I don’t know about you, but when Madonna revealed the title of her new album on The Graham Norton Show back in January, I was thinking about drugs. “I’m into initials,” she hesitated, scrunching up her face to the best of her postoperative ability, “…so I was gonna call it MDNA”. Later, she explained her choice, telling a red carpet reporter that it was “a triple entendre”, the three entendres being: an abbreviated version of Madonna, aptly dreamed up by collaborator MIA; a loose reference to her genetic make-up (M’s DNA?); and the acronym for the drug found in ecstasy.
Of course, the MDMA pun was the most obvious entendre, which is why anti-drug groups promptly issued the Queen of Pop with a very public smack on the wrist. Since then, team Madonna have been playing down the Class A imagery on MDNA, but all the publicists at the Golden Globes couldn’t defend a line like, “Your name pumps like the blood in my veins… it’s like MDMA, that’s okay”, without acknowledging that drugs play a big part in this record. In fact, not only are the beats that William Orbit, Benny Benassi, Martin Solveig et al conjure up perfectly suited to any pilled-up rave in your social calendar, some of them have their own addictive or hallucinatory properties.
The perplexingly-titled ‘Gang Bang’ (no ganging or banging, just a lot of shooting) is cold, industrial and almost farcically intense, but the beat is so deliciously simplistic, it’s hard not to fist-pump along. ‘Girl Gone Wild’ is brimming with platitudes about DJs, 808s and girls just wanting to have fun, but I’m powerless to resist that palpitating, recurring throb. Other tracks are just as thrust-inducing, thanks to distorted pseudo raps (‘I Don’t Give A’), psychedelic melodies (‘I’m A Sinner’) and spiraling techno (‘I’m Addicted’). Seeing a pattern? We’ll get to the narcissism in a moment.
Madonna’s not just summoning us to the dancefloor, though, she’s confiding in us, too. Take ‘I Don’t Give A’, a shockingly frank number on which our gyrating leading lady openly discusses her divorce from Guy Ritchie. “You were so mad at me,” she pines, “Who’s got custody?/ Lawyers suck it up/ Didn’t have a pre-nup.” And from there, it only gets more personal.
But here’s the funny thing. As much as I genuinely believe that it must suck to be a paparazzi-hounded, perpetually misunderstood superstar, the gripes on MDNA leave absolutely no room for sympathy. Our forthcoming mistress of ceremonies does nothing to bridge the gap between normal people problems and Madonna problems, devoting the album’s token sad song to whining about how gorgeous her boyfriend is (“It hurts so much to be in love with a masterpiece”). Two-time guest star Nicki Minaj hits it on the head when she says, “See, I really can’t relate to your Volvo…”
And that’s another thing. Why Madonna decided to invite a truly brilliant lyricist like Minaj – at her best spitting,”I’m not a business woman, I’m a business, woman!” – along to show her up is beyond me. Trivialities? There’re all here. Clichés? You got ‘em. Madonna’s like a moth to a flame, like a bat out of hell and like a fish out of water, all at once.
Also in rude health is her rather annoying habit of referencing her own songs in her lyrics (‘Lucky Star’ pops up in ‘Give Me All Your Luvin’’, John Travolta allegedly gets into the groove on ‘Superstar’ and the scorned subjects of ‘Some Girls’ are sweetly deemed to be ‘Like A Virgin’). But believe it or not, Ms. Ciccone has aimed for new heights of arrogance on MDNA by sampling herself… kind of (‘Love Spent’ incorporates elements of 2005 hit ‘Hung Up’, or at least the same Abba song that gave that track its body).
Then again, egotism is what Madonna does best, and to my great delight, on MDNA she’s chosen to steer clear of the things she’s not so good at, namely, singing with any kind of vocal embellishment and attempting to write profound lyrics. Sure, she pulls out the religious card on three tracks, but rather than being preachy or profane, it’s merely to show how delightfully unangelic she can be.
So, for all its flaws, MDNA is easily Madonna’s best record in a decade. With the help of some of the greatest beat-makers around, the Queen of Pop has created a truly addictive and proudly narcissistic club-friendly album, a pulsating, throbbing 50-minute tribute to herself. You could say it’s like a prayer. At least you might if you were Madonna.