Hang It Up, Madge

Pole dancer: Madonna on stage at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Lisbon on Nov. 3. Photo M.J. Kim/Getty Images.

For the past two decades, Madonna has been pop music’s most tenacious cool hunter, scouting the underground club scene for the most electrifying trends. The result of Madonna’s reconnaissance has been a dizzying creative evolution, from her early Latin-pop phase (1984-86) to her torch-singer phase (1989), which dovetailed into her voguing phase (1990), which led to her techno phase (1994 on) and her brief flirtation with ghetto fabulous (1999’s Music).

You don’t have to venture too far into Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna’s new record, to realize she’s fully ensconced in her new phase: the blissful ’70s.

Cynics decry Madonna’s approach as crass appropriation — which, to a certain extent, it is. Her hauteur doesn’t help; whether it’s voguing or her fervour for Jewish mysticism, she has an irritating tendency to advertise her latest mania as though she invented it. (She also has a habit of berating other celebrities for their lack of commitment.)

Personally, I’ve never seen a problem with her musical m.o.; it’s helped her amass the most impressive singles catalogue of any pop star of the last two decades. Fans and skeptics alike await any new Madonna album with a keen anticipation. If other franchise artists (like, say, Mick and Keef) were as hell-bent on staying fresh, listening to adult radio would seem less masochistic.

But as any fashionista will tell you, keeping on top of trends is hard work — particularly if you’re a 47-year-old mother of two who is still madly touring, writing children’s books and doing movies. Juggling all those responsibilities, while maintaining your unquenchable desire for musical currency, is bound to dim your judgment. The evidence: Hung Up, Madonna’s new single, which finally reveals the singer’s fallibility.

After Madonna’s inane opening refrain ("Time goes by / so slowly"), what emerges from the sonic murk is a disco pulse and the baroque synthesizer melody from ABBA’s 1979 hit Gimme Gimme Gimme (A Man After Midnight). The prominence of the ABBA sample is jarring — not only because it’s rare to hear the Swedish band out of context but because it’s the first time Madge has resorted to such gimmickry. (Madonna actually begged ABBA to use it. Songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus are famously stingy with their tracks; the Fugees are the only other act to legally sample one.)

There’s nothing innately objectionable about sampling. It’s just that pop stars rarely do it with noble intent — or much tact. The aim of any pop song is to lodge itself in your memory; that journey is greatly expedited if the hook has already been living there for 20 years. One of Madonna’s unheralded achievements has been her ability to avoid such pat mnemonics; despite her trend spotting, her discography, until now, has maintained a sort of creative purity. For her to use an ABBA riff as the basis for an entire song seems like creative capitulation.

Hung Up single. Courtesy Warner Music.

The problem with Hung Up is exacerbated by the video. The implicit mandate of any new Madonna vid is to highlight some sexy, newfound dance. In Hung Up, it’s krumping, the hyperkinetic form of street-dancing born in the mean streets of Los Angeles. In past videos like Vogue or Deeper and Deeper, you got the sense that Madonna had actually ventured into the clubs and gotten her heels dirty on some grotty dance floor. Judging from the clip for Hung Up, someone else is doing her field research.

The video opens with Madonna walking into a dance studio wielding a vintage boom box. Sporting Farrah Fawcett tresses and a hideous pink leotard, she commences some (admittedly impressive) warm-up exercises. The rest of the video shuttles between Madonna, striking clichéd disco poses, and the krumpers, stretching the limits of human elasticity. The whole thing feels disjointed; there’s no connection between the style maven and her new discovery. (What’s more, Madge is clearly outclassed.) For someone who has always immersed herself in subcultures, the singer comes across as strangely distant. Even the video’s climax, where the dancers unite in a London club under the aegis of guess-who, can’t hide this fact.

What’s also troubling is that the dancing doesn’t suit the music. Krumpers would never bust a move to ABBA. Their preferred soundtrack is frenetic hip-hop, something more in line with Missy Elliott — who incorporated them in the 2003 video for I’m Really Hot — than hoary Swedish disco.

Confessions on a Dance Floor, on the whole, is similarly conflicted. Lyrically, Madge has never been more arch or out-of-touch: she still insists on dispensing sexual advice; she still takes juvenile pot shots at President Bush; she still writes juvenile rhymes (e.g. “New York” with “dork”).

What ultimately saves the album is its luxe sound, which will play well in the clubs. If Confessions on a Dance Floor evokes a specific vibe, it’s that of producer Giorgio Moroder, the architect of some of the fizziest, most sensual and durable tracks of the disco era. Madonna’s production team (a veritable army that includes Stuart Price, Bloodshy & Avant and Mirwais Ahmadzai) have Moroder’s game down cold: the album throbs with mechanical basslines, effervescent synths and vocoders.

Madonna owes Moroder more than a passing nod, but nothing on the album feels as musically exploitative as its first single. Hung Up seems like a pathetic attempt to simply hang on.

Confessions on a Dance Floor is in stores Nov. 15.

Andre Mayer writes about the arts for CBC.ca.

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Letters:

I would have to offer a differing opinion on Madonna's "Hung Up" to that of Andre Mayer. Being a resident house DJ in Victoria and already a fan of Stuart Price (a.k.a. Jacques Lu Cont, Les Rhythms Digitales) I can only admire her ability to pick one of the most talented dance music producers the world over to collaborate with. The sheer danceability of this track argues it needs no excuses as I have seen dance floors already go mad for it. I will agree with Giorgio Moroder's influence on house music in general, especially because electro-edged material is dominating the underground and European dance scenes at the moment. When I told friends the sample came from ABBA, the most common reply was "who's that?" or a blank stare. In fact, I didn't recognize it until someone told me! The point being new generations of music fans may have no clue who ABBA are. I am looking forward to hearing what I think will be a slickly produced album and hoping it will be her best since Ray of Light.


Christoph Maitland
Victoria, British Columbia

Mr. Mayer, you certainly have Madonna's M.O. nailed perfectly. Boy George snarkily said many years ago that she was always rich and influential enough to "buy the sound of now", and it's true.

However, I think you've classified her new music a bit unfairly. For one thing, that it is being played and heard at all, considering her age and the amount of history she has, is a miracle in the age of tight playlists dominated by either juvenalia or violence. She may have incorporated a catchy sample to sell the song - it works - and she's made the transition to stay in the public eye a bit more gracefully than, say, Janet Jackson, whose bid for lurid media attention backfired on her.

Secondly - hey, it's dance music. I just know that it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it.

Regards,


Patrick
Madison, Wisconsin, USA