For her thirteenth studio album Rebel Heart, Madonna has decided to combine their penchant for provocation with their longing for love. The result is a plate which has an abundance of ballads and after their compilation SOMETHING TO REMEMBER from 1995 represents perhaps the most sensitive of their career to date.
They served thematically on well-tried, but also conveys news about their own world view. JOAN OF ARC, Veni Vidi Vici and the title track REBEL HEART have autobiographical backgrounds where they can reminisce their relation to the media. The remarkable thing about Veni Vidi Vici is the processing of Madonna's song classics to a loving chanting over careerism, which is equipped with a majestic part of rap veteran Nas (my face-tip no. 1!). In BITCH I'M MADONNA and UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH also deals with fame. Mark Madonna's image of tough superwoman acting but applied too thick in some places.
But Madonna remember to report on other issues: In DEVIL PRAY she sings the pure drug intoxication, thus making simultaneously on the abyss of drug abuse attentive. The serious mood is interrupted by songs such as songs ILLUMINATI or holy water. In the former song, Madonna makes fun of conspiracy theorists, but never denied the existence of this mysterious underworld organizations. Your dark Rap acting locally bit bumpy and their weaker chanting of American Life gets back to mind simply leaves much unspoken. Although ILLUMINATI is not necessarily the strongest piece of the plate, but the content in my opinion diskussionsträchtigste.
HOLY WATER means for Madonna in turn a kind of home race for me, the second face-off tip. In its dynamic synth robe that seems to follow as I'M ADDICTED of MDNA a clear line, certain sexual practices are explained with religiously inspired metaphors that will conjure up some listeners a leer in his face. A sample of their twenty-fifth anniversary Hits VOGUE is also found in it again. Speaking of samples: The warm sounds of R'n'B BEST NIGHT be accompanied with a small passage from speech JUSTIFY MY LOVE, the same as sex the most beautiful thing in the world has as its object.
That REBEL HEART emits a mixture of hard and tender, is achieved not only through his lyrics. Madonna's producer Avicii, Diplo and Kanye West have this concept of opposites implemented melodic. Some titles were exploited with more delicate care, whereby the main focus was on the content and more feeling transported (JOAN OF ARC, WASH ALL OVER ME), while others have been created with conscious overdriving (illuminati, BITCH I'M MADONNA). In the case of BITCH I'M MADONNA this is very gewöhnungsbedürfig. The collaboration with Nicki Minaj forms a reverberation of MDNA with dubstep Anleihenund a very aggressive ramming departure, the many will belch sour. In addition, this number provides a dubious example of the artificial auto-tune vocals, the accompanying some titles. However, comparing Madonna CURRENT work with her predecessor MDNA so REBEL HEART is seen vocally not too artificial. JOAN OF ARC, WASH ALL OVER ME, MESSIAH and REBEL HEART prove that Madonna actually still has a voice that you can listen to and in time can convey real emotions.
In this context, nor was my third out tip, slightly kitschy electro-pop ballad INSIDE OUT, called the recalls by its mystical-dramatic piano and strings to use more recent numbers from Depeche Mode.
In some songs you still have the impression that Madonna at number goes safely. They are like a Hollywood production created and provide the kind of catchiness, for the pop queen is known. The first single LIVING FOR LOVE could be mentioned in this context, in the Madonna's vocals in the chorus is enhanced with numerous background voices and so makes a strong declaration of love. With the added nineties-years-dance beats, the whole thing looks like the answer to danceable Nothing Fails the American Life album. The second single GHOST TOWN, HEARTBREAK CITY, MESSIAH and REBEL HEART act as conventional. Ghost Town is fitted in the verses in which Madonna draws a post-apocalyptic world with soft synths, which is joined by a driving beat in the course, which unfolds its full effect in the chorus. HEARTBREAK CITY, MESSIAH and REBEL HEART are constructed virtually the same scheme.
Very striking is not that UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH exudes slight reggae feel to fat hip-hop beats and thus ensures genre technical variety to REBEL HEART. The coated Vuvuzelaklänge have my opinion, but need not be.
--- For double-vinyl ---
The analogue version of Rebel Heart could have been so good ... if you had done things differently! First, it would have been appropriate to take all the songs of the REBEL HEART era as the basis for the Vinylset, ie the Super Deluxe Edition, on at least four more songs and two remixes of LIVING FOR LOVE can still be found. Another black plate for it and all would have been happy. For such a product die-hard fans would pay a corresponding fee. How well would, for example, the bonus track BEAUTIFUL SCARS can sound on record in its refined late Seventies Soul? The clipping, which can be heard in its intense bass, one would not need analog perceive as strong.
In general, the sound quality of a total of nineteen tracks from home is quite poor. Although the title Holy Water and Veni Vidi Vici play with volume differences, thus contributing a certain dynamic in itself, the louder passages are therefore not free of distortion. The strong instrumental in holy water, which carries the speech sample from VOGUE in itself, matscht in the heights, although on vinyl not quite as strong as on the CD. The analog medium "smoothes" known to those peaks.
The regular production quality does the rest, so that the sound is connected at the beginning of wear. Although the two discs are flat, but all the more filthy. Small, white lint sticking to the vinyl, which is responsible for annoying clicks. Audiophile fans like so not something!
If the set you look closer, you seem to have a total of probably little busy with the release on vinyl. The shell is indeed a folding Cardboard Sleeve with two giant photos inside, but the sleeves are for the fat 180-gram slices simply too tight. If you have removed the two plates only once, you can not get into them without bending the envelope. The same indictment of a too-tight envelope was already issued the vinyl edition of MDNA.
Furthermore, it seeks the production notes vain. The sticker on the shrink-points quite arrogant on the website of the pop queen. There you will find but nor. Who has now written what song? Who produces what song? Instead, you only get two white, unprinted paper sleeves to protect the plates supplied. They could have been but loosely can be printed with a line (of lyrics to mention that are probably only given some Asian CD pressings).
Last but not least: Who has bitteschön decided that BEST NIGHT page C closes? Why not open the D side, it passes but in the end a Veni Vidi Vici? At court it can not have, which would be for this item yet existed ... the interface between these songs seems like a bad joke. In the vinyl version people were probably at work that have not dealt with the music.
--- Conclusion ---
Although REBEL HEART applied thickish few places acts (BITCH I'M MADONNA could have omitted altogether in my humble opinion), makes the wealth of well-produced ballads this slight arrogance up for it. With Veni Vidi Vici is, for example, before a kind of "Rapballade", which summarizes some thirty years of music history. Joan of Arc with its subtle acoustic guitar is full of feeling and self-reflection. One could continue this list forever, it would only show that the heart in Madonna against the rebels has the upper hand. Probably the most aggressive undertones in UNAPOLOGETIC BITCH BITCH I'M MADONNA and had to be, to refer to a problem in our society. Women of a certain age should namely not like Madonna behave, but age gracefully, many would say. What is it but if Madonna has decided for itself that dignified aging involves something else? It shows women over fifty that one's sexual attraction is not a thing of the past, to show what title as Holy Water and SEX significantly. With her thirteenth album Rebel Heart Madonna has probably made the eternal mother of provocation that sex has in many ways to their profession.
This courage could actually earned at least four stars, but the vinyl edition is it simply too weak ... especially the consistent production quality with numerous clicks and the loveless design without production notes hit hard to book - just three stars for an otherwise very strong Madonna album ,
