Madonna - 'Give It 2 Me'
ChartBlog's resident Madonna fan reporting for duty, and to prevent poor Fraser from having to review yet another of her singles and risk having some kind of seizure. Although the problem with trying to review a Madonna single is that at this side of a music career spanning over 24 years that hasn't exactly been conspicuous by the lack of media attention afforded to it, what can you say about Madonna that hasn't been said already? Except, perhaps, "I think her film career is some of the finest work that cinema has to offer," I suppose.
But that's a discussion for MoviesBlog, should such a thing ever surface. In the meantime, we have the matter of 'Give It 2 Me', the second single from her Madgesty's eleventh studio album. It sounds like, if you can forgive the rather vague example, an electro rendering of a swing jazz band with Madonna's trademark frosty vocals over the top. Or at least, it does for perhaps the first 45 seconds before it leaps into out and out electronica and staccato synths, but they achieve the same effect: juddery, jumpy, infectious beats.
I think this track is a good choice for a single: it's strong, confident, and it sounds great on the radio. There are only two real missteps here that trouble me: one is the embarrassing "get stupid, get stupid" middle eight (which says may well be cut out for the radio), and the other is the more generalised issue that it isn't really pushing the envelope that far, for those (like me) who like their Madonna right on the edge.
It's not a song-ruining issue, by far, but it is a bit of a gripe that I feel compelled to mention. (Also an issue, but not song-related: the video veers so far into self-parody in places that at one point I genuinely thought I was watching Jennifer Saunders 'doing' Madonna.)
Minor grips, however; it's a strong track, and I see no reason for the Queen of Pop to abdicate while she's still producing work like this.
Download: Out now
CD Released: July 14th
(Steve Perkins)
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