Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Madonna's Hard Candy

Details are emerging about Madonna's forthcoming album, her 12th studio album and first since 2005's Confessions on a Dancefloor. It's called Hard Candy, and it's produced primarily by Timbaland and Nate "Danja" Hills and Pharrell Williams, which is a big hint about its potential sound. Timbaland and Hills were responsible for the recent hit albums by Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, which dominated the charts worldwide with hits like "Sexyback," "Promiscuous," and "What Goes Around...Comes Around." Timbaland and Danja kept it up with Timbaland's own album last year, Shock Value, which continues to unleash hits like "Apologize" and "The Way I Are." Wikipedia reports Hard Candy has 12 tracks, two of which feature Justin Timberlake and one with Kanye West. Williams, who often works as one half of The Neptunes, is always producing for pop act, such as Gwen Stefani and Britney Spears.

That this will probably be a very American, hip-hop influenced sounding album is a big depature for from her last, Euro-leaning dance album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, produced principally by Brit Stuart Price. For Madonna to switch producers is nothing new--she does it frequently, in fact few producers can say they were principally responsible for more than one Madonna album, the chief exception being Patrick Leonard, who was the principal producer for True Blue, Like a Prayer, and I'm Breathless (he even contributed a few tracks to Ray of Light, including its biggest hit, "Frozen").

Check out this low quality YouTube version (recorded from French radio) of lead single "4 Minutes," featuring Timbaland and Justin Timberlake:




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