"Rebel Heart" Reviews [continued] - thread 2

[Guest Pud Whacker]

Oh you are totally right. Never would I personally imply or think that a fan shouldn't be able to give the album a five star review. I give it 6/5!!! But to respond to every review that questions any of M's artistic choices or flat out calls her out on something that is valid and specific to the review and its writer with a knee-jerk response akin to defending oneself after a kick in the teeth is just immature and not very worthwhile in my opinion. It's great to have a forum for discussion. It's not great when it verges on becoming evangelical.

.

I give the album a 10/5!!!!

I'm ecstatically in love with it!!!

[rocknrolla]

The weirdest thing about this album is I would have said the theme of this album is Madonna accepting her age, her place in pop culture, her past, and her status as pop icon. Songs directly address aging something she has never done before: Wash All Over Me, and Borrowed Time. Of course, most critics probably didn't hear the last, since she decided to stick it on the super deluxe edition.

[Guest Pud Whacker]

When I first heard the SEX demo, my first thought was that it definitely would not make the album because the lyrics were so straightforward, almost silly. Then i heard the final version with the dramatic production and her "rap" clearly with the grillz and it all came together.....she is actually being silly. I suppose its up to the listener to decide whether that works or not. I just don't agree these songs are coming from this desperate to stay young and relevant place some critics are claiming.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the Carol Channing rap!!!

[MLVCPR]

Have you visited the 10 least favorite songs in the Madonna section?

Because it seems these people would have nothing to contribute from this album. Which is interesting because it holds the most variety and songs.

The songs selected in that thread seem unanimously disliked. The way critics are unanimously disliking...

I tried. It seems like the majority of the songs universally disliked are what one might consider a collection of Madonna's kitsch/camp moments. I understand that in the context of the albums some of those songs appeared on. Cherish always ruined my personal LAP flow, but I love the song as a stand alone track. Same with I Know It, Jimmy Jimmy, Can't Stop, Hey You, I'm Going Bananas etc. Superstar is the one exception. It is a turd of monumental proportions in the greater Madonna canon.

Edited March 5, 2015 by MLVCPR

[Glindathegood]

As far as reviews and reviewers, I just want the same consistent standard for every artist. I feel with other artists a lot of reviewers make more of an effort to understand where they're coming from or even overlook or make excuses for an album's obvious flaws. With Madonna, it seems they search hard for any possible flaw and judge it harshly when they do find it. They seem to hold her to a much higher standard than any other artist. I've read reviews of other artists that read like fan love letters not finding a single flaw in the album and it's just accepted as normal. But you can never have a review of a Madonna album like that. If reviewers are going to be critical and expect perfection, why not expect that from every artist. Some artists are given the benefit of the doubt, Madonna isn't. Any praise is almost backhanded or begrudging.

[Guest Pud Whacker]

As far as reviews and reviewers, I just want the same consistent standard for every artist. I feel with other artists a lot of reviewers make more of an effort to understand where they're coming from or even overlook or make excuses for an album's obvious flaws. With Madonna, it seems they search hard for any possible flaw and judge it harshly when they do find it. They seem to hold her to a much higher standard than any other artist. I've read reviews of other artists that read like fan love letters not finding a single flaw in the album and it's just accepted as normal. But you can never have a review of a Madonna album like that. If reviewers are going to be critical and expect perfection, why not expect that from every artist. Some artists are given the benefit of the doubt, Madonna isn't. Any praise is almost backhanded or begrudging.

US magazine did just that and it was insulting.

From the reputable mags, I'd like to see one of these love letter reviews, from another artist, you're talking about.

[MLVCPR]

As far as reviews and reviewers, I just want the same consistent standard for every artist. I feel with other artists a lot of reviewers make more of an effort to understand where they're coming from or even overlook or make excuses for an album's obvious flaws. With Madonna, it seems they search hard for any possible flaw and judge it harshly when they do find it. They seem to hold her to a much higher standard than any other artist. I've read reviews of other artists that read like fan love letters not finding a single flaw in the album and it's just accepted as normal. But you can never have a review of a Madonna album like that. If reviewers are going to be critical and expect perfection, why not expect that from every artist. Some artists are given the benefit of the doubt, Madonna isn't. Any praise is almost backhanded or begrudging.

Yeah, but in the grand scheme of things, no one is going to quote the Rolling Stone review of the latest Bonnie Raitt album, or even the last U2 record. Younger, newer singers are going to get a more visceral praise or dismissal because they are shaping an identity. Madonna is building on something that has been intrinsic to pop culture for more decades than anyone can recall at this point. In the same way as adult contemporary, jazz and vocalist aficionados herald or skewer a Barbra Streisand release, pop culturists feel the same invested need with Madonna's output. I personally love it. It makes me excited to read vitriol as much as praise. Forces me to rethink and refocus, and eventually come out sure of my own opinion, which in my world is the only one that counts!

[Glindathegood]

The weirdest thing about this album is I would have said the theme of this album is Madonna accepting her age, her place in pop culture, her past, and her status as pop icon. Songs directly address aging something she has never done before: Wash All Over Me, and Borrowed Time. Of course, most critics probably didn't hear the last, since she decided to stick it on the super deluxe edition.

I agree. As I said before, one of the themes of the album is retrospection and looking back at your past, not just career wise or musically but also at personal relationships and even at the state of the world and asking how did we get to this place? It's odd because she's never had that kind of nostalgia before.

I kind of like it though. I've always found it odd when people saw only the now matters and focus on the future only and dismiss the past. No one knows what the future holds, but the past you know what it is and it's really the only definite thing really. Your past experiences good and bad make you who you are, so how can you say they are irrelevant. I guess she's saying on some level you have to embrace your past or at least understand it to move forward.

But I find critics rarely look at themes. They tend to analyze each song individually. But I guess it's hard in that they only listen to the album once or twice on a limited deadline so it's hard to really think that broadly.

[Guscq]

I'll wipe my ass with a bad review who fuckin cares seriously

This...

[Mr.Candy]

Berliner Zeitung review is AMAZING!

it's my favorite german review...!

[Arnian]

Really sucks that EW gets to be counted twice on Metacritic. That's seems unfair and disproportionate.

One 75 score and then one 58 score for a total of a 66 currently.

This album deserves to be in the 70's at least.

[rocknrolla]

Yes, it should be higher than MDNA, at least. Does any fan here seriously prefer it?

[Msig]

I just noticed the Billboard is only 3.5 out of 5. That's odd. With some other artists it seems like they make criticisms of them but still given them a much higher score.

Indeed:

"Madonna has never gotten the credit she deserves as a musician, or as an album artist. Her essential interests are unchanging -- dancefloor ecstasy, European balladry, 1960s pop classicism -- but her expression of them finds new articulations. Rebel Heart has 14 producers working in seven different teams and still it sounds exactly like a Madonna album."

[Glindathegood]

Yes, it should be higher than MDNA, at least. Does any fan here seriously prefer it?

I enjoy MDNA, but Rebel Heart is a much better album.

[Guest]

Yeah, but in the grand scheme of things, no one is going to quote the Rolling Stone review of the latest Bonnie Raitt album, or even the last U2 record. Younger, newer singers are going to get a more visceral praise or dismissal because they are shaping an identity. Madonna is building on something that has been intrinsic to pop culture for more decades than anyone can recall at this point. In the same way as adult contemporary, jazz and vocalist aficionados herald or skewer a Barbra Streisand release, pop culturists feel the same invested need with Madonna's output. I personally love it. It makes me excited to read vitriol as much as praise. Forces me to rethink and refocus, and eventually come out sure of my own opinion, which in my world is the only one that counts!

loving all of your posts...

[Guest]

Berliner Zeitung review is AMAZING!

can you post it? ...translated?

[Glindathegood]

Yeah, but in the grand scheme of things, no one is going to quote the Rolling Stone review of the latest Bonnie Raitt album, or even the last U2 record. Younger, newer singers are going to get a more visceral praise or dismissal because they are shaping an identity. Madonna is building on something that has been intrinsic to pop culture for more decades than anyone can recall at this point. In the same way as adult contemporary, jazz and vocalist aficionados herald or skewer a Barbra Streisand release, pop culturists feel the same invested need with Madonna's output. I personally love it. It makes me excited to read vitriol as much as praise. Forces me to rethink and refocus, and eventually come out sure of my own opinion, which in my world is the only one that counts!

Interesting viewpoint. I guess I never thought of it that way. I guess you have a point. I don't want to become like Antonin Scalia who says he doesn't read the Washington Post or the New York Times because they have liberal viewpoints he doesn't agree with. It's good to read what the "other side" thinks.

[Arnian]

Really propesterous if it ends up with a lower score than fucking MDNA. She seriously can't catch a break even when the music is fantastic

[Nikki]

thank fucking god they counted EW as 75

[Nikki]

and billboard can fuck off. a 70, really?

[mad4mad2]

thank fucking god they counted EW as 75

They also counted it as 58

[side_streets]

They also counted it as 58

They counted two separate reviews from EW.

[Coadf]

For me scores would be like this:

Ray Of Light 90

Music 85

American Life 75

Confessions 95

Hard candy 75

MDNA 70

Rebel Heart 90

Rebel Heart is her best album in years.

[Glindathegood]

They also counted it as 58

But I guess that proves she is still relevant to pop culture and inspires debate. What other artist would they do two separate reviews of?

[Glindathegood]

Here's a review from Financial Times. Oddly they love the sexy immature songs, but hate the ballads. I guess she's damned no matter what she does.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0141a1a8-c35b-11e4-8fa9-00144feab7de.html#axzz3TY6oUjxZ

In “Joan of Arc”, a track on her new album Rebel Heart, Madonna complains about haters hating on her. “Just hold me while I cry my eyes out,” she sings, accompanied by glum acoustic guitar. We tentatively place our arms around the sobbing superstar, disconcerted to find the imperious alpha female of old in such a pitiable condition. “I can’t be a superhero right now,” she sings with pathos. An awful image comes to mind: Madonna tumbling to the floor at the Brit Awards, victim of a cape-related mishap no superhero would ever suffer.

This aura of fallibility permeates Rebel Heart, her unlucky 13th studio album, which was leaked unfinished to the internet last year. It is overlong and crammed with producers and songwriters, including Avicii, Kanye West and Diplo. Mike Tyson and Chance the Rapper guest on the wonderfully unhinged “Iconic”, Nicki Minaj pops up on “Bitch I’m Madonna”. The tone swings wildly from poor-me break-up songs to hard-edged bangers. The latter, designed to rile critics carping on about her age, are the most fun.

The Madonna who snarls “Get off my pole” over sleazy electro-pop in “Holy Water”, channelling both her own hit “Vogue” and the preposterous erotic thriller Showgirls, is vastly preferable to the Madonna maundering about being “scarred and bruised” in dull ballad “Hold Tight”. We want the cape and the attitude: more rebel, less heart. Leave vulnerability to the little people.

[david86]

Several reviews in Holland praise Madonna. It comes down to:

she's still relevant and there are some really good tracks as well as scary ones (sex etc) BUT much better than MDNA, best album since music blabla

average 3.5-4/5 stars so far.

[Guest PRPapi]

As with everything Madonna has ever created, this album will require context and hindsight to be appreciated. No one can see objectively from behind the barrage of current pop that this album may end up being commercially and critically eclipsed by. I listened to Kelly Clarkson's latest, and aside from some occasional catchy hooks, the production is truly a hodgepodge of current production trends that sound out of place and lend nothing to the songs or the identity of the vocalist. That really cannot be said on the whole of the tracks on Rebel Heart. These songs have layers, subtleties and twists that flow with a fluidity Madonna has tapped into on most of her better received albums. There is a consistency without sacrificing diversity, and this allows for nods to so many different facets of her musical career that it might not be as accessible to the casual listener and critic.

To most people, I imagine they will hear a collection of single-worthy tracks and a few duds bordering on the verge of camp. That makes sense given the swing from endearing vulnerability to icy "ironic" self-celebration, but again, anyone who isn't understanding that Madonna cannot be decontextualized both musically and as a performer isn't going to appreciate that aspect of the release, nor will they make the effort to. All this said, musical critics, pompous and arrogant or meek and combative alike, are entitled and obligated to find a voice beyond personal taste that fits into the Zeitgeist. What is being critiqued is more a reflection of how society feels about an ostensibly older woman making a spectacle of herself. Some people cringe, some roar and some revel. That's fucking life, and it is what proves how alive Madonna's music truly remains.

To all the original wannabes and whatever the fuck this newer generation of "fans" call themselves, stop partaking in this ugly Lady Goober/Little Monsters paradigm. Not everyone likes Madonna's music, and it isn't only because they are stupid or less evolved than you, or out to get you. It might simply be because they don't have the dedication that you have to one particular artist. Now go enjoy what you enjoy and quit giving yourselves hemorrhoids over every word iterated that doesn't put M on a golden pedestal. NME has always had an indie identity. That Madonna even manages to be reviewed by them 33 years after releasing her first commercial single is testament to the power of her music.

We are not fascist wolves. We are not Little Monsters. Repeat and rinse.

BRAVO!!!

[Glindathegood]

Here's a nice review from the heart of Texas. Who would have thunk it? Not always the friendliest area to Madonna. But I guess Texas is a rebel state!

http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article12670982.html

Watching Madonna attempt to wrestle the 21st century into submission ahead of her new studio album, Rebel Heart, has been fascinating.

A refugee from music’s monocultural heyday, Madonna has tried to seem nimble and flexible rather than a MTV relic.

One stumble after another has dogged Her Madgesty, whether it’s her recent, painful tumble at the BRIT Awards or Heart’s Internet leak a full month ahead of its release.

In each instance, she’s forged ahead, but these missteps underscore how difficult a high profile publicity campaign is — no matter your stature — in the Internet age.

She even included a brief memo to journalists with Heart, her first studio album in three years, following 2012’s MDNA.

In it, the 56-year-old singer-songwriter shares her initial vision — “I knew I wanted to explore the duality of my personality which is renegade and romantic,” Madonna writes — as well as what seems like a disclaimer as defensive as it is paradoxically vulnerable.

“I have opinions,” she writes. “What else can you do if you’re an artist? I don’t know any other way except to offer up my heart, or ‘Come on, you wanna f— with me? Let’s go.’”

Such overbearing, pre-release micromanaging gives a whiff of preemptive damage control, mitigating the impact of a forgettable record (for my money, Madonna’s last high water mark was a decade ago, on 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor), so imagine the pleasant surprise: Heart manages to balance the tough and tender sides of Madge’s personality in entertaining fashion.

For a substantial stretch of Heart, from the gorgeous atmospherics ofGhosttown through to the gritty Joan of Arc, Madonna offers a side of herself she hasn’t exhibited since the transitional ‘90s. The human side of being an icon is fertile terrain, often left unexplored, because introspection doesn’t always mesh well with pop escapism.

And while Madonna has some fun with tabloid rumors — Illuminati, her much-touted collaboration with Kanye West, is bitingly funny, as well as pleasingly of-the-musical-moment — Heart takes hold when she drops her guard, and distances herself from guests like Nicki Minaj and Chance the Rapper, admitting the high cost of global superstardom.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now/Just hold me while I cry my eyes out,” she sings on Joan of Arc, a mid-tempo ballad providing sharp contrast with boastful tracks like the reggae-tinged, Diplo-produced Unapologetic B—.

What sneaks up on you as Rebel Heart unfolds — a little lengthy in its 55-minute version; absurdly over-long in its 75-minute “deluxe edition” format — is Madonna, for all the hiccups in the months prior to the album’s release, hit upon a realization as true in the 21st century as it was in the 19th: being yourself, regardless of the consequences, will win out every time.

In other words, substance almost always trumps style, but for a rare few artists, one can enhance the other.

Having the chutzpah to pull it off, in this short-attention-span age, is Madonna’s true act of rebellion.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article12670982.html#storylink=cpy

[rebelvvv]

Here's a nice review from the heart of Texas. Who would have thunk it? Not always the friendliest area to Madonna. But I guess Texas is a rebel state!

[Nikki]

interesting how the telegraaf.nl reviewed queen as well, (thought it wasn't on the official album ? ) but saying she 's a queen in their eyes because the album is good.