base talk Hard Candy is a good Madonna album

[AvadaKedavra]

I used to play this album every afternoon after high school. Its such a fun record.  Definitely a candy store.
The beats have something so magical specially Beat Goes On. So warm. 
But i have only one issue with the record. Pharell production sometimes feel like Demos. Catchy but a bit basic. 
His early neptunes productions were far better-major-polished

Edited Friday at 09:27 PM by AvadaKedavra

[Chris]

As time has passed, I have grown to actually appreciate Hard Candy as an album.

 

I still think Beat Goes On could have worked as a single with a proper music video and push.

 

Also, Dance 2Night is very underrated in my opinion.

[Nightingale]

It's one of my favorite Madonna albums. The singles are incredible and it has so many great album tracks

[l3disko]

Hard Candy was the first album where she felt like she was following trends and no longer being a trailblazer and was just being... generic af.

 

How many artist had already worked with Timbaland by the time HC was released?

 

The whole album could be erased from existence and nothing of value would've been lost, including 4 minutes.

 

 

The album cover always turned me off and looked cheap, and prob soured the music experience for a lot of people.

[BraveNewSeth]

It definitely looks better in retrospect because everything that came after it is ******* trash, but it is a consistently great album. Really the only dud is Spanish Lesson. 

[Sergi91]

The live album is far superior IMO. 

[Punky Rooster]

No it isn't, it's a great Madonna album

[808dream]

Devil Wouldn't Recognize You is one of the many Madonna songs that deserved to be singles and would have granted a hit but we're incredibly snobbed. 

[NEUTRON]

Bop after bop after bop after bop after bop after bop

[808dream]

On 1/3/2025 at 7:55 PM, theweekend said:

it's an amazing album. I love me some r&b so it's obvious I would love it.

 

i will be forever mad that the black madonna concept was changed. imo hard candy should've been a bubblegum pop album because of the aesthetic she's served with no storytelling/concept at all lmao

We've never seen any of those pictures from the supposed black Madonna photoshoot she's said to have made right? 

[blown away]

It's not a bad album at all. It's not her strongest, I can agree with that, but it's still a decent album. Songs like Devil Wouldn't Recognize You, 4 Minutes, Give It To Me, Beat Goes and Miles Away are great songs.

 

I think some people perceive it as a bad album because it's the first time Madonna was following a trend instead of setting them. But there's nothing wrong with that when she's been a trendsetter for the first 25 years of her career.

 

Also, her first truly bad album was American Life imo. The production on that album is horrible, which keeps the lyrics from shining through.

[NOW]

I honestly think the cover art (and the GI2M video) made the album seem terrible when it really wasn't at all.

[SpaceOddity]

Hard Candy was my first full Madonna album experience so it really holds a nostalgic place in my heart for me. Granted, it's nowhere near perfect and it's not even top5 in her discography but it's genuinely such a fun and adventurous listen. She really did take the trendy at the time urban rnb sound of Loose/SexSounds and gave it her own splash of colors, sometimes leaning too hard into her quirky side perhaps but it works. Devil Wouldn't Recognize You is top tier in her discography. 

 

P.S. Sad they left this gem out. 

 

[SpaceOddity]

3 hours ago, 808dream said:

We've never seen any of those pictures from the supposed black Madonna photoshoot she's said to have made right? 

Supposedly, she wanted to do blackface for that so thankfully that was scrapped. 

[SpaceOddity]

I will say, it will forever pain me that we never got the Madonna x Pet Shop Boys album that was supposed to come after Confessions in spite of how much I enjoy Hard Candy.

[Phaunzie]

Miles Away, She's Not Me & the experiment Incredible demolishes majority of Confession, all her later albums and her early era albums (excluding Like A Prayer).