Part 2 incoming.
A new album once demanded new gimmicks (stealing Shaz Bags' cowboy hat, tying a bit of red wool around her wrist, being good, etc), but here Madge finds herself on the benches (she's a soccer mom you know), but it's not game over yet.
With the voice no longer a dramatic vehicle and lacking power as an instrument, the importance of style and what she is actually expressing is arguably what made the more disparate moments of MDNA and more-so Rebel Heart most noticeable. And unlike the worst offenders of those eras (which were easily curated into masterpieces worthy of hanging in almost any reasonably clean loo if you ask me), the material is striving a little higher this time. No Portuguese busker was safe - Madge was on a mission and Eurovision Suzy couldn't even get arrested.
The candyfloss-sweetness, aching, forthright pop of Crave isn't quite on the Borderline, but nor is it on the borderline either *falling off horse clunk sound* A mouthful of Miley on the delivery, the star attraction is not the youthful beats or pseudo-stutter singing, but the guitar and it gets the least focus of all.
Crazy is Madonna with a prayer, but without a chorus. The sharpest and most simple revamp of the lot. If some of Crave spilled over into Crazy, some of Crazy spills into Come Alive. Touching base at Miley (Crave), soul-pop (Crazy), and now gospel (Come Alive), I'm digging it highly. Give me this choir dump moment over Nothing Fails (which didn't need it) any day.
Her kittenish timber Extreme Occident with skittery rhythms is after-hours, be grateful for the synths on Faz Gostosa, her Big Hoops.
She had to "get stupid" and command unfortunate bystanders to watch her get her stupid booty down (poor thing is always dropping her keys) sooner or later. May as well get it over with on Bitch I'm Loca. I wonder how Shakira enjoyed her night off.
Trance-like numbness of Looking for Mercy is a softer humane throb. She can't quite devise a chorus worthy of the exquisite verse and bridge links, but the threat is there even if it's never quite quenched. Still looking, etc.
The luxury item I Don't Search I Find is like Erotica giving us the kiss of life all over again. She graciously makes me remember her 90s verve if not humour, her fluidity. If much of X is stylish, formal and thoughtful, it's here she truly, finally let's loose and simply has a good time.
If Madonna has drifted in and out of style over 5 decades now, Ciao Bella drifts into it unexpectedly with a near match of the kind of judicious eloquence that used to be her spoken word forte. A zip and flair I thought we may had lost from her.
I Rise is her stab at We Are Young/Rule The World/Almost Home.
I'm ecstatic for Funana. Delivering quiet grandeur is a contemplative style of beauty I want more and more of from her. I didn't quite catch her name-checking Gala, Lady Kier and Gina G, but she still did well here.
Back that up to the Beat sounds like a literal instruction to make itself a b-side if you ask me. Nothing that Gloria would break a sweat over, but as a bonus bit n' bob it's absolutely fine.
Much to my surprise, the only thing disgracefully skimpy are her vocals, but MX is the album she has been well-advised to make for the last 15 years. Madonna justifies our love all over again, etc.
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