album. YAY.

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Guest groovyguy

http://www.complex.com/music/2012/03/interview-nicki-minaj-on-madonna

Interview: Nicki Minaj On Madonna

By Miss Info | Mar 27, 2012 | 11:20 am

If every great artist travels through different periods of expression, Nicki Minaj’s explosion into the mainstream may have been her “Barbie” phase. But sitting in a cramped Indianapolis hotel room two days before the Superbowl, Nicki is going through a “Marilyn” moment. In “Marilyn Monroe,” a song off her sophomore album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, Nicki sings of the Hollywood starlet’s tortured beauty. “It’s like all the good things,” she says. “They fall apart ”

Months after recording that song, when Nicki shows up at Madonna’s “Gimme All Your Luvin’” video set, she’s faced with three Marilyn wigs and dresses for Madonna, M.I.A. and herself. (She celebrated her 29th birthday at the December 8th shoot, complete with champagne, cupcakes, and a kiss from Madonna). It’s enough to rock even the most self-possessed chick in rap back on her heels....

Interview by Miss Info (@MissInfo)

Miss Info: How was that "Gimme All Your Luvin" video shoot?

Nicki Minaj: It was kinda trippy ’cause I didn't know that was the plan. I definitely didn’t realize all of us were going to be dressing up as Marilyn... Madonna kept on calling it the bar scene... I just didn’t think it was that shot with us three dressed as Marilyn, like I didn’t mentally prepare for that.

When I saw Madonna, she really to me was Marilyn Monroe and it was very surreal because it’s like, I almost felt like I was doing a video with my two idols at the same time.

When I walked on set and saw Madonna, I literally gasped because I felt like I was looking at Marilyn Monroe and I’m so obsessed with Marilyn Monroe… Like, I have Marilyn Monroe pictures all over my house.

When I saw Madonna, she really to me was Marilyn Monroe and it was very surreal because it’s like, I almost felt like I was doing a video with my two idols at the same time. It was like, very very strange.

She had these distant, sort of like very dreamy eyes like Marilyn, like kind of distant but very there and very in charge—but almost like in their own world. And it was just so surreal, you know, just to walk downstairs and see her standing there. I was just like, Wow.

Did you learn anything else from working with Madonna?

I think that when she started, she was mentally where I am now. Feeling like, “if people would just leave me alone and let me do me, they’ll see the great things that I have to offer.” Right before I met her, I watched her documentary Truth or Dare, and because of that, I felt so connected to her when we got in the studio. Madonna’s the only humongous artist I ever worked with that actually sat with me in the studio.

Everything else these days, all these big collaborations are all done via email… No face time, right?

Madonna had me in the studio writing my rap, and she really listened to it and said, “Hmmm, you know what, is there a way you can incorporate such and such and such?” And I really changed it, and she loved it.

Yeah! Madonna, she’s so hands-on and she’s so… confident. She knows what she wants but she does it with this crazy poise. She will diss you with poise. [Laughs]. We were drinking this champagne that I really love and she was like, “No, sweetheart, that’s dessert wine... In that glass? No.” We’re cracking up laughing because, “Wow, I’m being schooled by Madonna on what champagne to drink and what to drink it in.” But we had so much fun.

Madonna had me in the studio writing my rap, and she really listened to it and said, “Hmmm, you know what, is there a way you can incorporate such and such and such?” And I really changed it, and she loved it.

It’s not on “Gimme All Your Luvin,” this is on another song for her album. We’re like toasting to it, and I’m just looking at her like, “Yo, this lady is freaking amazing,” I mean outside of her being an icon. I’m talking about how...

Involved she was? And present?

100,000 percent involved. Did not leave the studio until it was done. I mean her children even came by after school. I was just like, that’s the epitome of who I want to be. If I can balance family and career then I win. Because I love children so much—I can’t hide that.

I used to think, how do people go through life and they’re like 50 years old and they didn’t have children but they’re still pursuing, they’re still trying to tour? So I saw that and I’m in awe of her.

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Guest astonishing!

My album ratings:

LOVE

- Girl Gone Wild

- Gang Bang

- I'm Addicted

- Turn Up The Radio

- Gimme All Your Luvin'

- I Don't Give A

- Love Spent

- Beautiful Killer

- B-Day Song

LIKE

- Some Girls

- I'm A Sinner

- Masterpiece

- Falling Free

MEH

- Superstar

- I Fucked Up

- Best Friend

8/10

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Guest astonishing!

I went to ASDA today to buy my physical copy of the album and they only had the standard edition! Disgraceful! :americanlife:

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Guest SuperPop

what a FANTASTIC album this is! :clap::bow:

I am SOOOOOOO pleased+relieved after the dreadful first single (clearly the worst song on the album..I really dont know what they where thinking of when they where selecting it :manson: )

I LOVE almost every single song on it

Imagine if 'I'm Addicted' was the first single of MDNA!it would have been HUGE :(

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^ Yeah it really doesn't get better than Addicted. Inevitably it dips somewhat for a bit after "Turn Up The Radio" - how much further can they go after that?! The opening volley is reminiscent of both Music in what Orbit was involved in and COAD.

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