The Re-Emancipation of The Material Girl.

Since her 1997 detour into the confused and sometimes beautiful world of electornica Madonna has made some of the boldest music of her career,her first two album's in the genre(1997's Ray Of Light,2000's Music)proved to be successful and reignited the diva's somewhat sagging career. Since then she has been misguided (2004's American Life) and a bit stagnant (2006's Confessions on a Dance Floor)but the material girl has promised to make amends on her first straight up pop album since 1994's "Bedtime Stories", the irony is her return to form "Hard Candy" seems to suffer from many of that albums problems.

Many of the beats are less than innovative and producers Timbaland and Pharrell Willaims don't quite seem to know how to use Madonna's thin,often icy voice to its fullest potential, which results in the songs lacking personality. This is a similar problem on the good, but clunky hip-hop inspired Bedtime Stories.

Those things being said track for track "Hard Candy" serves as a solid album and most of the songs,despite their glaring imperfections, are the most fun Madonna has had since the 80's and will most likely provide her with plenty o' hits which was obviously the intent of this less than ambitious set, and you know what... thats okay.

Grade:B-