The Bottom Line
Forget all those comments about Madonna returning to her roots. She has never strayed far from the dancefloor. Her last 2 albums produced a total of 8 #1 dance hits. What "Hung Up" amounts to is a big gushy love note to Madonna's core fans, those club kids who pack the floor every time they hear the pounding beats of a Madonna classic and the dj's who can't get enough of spinning her records. "Hung Up" will send those fans into ecstasy, and it sounds good on the radio, too.
Pros
- That amazing Abba sample
- Like much of Madonna's best dance music, it sounds completely effortless
- Madonna's most enduring lyrical theme - independent women
Cons
- The lightness of it all will turn off some
Description
- Kicked off with the ticking of a clock and tick-tock vocals
- Up bubbles the killer hook from Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme"
- Yet another Madonna dance classic is born
Guide Review - Hung Up - Madonna (Warner Bros.)
The neutral to negative reception for Madonna's last album American Life must have hurt. The response was unfortunate and undeserved. The album was uneven, but it also contained moments of transcendent beauty on songs like "Nothing Fails." Oh, and there was that opposition to war while much of the world was joining the Iraq War bandwagon.
If "Hung Up" and Madonna's public comments are any indication, international politics is wholly absent from Confessions On a Dancefloor. Lyrically, "Hung Up" is a very traditional dance song rooted in relationship issues. However, it is also rooted in Madonna's enduring embrace of strong, independent women.
I could continue on about the role of "Hung Up" in the Madonna pantheon, but my best advice is simply to listen, imagine visions of disco balls, dance if so inclined, and, most importantly, have fun, and, if you have the opportunity, get yourself to a dance club to hear "Hung Up" in its native habitat.
Visit Madonna.com to hear "Hung Up"
