Madonna

Madonna and Guy Ritchie arrive at the World premiere of Guy's 'RocknRolla' at the Odeon cinema, Leicester Square in London (September 01 2008)

By Pera Sticky & Sweet is the third Madonna tour I have seen. I hate seeing Madonna play guitar but her rock version of Borderline became a thrash of Stooges-style chords. Without question, Madonna is still the Queen Of Pop. Long live the Queen.

The evening has nine of the 12 songs on her 11th studio album, Hard Candy, which went straight to the top of the charts in 31 countries. It culminates in a grand finale focusing on what could be described as Madge's 'post-imperial' phase: a futuristic, Japanese-influenced rave set in which...

By Pera Other re-workings of her old hits included a guitar-heavy rock version of Borderline and striking New York subway train visuals on the track Music. Sticky & Sweet" is Madonna's first world tour since she hit the road in 2006 with "Confessions" -- the highest grossing tour by a female a...

By Pera I believe he was having an affair with Madonna," she told a friend, who spoke anonymously for fear of angering A-Rod. "She said she found a letter where Alex told Madonna: 'You are my true soulmate.'" Simultaneously, Madonna has been hounded by reports that her seven-year marriage to filmm...

By Pera Her new album Hard Candy is getting the hard sell - most of the songs are drawn from there. However, few of the new tracks are particularly memorable - although one stand-out moment is a striking image of Madonna and her highly stylised male dancers moving in tandem across the stage during th...

By Pera But none of this really matters. She oozes charisma and does spectacular dance routines, the sense of bizarre occasion compounded by the fact that at the rear of the tent lurks the mayor of Maidstone, resplendent in his official bling. "We're gonna have to start fucking it up!" Madonna squa...

By Pera New York, Paris, Maidstone. For the last of three, short shows to plug her current album, Hard Candy, Madonna arrived by helicopter in the Kent countryside to headline Radio 1's Big Weekend. Clearly, the plan was to prove that a... Instead, a sterile, soulless performance made Madonna resemb...

By Pera Which would be a dubious legacy, were it not for the fact she's released so many life-affirming, radio-dazzling, zeitgeist-riding songs along the way, from "Holiday" to "Hung Up", via "Virgin" and "Vogue". And yet she's never got the credit she deserves. Twenty five years after finding f...

By Pera She mostly stuck to songs off the new disc Hard Candy, but the evening--including a laser light show--had a totally '80s feel to it. Then at the end of that same song, Madonna fell on her butt. Even with all the energetic gyrations onstage, I'm pretty sure she didn't mean to do that.

By Pera Another big roar rose for the third song, "4 Minutes": Justin Timberlake, who is featured on the song and is one of the writers and producers of it, took the stage in a sharp white jacket and black scarf, and joined Madonna in some dirty dancing that had slight bondage overtones -- with Madon...

By Pera A crowd far larger than the 2,200 capacity of New York club Roseland camped out overnight on the streets of midtown Manhattan awaiting the chance to see Madonna debut tracks from her new album Hard Candy on Wednesday. The audience of celebs and die-hard fans who actually made it through the...

Gay boys, rejoice: The Material Girl a.k.a. Madge a.k.a. M-Dolla, (as she is currently known) has returned to save us from the Miley Cyruses of the world. The diva's latest album, Hard Candy (her last for Warner Records), dropped April 29 to rabid fan anticipation and generally positive reviews....

By Pera The 11th studio set of her career -- and her last for Warner Bros. Records, the longtime label that she's leaving for a wide-ranging deal with concert promoter Live Nation -- "Hard Candy" is a heady, frisky sugar rush of urban dance-pop come-ons in which Madge finally gets into the hip-hop g...

By Pera Candy's sugar solidifies by album's end: "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You" is no hit, but it's intriguing lyrics and easy-on-the-ears refrain are good enough to compensate for the fact that it sounds like a rip-off of "Cry Me a River" or "What Goes Around, Comes Around." Candy closer "Voice...

As digital sales of Madonna's new single, "4 Minutes," pass the one million mark, Madonna will be giving away free tickets to hundreds of lucky fans in celebration of this week's release of her new CD "Hard Candy" (April 29) when she gives a historic up-close and personal performance at NY...

By Pera Madonna is coming home: Having spent a decade working with producers drawn from European club culture, Hard Candy is her link-up with the American men who've come to define global pop. Five songs with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, six with...

By Pera Anyone disappointed by that album should take a lick of "Hard Candy," out Tuesday. It's everything "Confessions" professed to be - and more: a disc that gorges on catchy choruses, nagging beats and insouciant vocals. It may be the best album of Madonna's career. Certainly it's the most cons...

Mrs. Ritchie dishes on long-distance relationships -- "You always have the biggest heart when we're 6,000 miles apart" -- over a Spanish guitar and a Latin-flecked rhythm. Ah, jess. La musica de los Madonna. While Pharrell blends flamenco guitars, a Latin rhythm and some faux toreador horn...

Timbaland? "A Cheshire Cat." Let's finish what we started," Madonna sings in Incredible. I don't think my age has anything to do with my sense of urgency," said Madonna, who performed at last year's London portion of the Live Earth global concert.

All through her career, it has been impossible to divorce Madonna's music from her image, as they feed off each other to the point where it's hard to tell which came first, the concept or the songs. Glancing at the aggressively ugly cover to Hard Candy -- its blistering pinks and assaultive l...

By Pera After Confessions On A Dance Floor, where she revived disco and brought legwarmers back in style, we thought there was no musical stone left unturned by Madge. And yet we were sure she would surprise us once again. But at almost 50, the inspiration well seems to have run dry. The solution is a go...

By Pera When in doubt, take Madonna at face value. Since the beginning of her career, she has telegraphed her intentions and labelled herself more efficiently than any observer. She has titled albums Music, Erotica and, in 2005, Confessions On A Dance Floor for a collection that mingled personal...

By Pera From the opening title track of Hard Candy, it sounds as if one of the great British cultural legacies she has readily clasped to her bosom is that of the Carry On movie. With a phalanx of heavy hitters - Timbaland, Kanye West and Justin Timberlake - onside, Hard Candy takes no chances.

Madonna - Hard Candy In the past Stuart Price on Confessions On A Dance Floor, William Orbit on Ray Of Light and Mirwais on Music, all got it right. After Confessions On A Dance Floor which proved she was still Queen Of Disco, her hip-hop venture doesn't work.

By Pera Madonna on Her Directorial Debut and Mission to Save Malawi Madonna recently claimed that she was over New York; she still liked to stick her finger in our socket from time to time, but there were no longer so many... Madonna on Her Directorial Debut and Mission to Save Malawi

By Pera 9. Dance 2night: Not a Paul McCartney cover! This is a bit downbeat sounding, but it's still not a ballad. It's just a bit dark. Wise ol' Madonna tells us all that 'You don't have to be beautiful to be understood. You don't have to be rich & famous to be good'.

By Pera All of which is worth dwelling on, because how will The Madonna Effect play out when Hard Candy is released? It's tempting even to theorise that Madonna has made it so that there won't be much of an Effect. Hard Candy is no disaster, but a little more of that wouldn't have gone amiss.

By Pera In this up-tempo number, previously called 4 Minutes To Save The World, she exchanges dialogue with Timberlake and Timbaland for, as the title suggests, exactly 240 seconds. Devil is a reworked mid-tempo outtake from her last album, Confessions On A Dance Floor.

Madonna has long been known as the Material Girl..But we're crowning the Queen of Pop the queen of new material judging by her forthcoming album Hard Candy. Her last album Confessions On A Dance Floor in 2005 was filled with great disco classics such as Hung Up.

By Pera Madonna has managed to keep most details about her still-untitled follow-up to 2005's Confessions on a Dance Floor (due April 29th) under wraps, but Rolling Stone got an early listen to five tracks today and some behind-the-scenes info from producer...

By Pera Claiming the films of Godard, Visconti, Pasolini and Fellini as her inspiration, Madonna hopes to "one day make something that comes close to their genius," according to the press notes for "Filth and Wisdom." On the evidence of this, her...