Review: MDNA by Madonna

Only Madonna can cause a festival of meltdowns on Twitter. Never have my mentions moved so rapidly. I almost vomited from motion sickness. It's crazy how intensely anticipated this woman is. I guess it comes with the territory of being the Queen of Pop.

Like the rest of the world, as soon as the album leaked I just had to get my hands on it, despite the fact that the quality was horrid, as usual with those shitty web-rips. Still, I caught ever ounce of my life.

As someone who's never been a huge Madonna fan, I was overall pleased with the turn out. I'd say I was about 50/50 on songs I loved and songs that I thought were mediocre. I don't there is a single bad song, but I find a handful of them generic.

"I Fucked Up" was instantly my favorite. I figured it would be when Guy O'seary posted a link to it on Twitter a couple of days ago. I love the urban style drummer boy backing under the fluid string section. It stands out from the other tracks because it doesn't sound electric. It's almost acoustic, of course if you strip away the fleshy production, aside from the guitar and Madonna's feather-weight vocals. I really think this song could serve as a high-charting singled, especially if they censor it as "I Effed Up." Oh, the controversy.

The best uptempo song on the album is undoubtedly "I'm Addicted." It's one of those songs you hear at the club and pause right before the chorus, only to jump around like an ADHD kid when the beat drops. Oh, then there's the chant, which is almost essential in pop music today! "MDNA! MDNA!" It's a play on words, also, if you didn't catch that. The song is actually full of them. She describes a lot of symptoms of someone on ecstasy as her "feelings" in the song. That gives me a little more appreciation for the song, since it has a bit of thought behind the lyrics.

Not far behind is "I Don't Give A" which is Madonna's big "fuck you" to the negativity in her life. (Sidenote: does her rap style remind anyone of Michael Jackson's "They Don't Really Care About Us?") It's really corny, but just corny enough to be considered "cute." Oh yeah, Nicki Minaj also takes a few minutes out of her hectic life to go the fuck off about how less-than you bum bitches are compared to her. The icing on top was the sweet line hailing Madonna as the "one queen," then gnarly off a psychotic "bitch" in typical Minaj fashion.

Oooh, and let me gush about how much I live for "Gang Bang." I don't know who she is talking about, but she is reading them for filth. I mean, if you're willing to follow someone to hell (after you murder them) just so you can kill then "over and over and over and over and over and over and over again" then it's logical to say you're bitter. She ends the songs with a grimy dubstep piece that sent shivers up my spine. This, more than any other song, gives me a glimpse of the old Madonna.

"Girl Gone Wild," the second single, is a top notch club banger. It's one of those insanely catchy, but generic songs I mentioned before, but what makes it a really good song is the beat. I'll admit that I love "Give Me All Your Lovin'" because I like to cheer. It served it's purpose as Superbowl hype single and put her back on everyone's mind. 

Like I said before, there are no bad songs on the album, but the rest of the album will have to grow on me. I'll revisit this review in a week when we have a higher quality version. Until then, I'll rate this album a solid 7.5/10. Madonna has already proven her worth, yet she still makes music like she's got more to prove. It makes for consistent solid albums.