My main girl Madonna has come back into the pop culture realm with the release of 6 tracks from her upcoming album, Rebel Heart. This release was done to combat the leak of 13 tracks the week before which were mainly very rough cuts of tracks she claims that may not even end up on the album. I had refused to listen to them as I just didn’t want to hear unfinished product. I remember hearing a rough cut of “Candy Shop” from Hard Candy and it was awful, but I fucking love the released version. So yeah, I refused to listen to the leaks but happily, Madonna ended up putting the new album, Rebel Heart, up for pre-order on iTunes and upon purchasing the pre-order, you get 6 songs. The verdict on those 6 songs? I LOVE THEM.
Okay, I love them overall. All 6 aren’t fantastic, but I’d say 4 of the 6 are pretty fantastic and the other 2 are still pretty great. I’m having slight hopes that this album is a bit more interesting than MDNA – I wasn’t a huge fan of her latest album.
Talking about the 6 tracks that were officially released:
- “Living For Love”: This song is total Madonna. It’s the first song and a very strong and worthy opener. A great house music song and it brought a smile to my lips.
- “Devil Pray”: I liked this song for a bit until it got into this weird section of “We can do E, We can smoke crack…” and I was like, eh. This is one of the 2.
- “Ghosttown”: This track is the one I think most people are really responding to out in pop-culture land. I didn’t immediately latch onto it, but upon repeated listenings, it certainly grew on me. Kind of a bleak story in the song but a compelling tune nonetheless.
- “Unapologetic Bitch”: The chorus to this song, once in your head, won’t leave. That’s a great thing. Another kiss-off song to Guy Ritchie, I presume. Love it.
- “Illuminati”: This is the 2nd song that is amusing, but kind of goofy.
- “Bitch I’m Madonna” (featuring Nicki Minaj): LOVE this song too. Once you hear the refrain for the title lyric, you’ll be telling people too.
I have no idea how any of these songs will go over with the Young Folk who drive charts nor her current fans, but I definitely am responding well to this latest set of releases. I hope the remainder of the album, which we’ll get in early 2015, are equal in quality to these tracks. If so, then I’ll be a happy guy. Larry figures she’ll go on tour again, and I know that means I’ll be shelling out some $$$ to go see her again. I’m good with that. She puts on an epic show.