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MADAME X: official reviews are in: MADAME X is a hit with the critics!


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The Telegraph’s too-many-genres argument is annoying because an album doesn’t fail because of that, it fails if it doesn’t do it well. And I don’t think the critic made that case. By that same metric, Music would have been a failure; instead, it’s her strongest album. How can you put “Impressive Instant,” “I Deserve It,” and “What It Feels Like for a Girl” on the same album and expect it to work? You stitch them together thematically, texturally, and vocally. It’s possible Madame X fails to do this but “Medellín,” “Crave,” “Future,” and “I Rise” would not feel out of place on an album of bizarre, sound-forward experimental tracks like “Impressive Instant” (which I’m guessing are “God Control” and “Dark Ballet”). 

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4 minutes ago, bcx said:

The Telegraph’s too-many-genres argument is annoying because an album doesn’t fail because of that, it fails if it doesn’t do it well. And I don’t think the critic made that case. By that same metric, Music would have been a failure; instead, it’s her strongest album. How can you put “Impressive Instant,” “I Deserve It,” and “What It Feels Like for a Girl” on the same album and expect it to work? You stitch them together thematically, texturally, and vocally. It’s possible Madame X fails to do this but “Medellín,” “Crave,” “Future,” and “I Rise” would not feel out of place on an album of bizarre, sound-forward experimental tracks like “Impressive Instant” (which I’m guessing are “God Control” and “Dark Ballet”). 

I found this strange as well. It's odd because nowadays albums are just a collection of singles to be dumped on the charts like waste. When someone does a concept or an album in the older sense of the word it's a "messy"

I give up lol 

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There's another long German review out by the ZEIT, which is one of the biggest-selling newspapers here. For the people not familiar, it's comparable to the Guardian, leaning a bit on the left side with quite okay and serious journalism (though IMO like most newspapers, declining in quality since the last years, esp in the culture section). Not sure if I should it post it here since it is (surprise surprise) largely negative and they barely talk about the actual songs anyway. It's mostly focused on the clunky lyrics in Killers and her ESC performance again.

It's interesting though like some of the other negative reviews, they just can't help admitting there's something good in there. Calling the album trashy in the headline, but saying that it's at least trash made in the right way. (But then how is it trash??) ...

Oh and they confused songs, talking about M duetting with Maluma on 'I Don't Search I Find'  :chuckle: Speaks boundaries on how much they cared about actually reviewing the album.

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11 minutes ago, Nonoka said:

There's another long German review out by the ZEIT, which is one of the biggest-selling newspapers here. For the people not familiar, it's comparable to the Guardian, leaning a bit on the left side with quite okay and serious journalism (though IMO like most newspapers, declining in quality since the last years). Not sure if I should it post it here since it is (surprise surprise) largely negative.

It's interesting though like some of the other negative reviews, they just can't help admitting there's something good in there. Calling it trash in the headline, but at least trash in the right way. (But then it can't be trash anymore???)

Horrible review! OMG! But also horribly written. It is interesting to note that many comments are criticising the lack of objectivity of the article. This is a point that interestingly is present in all negative reviews so far: they all atack Madonna for the sake of it but don't discuss the music.  

Edited by Geiger83
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5 hours ago, Mr Ciccone said:

This overall score, or METASCORE, is a weighted average of the individual critic scores. Why a weighted average? When selecting our source publications, we noticed that some critics consistently write better (more detailed, more insightful, more articulate) reviews than others. In addition, some critics and/or publications typically have more prestige and respect in their industry than others. To reflect these factors, we have assigned weights to each publication (and, in the case of movies and television, to individual critics as well), thus making some publications count more in the METASCORE calculations than others.

 

https://www.metacritic.com/faq

Beyonce's Live album has a 98 rating when she barely sings her songs? I don't give these ratings any credence at all tbh.

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https://ew.com/music/2019/06/06/madonna-madame-x-review/

Madonna has a lot to say on the Latin pop-influenced Madame X: EW review

By Leah Greenblatt 

June 06, 2019 at 09:15 AM EDT

When rock music endures long enough, it becomes classic; hip-hop mellows into old-school. But how are pop stars, human vessels of everything shiny and ephemeral, supposed to stay?

“Not everyone is coming to the future, not everyone is coming from the past/Not everyone can come into the future, not everyone that’s here is gonna last,” Madonna coos robotically on the roiling dancehall jam “Future.” The second half of that couplet, at least, is literally true: Contemporaries like Prince and Whitney and Michael are gone; the ones who survived have largely left the game. At 60, Madonna mostly stands alone, if she could ever really be said to have peers at all. And she still has a lot to say on Madame X’s 15 tracks — about modern narcissism (on the piano-glitchy ballad “Dark Ballet”), geopolitics (the spare, rattling “Batuka”), and giving voice to the voiceless (the flamenco-kissed “Killers Who Are Partying”). The state-of-the-union screed “God Control” swings from shimmery roller disco to full agit-opera, with simulated gunshots. Subtle is not the word; while it’s hard to question her sincerity, you wonder what Madonna fan needs to be told to “wake up” to the world’s injustices in 2019. Material girls and boys might find simpler pleasure in songs like the swaying lead single, “Medellín,” with its echoes of “La Isla Bonita,” and the breezy intimacy of diametric bedroom lullabies “Crave” and “Crazy.”

Latin rhythms figure heavily on the whole album — a side effect, maybe, of her primary residency in Portugal over the past few years. But its global sounds and millennial guest stars, including rappers Quavo and Swae Lee, can feel more like obligatory flag-planting than organic evolution. As an artist, Madonna owes nothing to some ageist, retrograde idea of what she’s allowed to be; if only Madame felt like a more compelling rebuttal to all that. B-

 

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I generally like Leah Greenblatt’s reviews, so I will not complain too much.  Sounds more like a B or B+ from what she writes, so the grade is kind of annoying.  But I like the descriptions of Dark Ballet as a ballad,  Batuka being “spare and rattling,” and God Control morphing from disco to agit opera.  And she is the first to tell us something about the style of Killers Who Are Partying!

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EW gave Rebel Heart C+ but on Metacritic site it is calculated as 75.

So B- should be higher. I am aware that they have a chart which corresponds to 67 but this doesn't match the Rebel Heart score.

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2 hours ago, Bretticus said:

Beyonce's Live album has a 98 rating when she barely sings her songs? I don't give these ratings any credence at all tbh.

homecoming is a flawless record / video feature, idk why everyone hates her here... tbh i hope Madame X stays between 80 to 70 or stays on 80... that'd speak volumes to her haters...

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3 hours ago, Nonoka said:

There's another long German review out by the ZEIT, which is one of the biggest-selling newspapers here. For the people not familiar, it's comparable to the Guardian, leaning a bit on the left side with quite okay and serious journalism (though IMO like most newspapers, declining in quality since the last years, esp in the culture section). Not sure if I should it post it here since it is (surprise surprise) largely negative and they barely talk about the actual songs anyway. It's mostly focused on the clunky lyrics in Killers and her ESC performance again.

It's interesting though like some of the other negative reviews, they just can't help admitting there's something good in there. Calling the album trashy in the headline, but saying that it's at least trash made in the right way. (But then how is it trash??) ...

Oh and they confused songs, talking about M duetting with Maluma on 'I Don't Search I Find'  :chuckle: Speaks boundaries on how much they cared about actually reviewing the album.

The hate she gets from the critics here in Germany is crazy! They tear her and the album in peaces. Quite shocking for me. The critics are out of Control. Like they waited for this moment for years.

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Just now, Jim34 said:

The hate she gets from the critics here in Germany is crazy! They tear her and the album in peaces. Quite shocking for me. The critics are out of Control. Like they waited for this moment for years.

Yes, it’s disturbing. But then again, it’s just the opinion of two people.

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Especially the Der Spiegel review at the end, where he writes that Madonna couldn’t do an evening on the piano or a concert in a church and her fans would prefer a singer / songwriter album LOL 😆 sorry what bullshit is this..

Actually we shouldn’t read that and listen without prejudice. I love all released tracks so far. Much more than anything on the last two records.

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Every German paper seems to publish the same review by the same person -  🤣 why do they bother? Just translated the Stern one which seems identical to the previous!

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