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https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/madonnas-medellin-left-us-gagging-madame-x-era-2478004

Madonna’s Latin-pop ‘Medellín’ has left us gagging for the ‘Madame X’ era

Charlotte Gunn

Apr 17, 2019 5:11 pm BST

The first taste of new music from Madonna's Madame X is a surprising, self-reflective gem of a pop song.

Madonna is back, bitches. It’s been four years since our lady released ‘Rebel Heart’ – her EDM influenced thirteenth record – and after a week or so of mysterious social media teasers­ trailing upcoming album ‘Madame X’, the first new music from the OG queen of pop is here.

“One, two, one, two, one two, cha cha cha”, a breathy Madonna whispers as she kicks off ‘Medellín’, and suddenly we’re in a sticky Colombian dance studio. The track is a duet with reggaeton megastar, Maluma, a 25-year-old who is yet to make major gains in the western music market, but trust me when I say that in South America, he is a Very Big Deal.

In this collaboration, we find Madge in a reflective mood

“I took a pill and had a dream/I went back to my seventeenth year,” she sings, “Allowed myself to be naïve/ to be someone I’ve never been”.

In the four years that have passed since ‘Rebel Heart’, Madonna has relocated to Lisbon, Portugal, the act of a “Soccer Mom” hoping to help her son David fulfil his dreams of becoming a professional footballer. In October, Madonna shared photos of herself immersed in the Lisboa music scene: “Inspiration for my new record started here in Lisbon in Tejo bar”, she said on Instagram of a small dive bar, a spot where locals watch live Fado music (RIP their low-key existence). All the signs were there that we could expect a Latin sound from M:14.

It was on a break from Portugal, in Marrakesh, that Madonna also celebrated her sixtieth birthday last summer. This, too, seems significant when delving into ‘Medellín’. Reflectiveness is an inevitable side-effect of growing older: what would Madonna’s life have been, should she have taken a different turn at 17? What if she approached the world with childlike naivety, rather than as the determined and fearless force we know, powered by the hurt by losing her mother at a young age. What if she ran away to Colombia?

In Maluma’s Spanish verse, he calls on “his queen” to take a trip with him to Medellín. “We can go to Detroit if you want/I know where you’re from,” he sings, reminding us again, that Madonna, the highest grossing solo artist of all time, was at one point just a kid in Detroit, dreaming of making it big.

The chorus, has hooky cha-cha beats, pausing for Madge to beg Maluma to “slow down, Papi” – a line fans will guzzle up with glee. Start working, meme-makers.

And the track is everything we want from a Madonna comeback: it’s fresh, (arguably her best work in years), it sets the tone for a brand new era and, if ‘Medellín’ is an indicator of what’s to come, it’ll be an exciting shift from the electro-pop bangers Madge has offered up in recent times.

Sure, this is not the first time we’ve heard her majesty dabble in the Spanish tongue – ‘La Isla Bonita’, being a classic example – but this is Madonna integrating herself into a musical genre that has real weight right now, pulling in an established artist from the Latin pop world to give it some gravitas.

From the teasers on social, we know Madame X is a chameleon, so who’s to say if this is a flavour for the album as a whole. She is described as a cha-cha instructor, a professor, a head of state, a housekeeper, an equestrian, a prisoner, as student, a teacher, a nun, a cabaret singer, a saint and a prostitute.

We’ve had our dance lesson. Now, what next?

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25 minutes ago, Magician said:

NME

https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/madonnas-medellin-left-us-gagging-madame-x-era-2478004

Madonna’s Latin-pop ‘Medellín’ has left us gagging for the ‘Madame X’ era

Charlotte Gunn

Apr 17, 2019 5:11 pm BST

The first taste of new music from Madonna's Madame X is a surprising, self-reflective gem of a pop song.

Madonna is back, bitches. It’s been four years since our lady released ‘Rebel Heart’ – her EDM influenced thirteenth record – and after a week or so of mysterious social media teasers­ trailing upcoming album ‘Madame X’, the first new music from the OG queen of pop is here.

“One, two, one, two, one two, cha cha cha”, a breathy Madonna whispers as she kicks off ‘Medellín’, and suddenly we’re in a sticky Colombian dance studio. The track is a duet with reggaeton megastar, Maluma, a 25-year-old who is yet to make major gains in the western music market, but trust me when I say that in South America, he is a Very Big Deal.

In this collaboration, we find Madge in a reflective mood

“I took a pill and had a dream/I went back to my seventeenth year,” she sings, “Allowed myself to be naïve/ to be someone I’ve never been”.

In the four years that have passed since ‘Rebel Heart’, Madonna has relocated to Lisbon, Portugal, the act of a “Soccer Mom” hoping to help her son David fulfil his dreams of becoming a professional footballer. In October, Madonna shared photos of herself immersed in the Lisboa music scene: “Inspiration for my new record started here in Lisbon in Tejo bar”, she said on Instagram of a small dive bar, a spot where locals watch live Fado music (RIP their low-key existence). All the signs were there that we could expect a Latin sound from M:14.

It was on a break from Portugal, in Marrakesh, that Madonna also celebrated her sixtieth birthday last summer. This, too, seems significant when delving into ‘Medellín’. Reflectiveness is an inevitable side-effect of growing older: what would Madonna’s life have been, should she have taken a different turn at 17? What if she approached the world with childlike naivety, rather than as the determined and fearless force we know, powered by the hurt by losing her mother at a young age. What if she ran away to Colombia?

In Maluma’s Spanish verse, he calls on “his queen” to take a trip with him to Medellín. “We can go to Detroit if you want/I know where you’re from,” he sings, reminding us again, that Madonna, the highest grossing solo artist of all time, was at one point just a kid in Detroit, dreaming of making it big.

The chorus, has hooky cha-cha beats, pausing for Madge to beg Maluma to “slow down, Papi” – a line fans will guzzle up with glee. Start working, meme-makers.

And the track is everything we want from a Madonna comeback: it’s fresh, (arguably her best work in years), it sets the tone for a brand new era and, if ‘Medellín’ is an indicator of what’s to come, it’ll be an exciting shift from the electro-pop bangers Madge has offered up in recent times.

Sure, this is not the first time we’ve heard her majesty dabble in the Spanish tongue – ‘La Isla Bonita’, being a classic example – but this is Madonna integrating herself into a musical genre that has real weight right now, pulling in an established artist from the Latin pop world to give it some gravitas.

From the teasers on social, we know Madame X is a chameleon, so who’s to say if this is a flavour for the album as a whole. She is described as a cha-cha instructor, a professor, a head of state, a housekeeper, an equestrian, a prisoner, as student, a teacher, a nun, a cabaret singer, a saint and a prostitute.

We’ve had our dance lesson. Now, what next?

Wow! They love it. And they don't tend to rate her. Queen of winning over the NME.

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/17/madonna-medellin-ft-maluma-review-a-shapeshifting-return-to-form

Madonna: Medellín ft Maluma review – a shapeshifting return to form

The disarming first song from the singer’s 14th album has some lyrical clunkers but acts as a potent reminder of her genre-mashing skills

Wed 17 Apr 2019 13.51 EDT
 
 

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

If any artist has shown her ability to code-switch between styles, it’s Madonna, who’s adroitly shifted from dominatrix to disco queen to earth mother with previous album cycles. Her latest reinvention is Madame X: the title of her upcoming 14th album (out 14 June), and also the name of a chameleonic character that she will play across the record. She announced it last week in a cinematic, enjoyably OTT video featuring a panoply of guises which included multiple eye patches and Madonna wearing a hooded bonnet as if preparing for Gilead.

In voiceover she details 15 identities – dancer, prisoner, nun and whore among others – and explains: “Madame X is a secret agent. Traveling around the world. Changing identities.” And it seems that Madonna’s gaze is reaching just as wide for Madame X, which features the American rap artists SwaeLee and Quavo, as well as South American superstars Anitta and Maluma, who features on the album’s iridescent lead single Medellín.

Co-produced by her American Life collaborator Mirwais, Medellín is quite unlike anything we’ve heard from Madonna before, and her most subdued lead single since 1998’s stately Frozen. The most initially disarming about it is its balmy sense of ease. “I woke up in Medellín,” she sings over airy synths, before slyly adding, “Another me could now begin.” A rhythmic reggaeton beat that kicks in for a fiesta-starting chorus, with lovey-dovey call-and-response between the duo. At nearly five minutes, Medellín’s pacing feels refreshingly relaxed, though it wouldn’t be a Madonna co-write without a few lyrical clunkers (“pain” rhymed with “champagne”). It doesn’t exactly do much to dispel stereotypes of Colombia either (“we built a cartel just for love,” she sings).

But those are minor quibbles: Medellín is a potent reminder of Madonna’s deft history of meshing genres, while also a convincing addition to the roll call of western megastars like Beyoncé and Justin Bieber linking up with Spanish-language artists. And unlike the occasional trend chasing of her most recent albums MDNA and Rebel Heart, Medellín proves that she’s well equipped to weather the demands of today’s listening trends while bringing global styles into her own world. For Madonna, it seems that the streaming age may just speed up her shapeshifting.

 

https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review-madonna-and-maluma-drop-sultry-new-single-medellin-from-madame-x/

Last month, Page Six of the New York Post published an article titled “How Madonna is using younger stars to cling to relevancy.” The infamous tabloid swiftly revised its headline to the marginally softer “How Madonna is using younger stars in hopes to stay relevant” after receiving blowback for what some perceived to be a double standard. But as the gulf between the 60-year-old pop queen’s age and that of the average radio star has continued to widen, it’s true that she’s increasingly leaned on collaborations with younger artists like Justin Timberlake and Nicki Minaj.

You’d be forgiven, then, for assuming that “Medellín,” the first single from Madonna’s upcoming 14th album, Madame X, is an attempt to cash in on the ever-growing popularity of reggaton. While the 25-year-old Maluma is a huge star in Latin America, however, he’s yet to cross over beyond the Latin-pop market in the U.S., so the partnership appears to be a mutually beneficial one. And Madonna has lovingly appropriated Latin culture in her work for decades, as far back as 1986’s “La Isla Bonita,” and as recently as her torero-inspired music video for 2015’s “Living for Love.” In fact, one could argue it’s the single most consistent musical theme of her career outside of, say, dance music more broadly.

Co-produced by Mirwais, who was previously at the helm of Madonna’s Music and American Life albums, “Medellín”—named after the city where Maluma was born—is a sultry midtempo track driven by a decidedly unhurried tropical rhythm and Madonna’s catchy refrain of “one-two cha-cha-cha.” The singer’s inexplicably Auto-Tune-drenched verses are nostalgic and wistful, nodding to the breezy escapism of “La Isla Bonita”: “I took a sip and had a dream/And I woke up in Medellín.”

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https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8507581/madonna-maluma-medellin-single-listen

Madonna and Maluma Smolder on 'Medellin' Single

A serendiptious meeting backstage at the VMAs last year has born some sensual fruit for Madonna and Maluma. The pop superstar and the Colombian singer released their single, "Medellin," on Wednesday (April 17) after teasing it a day earlier with a picture in which Madonna sported an elaborate wedding dress and glittery eyepatch while seated behind the "Clandestino" singer, who wore regal red.   

The mid-tempo Spanglish pop track opens with Madonna doing a countdown and singing coquettishly, "I took a pill and had a dream (yo tambien)/ I went back to my 17 year/ Allowed myself to be naive (dime)/ To be someone I'd never be," as the tempo begins to pick up and Maluma steps up to sing in a raspy voice. With a skittery, electric cha-cha beat pulling up and back underneath, the pair flirt with each other, with Maluma promising to be Madonna's king if she'll be his queen, singing, "Excuse me, I know you are Madonna/ But I'm going to show you how this perro (dog) will make you fall in love." 

Near the end, as the sensual dance heats up, Madonna asks her partner to, "slow down papi."

Back in February, both superstars surprised their fans by sharing photos of themselves together in the recording studio. "I met Madonna during the VMAs in New York," Maluma previously told Billboard. "After that, I had the opportunity to spend some time with her in Los Angeles. She was in the studio and I joined her."

Madonna's 14th studio album, Madame X, will be released on June 14, according to a statement from her label, with MTV slated to premiere the "Medellin" video on April 24 during "MTV Presents Madonna Live & Exclusive: 'Medellin Video World Premiere" at 4 p.m. ET. According to the release, the singer will be joined by British DJ Trevor Nelson and fans for a live event from London in which she'll discuss the influences on the new album, with Maluma joining in from Miami and additional events taking place in New York, Milan and Sao Paulo. 

The 15-track album was inspired by Madonna's experience living in Lisbon, Portugal, over the past few years and feautures her singing in Portuguese, English and Spanish. Tracks include the "anthemic," "I Rise" as well as the "Jamaican dancehall vibes"-infused, Diplo-co-produced duet with Migos' Quavo, "Future" and the Mirwais-produced "Dark Ballet." The follow-up to 2015's Rebel Heart was recorded over 18 months in New York, London, Los Angeles and Portugal.

"Lisbon is where my record was born," Madonna says in a statement. "I found my tribe there and a magical world of incredible musicians that reinforced my belief that music across the world is truly all connected and is the soul of the universe." The album title refers to a persona the singer adopted for the sessions, described as "a dancer. A professor. A head of state. A housekeeper. An equestrian. A prisoner. A student. A mother. A child. A teacher. A nun. A singer. A saint. A whore. A spy in the house of love.”

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It’s Here! Madonna Teams Up With Maluma For “Medellín”

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And she’s back! Madonna kicks off the Madame X era this morning (April 17) with “Medellín.” A collaboration with Colombian superstar Maluma, the mid-tempo banger is a reggaeton-infused, oddball delight. “I took a pill and had a drink, I went back to my 17th year,” the Queen of Pop begins the song over mellow, Latin beats courtesy of Mirwais. “Allowed myself to be naive, to be someone I’ve never been.” She then takes a trip. “I took a sip and had a drink, and I woke up on Medellin.” 

That’s when Maluma takes over for a verse, before they join forces on the chorus. The most pleasing thing about “Medellín” is the core theme of letting go and taking chances. While Madonna still clearly has sex and dancing on the mind, this has a perspective and insight about it that only comes with experience. It will be interesting to see how fans and radio responds to the 60-year-old’s lengthy, bilingual bop, but I just got (even more) excited for Madame X. The album drops June 24 and it’s available to pre-ordernow. 

Get ready to take a trip to “Medellín” below.

https://www.idolator.com/7750951/madonna-maluma-medellin-review?view-all&ios=1&safari=1

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Single Review: Madonna’s ‘Medellin’

While a song that begins with a cha-cha count-in and the lyric “I took a pill” sounds like it should be a dancefloor rager, it’s actually the unexpectedly low-key return of Madonna, who today dropped “Medellin,” the first single from her forthcoming album “Madame X.” A collaboration with Colombian singer Maluma — himself a native of the country’s mountain city — and her longtime collaborator Mirwais, the song combines a sing-song melody with a reggaeton-inflected, shuffing beat; she and Maluma pair trade off flirty verses in Spanish throughout the song.

 

 

While she pronounces the city’s name correctly (“meh-deh-zheen”), to her discredit she needlessly references the city’s violent past — it was the home base of drug cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar — in the lyrics: “We built a cartel just for love/ Venus was hovering above us.” Visitors to the city will know that it’s one of the last things residents want to talk about (unless they’re leading one of the tourist-baiting “Narcoterrorism tours”).

The song stretches on for nearly five minutes, stretching out toward the end with an extended instrumental bit designed for some low-key dancing. While produced by Mirwais, the song recalls Madonna’s previous Latin-inflected work with producer/songwriter Diplo.

The rest of the lyrics are more impressionist and romantic, and the city is only mentioned incidentally. “I took a pill and had a dream/ I went back to my seventeenth year, allowed myself to be naive, to be someone I’ve never been,” she sings on the song’s opening verses. “I took a sip and had a dream/ And I woke up in Medellín.”

And while the song may not be the dancefloor-filling that fans might be hoping for, it’s a sultry and promising introduction to Madonna’s latest era.

https://variety.com/2019/music/reviews/single-review-madonnas-medellin-1203191713/

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37 minutes ago, fandonna said:

this bitch make me laugh

pressed

she didn't even bother to check the facts , the only chart B was ahead of MADONNA was the twitter trending ''chart''

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6 minutes ago, Magician said:

I’ve summoned the Twitter army and they’re dragging her to hell and back as we speak.

thank you!

fuck this cunt.

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2 hours ago, flexy said:

I haven't seen reviews like this since Confessions era.😀

Really?  Critics we're falling over themselves reviewing the first 6 leaked songs off RH with unanimous praise

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https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/madonna-medellin-ft-maluma/?mbid=social_twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_brand=p4k&utm_social-type=owned

“Medellín” [ft. Maluma]

It should come as a surprise to precisely no one that Madonna rides the Latin pop wave for her first single in four years. From “La Isla Bonita” to Evita, Madonna’s occasional flirtation with Latin America over the years has yielded some career highlights. That, combined with the fact that Madge practically invented the now-common pop-star move of vampiring all that is young and hot from album to album, leads us down to Medellín, Colombia. The reggaeton singer Maluma guides the way, carrying the sultry, dembow-tinged song with his whispered Spanish responses to his duet partner’s eerily still verses. On a track that opens with Madonna counting off a cha-cha-chá like she’s in an ASMR video, Maluma stands out, via actual singing, as the heart and soul really selling this fever dream of young love. The chorus pops off into a joyous celebration because of him.

“Medellín” may end up being a bigger moment for Maluma than Madonna, but as far as the pop icon’s semi-recent cool-hunting exploits go, the song sits closer to the top of the heap than the bottom. It is more sonically restrained than her EDM phase, leaving room in the production for tactile details that mostly work (though the echo and Auto-Tune on her vocals is a bit much). Madonna has struggled at times in her late career to find a balance between campy bangers and more mature balladry; “Medellín” is something of a sexy, stylish middle ground. Of course, she couldn’t let a whole song this decade go by without at least one cringe-y moment. “We built a cartel just for love,” she declares, turning the titular city’s violent drug trafficking history into lyrical myopia.

 

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This song is giving me Frozen vibes. That was such a grower when first released and has ended up being my favourite song ever!

And so many positive reviews so far! Our Madonna is back, bitches! Bow down before the queen!!

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16 minutes ago, Samo said:

Really?  Critics we're falling over themselves reviewing the first 6 leaked songs off RH with unanimous praise

Lol even MDNA got praised to high heavens at the release by the big ones. 

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