Music

The makers of ‘cosmetics for the young sophisticate’ must be relishing the prospect of all the free exposure about to be Googled their way. Mrs Ritchie’s follow-up to 2005’s ‘Confessions On A Dance Floor’ is a manicured mix of the melodically sweet and the rhythmically tough, with the emphasis on the latter, thanks to producers The Neptunes and Timbaland. In broad terms, ‘Hard Candy’ replaces the high-octane, strobe-lit update of ’80s disco that was ‘Confessions…’ with hip hop/R&B.

The first two tracks make an impressive opening salvo: ‘Candy Shop’ further flogs the sweeties = sex metaphor exhausted by artists from Bow Wow Wow to Van Halen and pays homage to Jacko’s ‘Wanna Be Starting Something’, while laying down a bed of both brutally clipped and lazily pimp-rolling beats; single ‘4 Minutes’ offers a darkly upbeat and brass-strafed, oddly specific warning (by Justin T) that ‘we only got four minutes to save the world’. Other highlights are the cool ’n’ creamy ‘Beat Goes On’ (with Kanye West) and ‘Dance 2night’, which lifts from Rick James’ bass-booted, ’80s funk. There are three songs for Guy, one of which (‘Incredible’) tells us how awesome he is in the sack. Enough to cause any man’s smug-o-meter to shoot off the scale.

The problem with ‘Hard Candy’ is Madge’s drive for modernity, which has long involved hiring the producer/s du jour. But neither Timbaland nor The Neptunes are new talents and their ubiquity has reduced their styles to a collection of tics and tropes, spread increasingly thinly. If she’d written a cheque for say, Diplo or Danger Mouse, Madge would have sounded a great deal edgier. But then, you don’t get to be the Queen of Pop by spooking the commercial horses.