Elysium Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I think we already know Hard Candy was certainly not ahead of it's time at all. It arrived too long after the success of Nelly Furtado's 'Loose' and Timbaland's 'Shock Value' so 'Hard Candy' sounded dated and stale by comparison when it was finally released. It wouldn't sell well if it were released now despite the Robin Thicke/Pharrel Williams/Daft Punk R&B/funk/disco sounds that are around now. The more recent sounds are a lot more polished/finished and have more of a funk injection. Although saying that, I think if Hard Candy had contained more of a pure funk vibe it could have been a winner. The best productions for me are Miles Away and Devil Wouldn't Recognise You. Songs like Beat Goes On and She's Not Me just aren't strong enough to be compared to the current sounds in my honest opinion. They are too girlish and just don't have the usual mark of perfection we hear on some of M's previous work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bluejean Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I think we already know Hard Candy was certainly not ahead of it's time at all. You would think but as this thread has revealed apparently not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bluejean Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 GetUnconscious, you're defining "avant garde" as something that is completely new and has never been done before, when that's simply an inaccurate definition. Exactly. Couldn't be bothered arguing about it but that's what I was thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt420 Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 The thing is...producers have their own "sound" and they can't really create a custom-made sound for everyone that they produce.I think,with Hard Candy,Madonna specifically wanted that sound.She had been listening to Justin Timberlake's album FutureSexLoveSounds and she wanted a piece of that sound.Timbaland and Pharrell were just giving Madonna what she wanted. Exactly! All of her albums are essentially the sound of the producer(s) she's working with at the time. Why would HC be any different? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt420 Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I think we already know Hard Candy was certainly not ahead of it's time at all. It arrived too long after the success of Nelly Furtado's 'Loose' and Timbaland's 'Shock Value' so 'Hard Candy' sounded dated and stale by comparison when it was finally released. It wouldn't sell well if it were released now despite the Robin Thicke/Pharrel Williams/Daft Punk R&B/funk/disco sounds that are around now. The more recent sounds are a lot more polished/finished and have more of a funk injection. Although saying that, I think if Hard Candy had contained more of a pure funk vibe it could have been a winner. The best productions for me are Miles Away and Devil Wouldn't Recognise You. Songs like Beat Goes On and She's Not Me just aren't strong enough to be compared to the current sounds in my honest opinion. They are too girlish and just don't have the usual mark of perfection we hear on some of M's previous work. I couldn't disagree more as far as your "pure funk" assessment goes. The Pharrell productions ARE the funkiest tracks on the album. I mean, it doesn't get much funkier (at least in terms of a Madonna album) than having a Prince protege (Wendy Melvoin) play on your album. The Pharrell stuff harkens back to the sound of R&B in the early 80's. The Timbo ones are the more, polished, commercial ones that are "of the time" in their sound.....although I have to say he tricked me with D2N. Upon first listen, I truly thought that was a Pharrell track. I wish we could've seen more of THAT side of Timbo on the album.....not that I dislike what he did do on HC, but I tend to lean more toward the Pharrell stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erotica blu Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I couldn't disagree more as far as your "pure funk" assessment goes. The Pharrell productions ARE the funkiest tracks on the album. I mean, it doesn't get much funkier (at least in terms of a Madonna album) than having a Prince protege (Wendy Melvoin) play on your album. The Pharrell stuff harkens back to the sound of R&B in the early 80's. The Timbo ones are the more, polished, commercial ones that are "of the time" in their sound.....although I have to say he tricked me with D2N. Upon first listen, I truly thought that was a Pharrell track. I wish we could've seen more of THAT side of Timbo on the album.....not that I dislike what he did do on HC, but I tend to lean more toward the Pharrell stuff. There's a reason why Madonna utilized Pharrell more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bluejean Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Well I think she just did a bunch of songs with both and then picked the best songs for the album. pharrell ended up with more songs. I suspect she clicked with him more than Timbaland. Which isn't surprising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themkpage Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I think it obviously was, as is every Madonna album is one way or another. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vocalism Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I was being half serious and somewhat facetious about BAT/TOD. The inspiration for that has to be Vaudeville, theatre, Fosse and the dance world in general. Regarding Medulla, there was music written purely for voice in Medievil times. Full rhythm sections, melodies, percussive singing and lyrical lead. The only difference was the recording or lack thereof. Right, and you're continuing to prove my point. You're defining "avant garde" as "something that has never been done before by another human being." That's absurd and just inaccurate. Very few things Madonna has done are truly "avant garde," but it's not because other people have done them before. Would you call her X-static Process project "avant garde"? Because it was. And I'm sure there are people who have done similar things. We should probably just agree to disagree at this point though.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dollhouse Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I think we already know Hard Candy was certainly not ahead of it's time at all. It arrived too long after the success of Nelly Furtado's 'Loose' and Timbaland's 'Shock Value' so 'Hard Candy' sounded dated and stale by comparison when it was finally released. It wouldn't sell well if it were released now despite the Robin Thicke/Pharrel Williams/Daft Punk R&B/funk/disco sounds that are around now. The more recent sounds are a lot more polished/finished and have more of a funk injection. Although saying that, I think if Hard Candy had contained more of a pure funk vibe it could have been a winner. The best productions for me are Miles Away and Devil Wouldn't Recognise You. Songs like Beat Goes On and She's Not Me just aren't strong enough to be compared to the current sounds in my honest opinion. They are too girlish and just don't have the usual mark of perfection we hear on some of M's previous work. please those tracks are some of the more polished of her entire career.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starman Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I hate devil's production , its sooo 2006-2007 Like a timberlake copy The pharrel tracks are pretty timeless IMO , shes not me , BGO.. Candy shop are very madonna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 I think we already know Hard Candy was certainly not ahead of it's time at all. It arrived too long after the success of Nelly Furtado's 'Loose' and Timbaland's 'Shock Value' so 'Hard Candy' sounded dated and stale by comparison when it was finally released. It wouldn't sell well if it were released now despite the Robin Thicke/Pharrel Williams/Daft Punk R&B/funk/disco sounds that are around now. The more recent sounds are a lot more polished/finished and have more of a funk injection. Although saying that, I think if Hard Candy had contained more of a pure funk vibe it could have been a winner. The best productions for me are Miles Away and Devil Wouldn't Recognise You. Songs like Beat Goes On and She's Not Me just aren't strong enough to be compared to the current sounds in my honest opinion. They are too girlish and just don't have the usual mark of perfection we hear on some of M's previous work. So you think she needed less Timbaland and more funk but like the Timbaland songs and don't like the funk influenced Pharrell tracks? I'm really struggling what exactly you are trying to say here. She's not me is perfection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Right, and you're continuing to prove my point. You're defining "avant garde" as "something that has never been done before by another human being." That's absurd and just inaccurate. Very few things Madonna has done are truly "avant garde," but it's not because other people have done them before. Would you call her X-static Process project "avant garde"? Because it was. And I'm sure there are people who have done similar things. We should probably just agree to disagree at this point though.... What is Avante Garde about that?!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 It's like saying 'if a football player plays three blind mice on fleet he suddenly becomes an Avante Garde flutist'. Why should we consider the XP project Avante Garde? That's not a rhetorical question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phineaspoe Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 No, I would have released that first. But I think there were stronger singles that would have made a greater chart impact than Give It 2 Me and especially Miles Away. The Beat Goes On was a shoe-in for a single, but I guess she didn;t want to be seen releasing two singles in a row with rappers. It's a difficult problem we have in our hands, then - if the obvious first single is 4 Minutes, and 4 Minutes is kind of a sell out song that sounds derivative and doesn't really sound like the rest of Hard Candy (or the better part of it), then we're starting off in the wrong foot. Like we did with GMAYL. The album would still be not represented well, and all the backlash from that single would still come up. Like we did with GMAYL. I absolutely agree that there is better single material instead of GI2M and Miles Away, as much as I love them. Beat Goes On and She's Not Me being the obvious two examples (and Devil, if the production wasn't so terrible and she didn't sound like she recorded it in her bathtub). So in terms of having chosen the wrong singles, I guess that's only 2/3 true - they chose the right first single. But because that "right" first single was crap, it's actually the wrong single too. In short, she should've never recorded that song, period! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vocalism Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 What is Avante Garde about that?!!!! Avant-garde (from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard") refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, or politics. Good night! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuRwzKWmOak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tj4HCC9-oo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erotica blu Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Avant-garde (from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard") refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, or politics. Good night! By that definition AMERICAN LIFE, EROTICA, and a host of other Madonna projects are very much so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vocalism Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 ^ True, but while there are avant-garde elements to a lot of what Madonna has done, very few projects as a whole have been entirely avant-garde. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erotica blu Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 ^ True, but while there are avant-garde elements to a lot of what Madonna has done, very few projects as a whole have been entirely avant-garde. And they bloody likely won't ever be because of AMERICAN LIFE fallout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rachelle of London Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Could you imagine the fuss witrh M releasing SNM when she was divorcing Guy! She'd of loved it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt420 Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 It seems like many of the songs M fans think would be the best singles are actually just fantastic album tracks.....often the best on their respective albums, but wouldn't be good choices commercially. With that said, personally, I don't think Madonna should even choose her singles from the perspective of what's best commercially anymore. I truly don't think it matters what she releases these days, beyond the lead single, it's gonna be an uphill battle for her to have hits.....that's just how it's gonna be IMO. From a commercial perspective, I think the singles released from HC were fine, I just think she could've released BGO and DWRY along with those singles and perhaps in a different order than what they were released. HC was THE album to milk for singles! If she was going to have hits, that would've been the album to do it. I also believe with MDNA the most blatantly commercial tracks were chosen. GB, IA, LS, FF etc, while fan faves aren't the most commercially obvious choices. I would have no problem with her going all "Bedtime Story" with the single releases from now on....albums don't really sell anyways and she's getting the majority of her wealth these days from touring anyways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Masterpiece Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Of course. 4Minutes was fresh and a huge hit. Everyone was digging it...but personally GI2M was great and funky. Especially the remix and the lyrics, they just blew the socks off me. Madonna loves this album. She used Spanish Lessons, Give It 2 Me, Heartbeat, Candy Shop, She's Not Me in parts of her MDNA Tour. The singles were just fucked up but other than that it was a good album. Same as this time. M was too focused on the tour and didn't promote it like before with COADF Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt420 Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 I ADORE COADF but whoever said something about it being looked back at with rose tinted glasses all the time is right. At the time people thought she should've promoted more too and let's not get started about the complaints on the videos....all of them....even HU (although less so) got slammed....as did the single choices. NOW of course it was perfection but at the time it wasn't. And in the US, the promo was Letterman a month before the album came out and the Grammy's 3 months after the album came out. WHOOP WHOOP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Avant-garde (from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard") refers to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, or politics. Good night! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuRwzKWmOak http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Tj4HCC9-oo How is this Avante Garde though? It's barely innovative or experimental at all. It's been done to death in the art world. In er arena Madonna seems like she is Avante Garde and in her mindset she most definitely is but this piece of work is not in the broader context of performance art/installation art. I took this from Wikipedia as you took your definition. Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Madonna is a postmodern artist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 I ADORE COADF but whoever said something about it being looked back at with rose tinted glasses all the time is right. At the time people thought she should've promoted more too and let's not get started about the complaints on the videos....all of them....even HU (although less so) got slammed....as did the single choices. NOW of course it was perfection but at the time it wasn't. And in the US, the promo was Letterman a month before the album came out and the Grammy's 3 months after the album came out. WHOOP WHOOP. THANK YOU!!!!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonski43 Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Hard Candy was the turning point in her career in the UK. Although 4 Minutes was huge, by the time Miles Away came out, Radio 1 had abandoned her and there seemed a notable shift away from her. Celebration only got airplay once it charted in the top ten and from then on, Radio 1 has decided to focus on younger artists. Same with U2 though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Who gives a fuck about Radio 1? It's nothing these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nightcutter Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Who cares? Lets close this thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest bluejean Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Well it seems alot of people care actually Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnox Posted June 13, 2013 Author Share Posted June 13, 2013 So in terms of having chosen the wrong singles, I guess that's only 2/3 true - they chose the right first single. But because that "right" first single was crap, it's actually the wrong single too. In short, she should've never recorded that song, period! LOVE THIS response! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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