The Final Post

Yes, the exercise is over. I don't know my grade yet, but I am very pleased with my blog and I hope at least someone other than the teacher has taken his/her time to read a review or two.

One interesting thing is that to date this close to zero promotion blog has received over 1200 views. I have no idea who these people are, but I want to thank every single one of you. Take care and every now and then, buy an album from an actual record store. I promise it feels special. Also, go to see live shows and gigs. Usually those bands and artists that get to tour, are good at what they are doing.

Shred - Madonna: MDNA

1. Girl Gone Wild
2. Gang Bang
3. I'm Addicted
4. Turn Up The Radio
5. Give Me All Your Luvin'
6. Some Girls
7. Superstar
8. I Don't Give A
9. I'm a Sinner
10. Love Spent
11. Masterpiece
12. Falling Free

13. Beautiful Killer
14. I Fucked Up
15. B-Day Song
16. Best Friend
17. Give Me All Your Luvin' Remix

 
I want to start this review by first talking about something else. Madonna is allegedly the queen of pop, but to be the queen, you also have to deal with rivals and that, is not exactly a walk in a park. Lady Gaga and Britney Spears are on a hiatus, but last year both of them released albums that were brilliant in different ways. Half of Gaga's Born This Way was garbage, but there were over 20 songs and the other half which was listenable, came together as a great pop album and a strong contender to be the album of the year. Britney's Femme Fatale was something much more simple: The usual hit dance/pop record with dub'step influences. Yes, there are dozens of such records around, but Femme Fatale was an exception to the rule by being in every measurable way possible, a perfect album.

So, 2011 gave us two excellent pop records that are in the same league with what Madonna is releasing this year. MDNA's obejctive is no less than to beat Born This Way and Femme Fatale. I don't expect it to, but then again, this is the part I wrote two weeks before I listened to MDNA. Off to the part I wrote just this morning.

After the first listen, MDNA is a bit of a disapointment. It starts and end well, but the middle section acts like a crack in a well constructed cruiser's hull. On top of it, the extra songs on the deluxe version are more of an certificate of doomsday than music. MDNA has only shy of 8 songs which stand up for the Madonna badge, and that isn't much of an album.

Let's start with the good pieces. Girl Gone Wild might be just a lazy copy of Madonna's own song Celebration dating three years back in 2009, but it has an anthemic chorus and it is one of the better constructed songs on the album. It also has the radio friendly single banner above its head so its flaws can be forgiven. Most of the albums budget must have been spent on Gang Bang. The lists of collaborators on this song alone ranks more than rest of the songs on the album. I'd say the money was spent well, because Gang Bang is a five and a half minute blast of stone cold revenge in flavor of Tarantino's Kill Bill.

I'm Addicted gets handed the award of best song on the album the second it reaches the chorus. It relatives to Benni Benassi's Hypnotica album (2003, very much worth listening to) and shows that although Benassi doens't seem to have a lot tricks in his pockets, he does fine with what he's been given. The near excellent opening four is concluded with Turn Up The Radio. It's a simple pop song which you'll propably forget sooner than the year ends, but the naevity of driving in a car and singing along with the radio is sweet.

Gimme All Your Luvin' begins a series of mediocrities. I like the idea of this song and it tries hard to bring something new to the pop scene, but the melody is as weak and vulnerable as a tiny icicle. Some Girls doesn't improve much, but something must have been done with with this track because it sticks to your head like a gum in the hair. Not sure I like it in case of this song though. The next track, Superstar can be put in the same group with the deluxe songs. Cuss, the mediocrity!

I Don't Give A is a more interesting case. Instrumentally it's one of the album's worst, but its lyrics and the operatic ending section save the day. MDNA picks up its game again in I'm a Sinner. This song could accompany Madonna's previous classic albums, Ray of Light and Music. I'm a Sinner is silly and careless, doesn't take itself too seriously and therefore, it is reasoned to be taken seriously.

Love Spent is one of the album's most most pleasing moments. It begins with a banjo riff and although never reaches its full potential, it is still an instant fan favorite. The following song Masterpiece might have won a Golden Globe award, but to me its vague and boring. With different sound choises and more orchestra it could hold a candle to Madonna's big ballads from the 90's.

Madonna collaborates with Joe Henry on Falling Free with whom she made some of her more fan-favorited work with (Don't Tell Me, Jump and Devil Woulnd't Recognize You). Falling Free is a peaceful, gallant ending to the record and it fills a cynical Madgetriber with hope that Madonna can still make great songs and... sing.

MDNA sounds brilliant if you listen it with a really expensive and great sound system, but as I can predict, most people just use regular headphones while sitting in a noisy bus. If this is the case, then MDNA is a tricky record. The hard to like middle section wounds the whole record down from great to average.

Madonna doesn't lose her crown with MDNA. In fact she manages to defend her spot valiently. The heights of MDNA are unreachable by Gaga's Born This Way and Britney's Femme Fatale, but it's thanks to the cohesiveness of those two records that the distance between Madonna and her competition is shrinking with an alarming rate. However, ask a stadium packed with 80 000 people and they'll answer you L-U-V MADONNA.

Shred: Michael Monroe – Sensory Overdrive

 

1. Trick of a Wrist  
2. '78 
3. Got Blood? 
4. Superpowered Superfly 
5. Modern Day Miracle 
6. Bombs Away 
7. All You Need 
8. Later Won't Wait 
9. Gone Baby Gone 
10. Center of Your Heart 
11. Debauchery as a Fine Art 
12. Another Night In The Sun 
13. You're Next 
14. Right To Be Wrong 
15. Sleepin' With My TV On





Since the dawn of times Finland has given birth to only one rock star that isn't recognized only at the local K-Mart. Calling Michael Monroe a rock star though should be forbidden by law, because rock stars are self-centered jerks. Besides that, they are usually either stoned or drunk 24/7. Fortunately there is another term we can use to address our friend Mike. Michael Monroe isn't a rock star, he is a ROCKER.

What the person is like impacts their music as much as how well they can sing or play an instrument. Sensory Overdrive is one of the greatest releases of 2011 in rock music, because it has a pure feel of ”let's go to that room and play some butt-kickin' rock'n'roll” to it. Simple, fun and effective. No one should get offended by that.

Since this the deluxe version, it's 15 tracks of pure hard rock with some punk, glam and even country thrown into the mix. This variety needed, because while the old school flavored band has enough energy to go with full force for hour and a half in a live situation, it's good to catch a little breath once a while. Many bands can write a fast paced rock anthem, but can they also do a slowed down love song? The important part here is not that those songs are on the record (as you don’t have to listen to them), but the proof that they can do them. Yet Gone, Baby Gone isn't even a love song, it's more a break-up song in which the singer is bothering little with the past to focus more on the present and the times ahead instead.

Surprisingly, Sensory Overdrive excels in lyrics. That's something you might not first expect from a record like this. While the record flags to the good old times of the 80's, it still manages to be high-spirited about the tough times we're living through right now and optimistic about the future. Lyrical content like this is tricky to write without getting too much in the face of the listener, but Mr. Monroe manages to wake some awareness without getting tagged a hippie.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this record. It has great musicians, variety, coherence, ability to withstand the dire test of time and most importantly excellent songs. Even the extra songs on the deluxe version are more like an extra gear than a vain effort of trying to increase the album's value. On top of these straits when I listen to records in my house, I often have to turn the volume way up to hear the music to kitchen, to bathroom or the living room, but in case of Sensory Overdrive I don’t have to do this because the sound simply penetrates through the doors and the walls without losing tad of its intensity. Brilliant! Michael Monroe could become a lecturer in sounds science.

Now to the flaws, which I admittedly had to search with a microscope. Debauchery as a Fine Art (the song Lemmy is on) has a bit silly guitar riff in the beginning and the band isn't exactly reinventing the wheel on this record. That's probably what is stopping me from giving it the same kind of standing ovation as I gave to Stam1na's Nocebo. Still, Sensory Overdrive is a must-buy and a mighty display of skill from a man and a band the masses didn't expect to come up with anything this vibrant anymore. It came (behind the tree) and it conquered.

 

School assignment: Image processing

I was ordered to do some image processing and publish the picture in the internet, so here is my take on the exercise.

I cropped the image, flipped it horizontally and changed the colours and lighting. I used a program called "preview" which came with Mac when I bought it.

The original picture:

Shred: Stam1na - Nocebo

1. Pirunpaska 
2. Valtiaan Uudet Vaateet 
3. Tavastia Palamaan! 
4. Puolikas Ihminen 
5. Aivohalvaus 
6. Rabies 
7. Lepositeet 
8. Nomad 
9. Ei Encorea 
10. Arveton On Arvoton

My quest to find the best record of the year continues with a promising entry. There was another record back in 2010 which I might have overlooked when I entitled Herra Ylppö's 2^nd record that year's best. Stam1na released their masterpiece Viimeinen Atlantis (Last Atlantis) that year. What was so special about that record was that it told a haunting story about humanity's last moments on this planet. Earth's resources had been depleted, natural disasters were sparked by the climate change and every nation was at war. This kind of every man for himself situation will be a reality someday, but our generation won't be there to see it although it's partially caused by us. Talk about an environmental awakening through music.

Viimeinen Atlantis made Stam1na a big band in Finland, so Nocebo is one of the most highly anticipated releases of the year. It was certified gold already in its first day on sale. While Stam1na still sings in Finnish, there is already one song on this album that is partially sung in English (Nomad). Not just that, but reportedly English lyrics exist for all the songs in case the band decides to get back to the studio to tape them and re-release this record entirely in English for international markets.

Listening to Stam1na’s music is like someone's arms came through the speakers to pull your hair and repeatedly smack you in the face with a pace of 200 punches in a minute. Yet under all this aggression and winding speed the music manages to be very melodic, catchy and even sophisticated. I don't have even half the theoretical knowledge of music to completely explain what's going on, but I summarize everything by saying that it works. These songs are multilayered and each listen reveals something more, making the record better and better. I have listened to this album over a dozen times in two days and I simply won’t get bored of it.

Nocebo isn’t as serious as its predecessor. For example, some of the lyrics of the first song are simply A, B, C, D E, F and G to demonstrate which chords are played. While Nocebo doesn’t fall in the category of theme albums, medicines, illnesses and the human body are mentioned in several songs, giving the album an organic atmosphere.

Pirunpaska (Devil’s Sh**) acts only as an intro as the record really gets going in the second song, Valtiaan Uudet Vaateet (Sovereign's New Claims, a pun from the story Emperor's New Clothes). This is possibly one of the best songs I have ever heard, mainly thanks to its fantastic c-section and guitar solo which frankly, is only a standard to Stam1na. Rabies starts with a striking, addictive drum fill and even without these three seconds of triumph this record deserves a special mention for its drums. Great drummers like Teppo Velin are sadly far and between (because everyone wants to play guitar), but Stam1na has nothing to worry about in this department.

It is tricky to find other highlights from Nocebo because it's so consistent and thought out from the beginning to the end. Songs bridge to each other nicely and the velocity stays way above the speed limit the whole time with exception to Lepositeet (Sleep Ties) which is a song about sleep deprivation and is described as the official ballad of this band. Yeah right.

Stam1na' is one of those bands that have never released an album which could be rated lackluster or mediocre. All their records are great and this fifth album manages to raise the bar even higher. Stam1na's previous albums are still very much worth listening to, Nocebo doesn't overshadow them, but it's a product of successful evolution.

Much of the praise should also be pointed to Nocebo's international producer Joe Barresi who has been able to focus this albums sound to get the best out of it. Last autumn a Finnish recording artist called Manna made a record with an American producer and the opposite of Nocebo resulted of this collaboration. Stam1na shows that a Finnish band and a  producer from USA can be a match made in heaven.

Side note: You may want to think twice before watching this rather disturbing video. Listening is a whole different case.

Retrospective: No Dout – The Singles 1992 – 2003

1. Just A Girl 
2. It's My Life 
3. Hey Baby 
4. Bathwater 
5. Sunday Morning 
6. Hella Good 
7. New 
8. Underneath It All 
9. Excusme Mr. 
10. Running 
11. Spiderwebs 
12. Simple Kind of Life 
13. Don't Speak 
14. Ex-Girlfriend 
15. Trapped In A Box 
16. Girls Get The Bass In The Back

Greatest Hits collections are rarely any band's best albums. There are several reasons for this phenomenon:

1. There aren't enough hits (Kellis – The Hits, 2008)

2. The hits are far from being the band's best songs (Foo Fighters – Greatest Hits, 2009)

3. The songs are good, but don't match with each other well (Madonna – GHV2, 2001)

4. There are another half a mill greatist hits collections darkening the artist's memory (Michael Jackson)

5. The band doesn't approve of the album at all and it's been released only to make money (Guns N' Roses – Greatest Hits, 2004)

Miraculously, No Doubt avoids all these sins with their greatest hits collection. Fans may have their own favorites in the No Doubt catalogue that are not present, but to just an ordinary consumer, it's hard to go wrong with this collection because it gives what it promises, all No Doubt's singles. Only one studio album (The Beacon Street Collection, 1995) isn't featured here at all.

No Doubt is a band that has aimed to change their style a bit for all their records. Despite this the change between tracks on The Singles stays smooth and easy while retaining refreshing variety. Most of this is because in its core No Doubt stays the same even if they had an opera singer on their record. Bass and drums rock the rhythm section steadily, while Gwen Stefani gives No Doubt something extra special with her vocals. Music seems to also matter a lot to this band as they take their time with each record.

The listener gets wrangled in immediately by the hasty rock piece Just a Girl, followed by a cover of Talk Talk's It's My Life which was recorded to promote this compilation at the time of its release. While the band was reportedly dubious on performing a cover, the song sounds right and like No Doubt couldn't have covered any other song. Other highlights of this collection are Sunday Morning, Hella Good, Simple Kind of Life and always so touching Don't Speak. If these songs spark any interest in you towards this band, exploring deeper to world of No Doubt might be time worthy.

After half a dozen postponements, No Doubt is expected to release new music this year. Some songs from the record have already been played to the press and so far the reception has been panegyrical. The only problem No Doubt seems to be having right now most likely isn't the quality of their music, but their obsession to keep perfecting it. They clearly have something in their sleeves. Let's just hope it won't be Chinese democracy.

Shred: Steel Panther - Balls Out

1. In The Future 
2. Supersonic Sex Machine 
3. Just Like Tiger Woods 
4. 17 Girls In A Row 
5. If You Really Really Love Me 
6. It Won't Suck Itself 
7. Tomorrow Night 
8. Why Can't You Trust Me 
9. That's What Girls Are For 
10. Gold Digging Whore 
11. I Like Drugs 
12. Critter 
13. Let Me Come In 
14. Weenie Ride

As the cover (and in that matter the track-list) suggests, this album contains over the top heavy metal from the 1980's recorded with today's equipment and saturated with sexually explicit lyrics. Steel Panther is a pure parody band, but they have something that most parody bands don't have... Great musicians. And... Great songs?

The answer to that question would be yes, but while this band is instrumentally arguably on a very good level, it is the lyrical content that comes out as both a blessing and a curse. The lyrics are thoughtfully written, and although listening to Steel Panther at first feels like watching soft porn with your ears, overtime it starts to feel more like... Well, ordinary music. Or then you have just lost your mind.

All the songs on this record are completely listenable. After a strong opening with In The Future and Supersonic Sex Machine, the record buyer is taken to a  journey to so called daily life of Tiger Woods. The gag is old, this scandal happened early 2010, but the song, Just Like Tiger Woods, is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. There are other themes on this album that tie this record to our times more than the year 1985. One of them is social media. In the song Why Can't You Trust Me, the signer's girlfriend keeps lurking around in his Facebook and Myspace profiles to keep track of visits by other women. She surely has her reasons because Michael Star (artist name, vocals) seems to read the unholy bible of infidelity before he goes to sleep at night... Or more like o'clock in the morning. Or at noon. The protagonist of this album is a highly toxicated middle-aged man that has a somewhat reductive attitude towards women. Michael Star respects them only to the point he stops getting benefits; sex and preferably also money. As much of the album has the same setup in every ong, Balls Out can feel repetitive at times.

Steel Panther isn't something you may enjoy in large doses, but a listen there are here isn't harmful in any way. Just remember to respect your partner afterwards and don't take a word for anything what this band is saying. It is a game. They are playing characters. It's not real, but it sure is fun.

Shred: Herra Ylppö & Ihmiset - Mies ja Nainen

1. Särö 
2. Mies Murtuu 
3. Matador 
4. Keksiyö 
5. Ikuiset  
6. Paula Puree  
7. Se Seurustelee  
8. Mustat Hevoset 
9. Mies ja Nainen 
10. Rautavaara Rules 
11. Öitä

When Ihmiset released their debut album Sata Vuotta (Hundred Years) in 2008, the best record of the year was released in January. When Ihmiset released their second album Pojat Ei Tanssi (Boys Don’t Dance) in 2010, the best record of the year was also released in January. So now when they’re releasing their third record in January 2012, is the best record once again released in January? Let’s find out.

A Man and a Woman. That’s basically the only topic Herra Ylppö (Herra = Mister) has ever sung about in his songs for his so called solo project band Ihmiset. The other group Ylppö is part of, Maj Karma, gets some other lyrical content besides the usual relationship twaddle, but the message is still mainly the same with some variations. If you can take all this emotion-rich content and even like it (not to mention understand Finnish language), the music of these bands can really speak to you lyrically. At least it has spoken to me like this in the past, but in the case of Mies ja Nainen I was first uncertain. I have heard all this before, why should I be enthusiastic about it again? In the end I came to a conclusion that this is Ylppö’s world and he may have wanted to form some kind of trilogy with these three records. In the future however, Ylppö must come up with something else because the relationship fountain has now been depleted.

This is an international blog, so how would a foreigner hear this record? Instrumentally everything is fine. First song Särö (Crack, but not drug crack) starts with a simple echoing piano riff, hitting drums and recognizable Hamid Moeini guitars. As a fan I’m thinking immediately that yes, this is exactly what I’ve expected the record to sound like. Matador exhibits some Spanish bull fighting pipes and CMX-like guitar riffs in the beginning while Mustat Hevoset (Black Horses) is bright guitar pop. The whole sound of the album is very radio friendly and most songs are in single length. Alternative, punk and metal aspects are far and between. As the album progresses many things start becoming clearer. The songs on Mies ja Nainen don’t hold the candle to that of the previous record's, but while the other two albums severely lacked coherence, Mies ja Nainen has plenty of it.

Originally this was supposed to be a double album with “Mies” being the energetic rock record while “Nainen” would focus on more settled and gentle songs. What happened in the end was that the band decided to make one good album instead of two mediocre ones and you can hear this compromise on the finished record. Some songs sound like they came straight from the rock record; some from the gentle record and others are a good merge of the two. It’s the songs “in the middle” that clue these two different sounds together to make an eloquent listening experience.

This is a good record and it fixes the issues Ihmiset has had in the past, but emerges some new problems. What is missing here too much is that trembling feeling that ”this song is freaking great”. The band was able to achieve this feeling in the past because they favored variability over coherence, so it seems that in the case of this band the other seems to come at the price of another. This is a shame as the band spent the entire year making this album and the finished product in some ways feels less than what they aimed for or at least less than what the audience was expecting it to be. Even the graphics in the CD-case are almost exactly the same as that of the previous album’s.

All the songs on Mies ja Nainen are good, some very good, but that's about it. The record is missing the edge this band had in the past. The sound is sleek and easy, unchallenging. Only the last song Öitä [translated (Good) Night] makes an exception. On the plus side though the band plays excellent as usual and the album is convincingly mixed and mastered.

Lastly to answer the big question, no, this most likely won't be the best record of the year. But I do have to admit that I have been very hard on this album in this review. Mies ja Nainen is exactly the kind of a record Ihmiset wanted to make this time. They were set to make a great commercial Finnish rock album and Mies ja Nainen embodies just that. I think that Ylppö fans will be pleased though that Maj Karma is coming back, hopefully next January.

Roast: Rihanna - Talk That Talk

1. You Da One
2. Where Have You Been
3. We Found Love
4. Talk That Talk
5. Cockiness (Love It)
6. Birthday Cake
7. We All Want Love
8. Drunk On Love
9. Roc Me Out
10. Watch N’ Learn
11. Farewell

Do I listen to Rihanna's songs? Yes, a little bit and I have also happened to like some of them. Do I listen to Rihanna's records? Absolutely no, but now I will so god have mercy.

Rihanna has done a bit of reinvention on all of her records, but the base is always very much the same. Short songs with Rihanna's voice mixed and ”mastered” very loud to cover the brainless instrumentals. The only mission given to instrumentals is to make the songs sound bitching through a car's subwoofer.

Talk That Talk starts with a man swallowing song You Da One which you've already heard unless you've been living in a hole. This is one of the only songs on the album which they actually saw necessary to take some effort with, but I got to be ruthless; this song is as annoying as herpes simplex.

On to the second track and what can be expected to be released as a single sooner than later, Where Have You Been. How can I predict this? Because this song is hot. However, there is one issue that ruins almost everything. The radio. Where Have You Been is too short. It keeps building up, reaches great heights, but just the second you expect it to hit the apex, it crashes to the four minute marker and cuts off. This is disappointing and sums up what is pretty much the main problem with Rihanna altogether. She has no artistic or musical ambition. If she had even a bit of it, she might say in the studio: ”Fish it! This song needs one extra minute and I'm going to sing my heart out.” But no, it doesn't seem to matter to her or any of the dozen producers behind this... album.

Where Have You Been is such a disappointment, that the mega hit We Found Love doesn't give much comfort. Too bad that it's these three first tracks that have any real potential. When they end, the listener crosses the border to trash territory of songs that would just about make it to a Kim Kardashian album.

To the Fourth song Talk That Talk... Okay, the featured guest Jay Z is a fine artist, but I don't want to listen to his bravado about his million dollar homes and b-ches in his bedroom. I heard he just became a father. Congratulations, but c'mon this track is just lame. The song's biggest achievement is that I forget it immediately once it's over. Fortunately this seems to be the case with many other upcoming tracks, so I will be sleeping my night peacefully once I'm done roasting.

Cockiness (Love It).  I am not going to quote any of the lyrics in this song, but you can think of Britney's If You Seek Amy and multiply it by hundred. Or more like a million. Wait, am I really listening to the version of this album that doesn't have the parental advisory sticker? Birthday Cake continues from where Cockiness left, only that this time you don't have to suffer more than about one and a half minutes. Those 1 minute 18 seconds though I need to atone to my ears somehow, because this song is the most horrible, awful, c.r.a.p. I have ever endangered my ears to. Birthday Cake is a study book example of a sound and music genre which I cannot endure. It goes something like this: Bad < Worse < (the) Worst < Rihanna's Birthday Cake.

Fortunately this means that the rock bottom song is behind now.

We All Want Love. I agree, but is the song any good? Let's take Madonna's latest ballad Masterpiece. I can't really say that I like it, it's not that special, but the lyrics are thoughtful and intelligent. The lyrics on We All Want Love aren't intelligent at all for most parts. This is a drag as the way I see it, the only way to sell this kind of a song to people that have already heard hundreds of songs like this is to offer something a bit more original and fresh. This song doesn't. On the upside there is a feel of journey and this song offers a (sex) break to Talk That Talk's one dimensional message.

Drunk On Love is a clear Beyoncé rip off. Rihanna is not a bad singer, neither is this song terrible, but since Beyoncé does this kind of thing better than Rihanna, why bother listening to this song at all? Let's listen to Beyoncé instead, or rather get done listening to this record quickly.

Roc Me Out and Watch n' Learn aren't on this record to do much else than fill space. I was about to put Farewell into same pack with Drunk On Love, but it does sound a bit more like Rihanna. Farewell concludes the record well and softens Talk That Talk's explicit message, but doesn't do much more than that.

It's true that in the era of iTunes single song downloads you don't need more than a couple of big hits to make a sufficient amount of money, but I am sure fans of Rihanna would deserve a little bit more than what they're offered here. Rihanna could come up with an album that had eleven We Found Loves, but if this mediocre album sells well anyway, what the point? I can see her fans getting enjoyment out of this record, but six albums in seven years equals bloat.

This record wasn't as bad as I assumed it to be, but since it compromises all its potentiality for maximum commerciality, it's right where it belongs in the Roast section of this blog. I didn't even expect art from Rihanna, so I decided to roast this record instead of writing an ordinary review before I even listened to it. Turns out it was the right choice. Well, at least someone gets to laugh on her way to the bank.

Bandspan: Madonna's coming, are you prepared?

Millions of fans around the world have heartfeltly anticipated the year 2012 and the dawn of a new Madonna era. I am one of them. Madonna released her first single 30 years ago this year, so why do we still care?

That first single, Everybody, was a small circle dance hit in the New York club scene upon its release in late 1982, but it was a perfect place to be to start a career in music. Step by step Madonna made name for herself with other hits such as the must-to-do-live Holiday and Borderline which earned her an award in the very first annual MTV video music awards in 1984, the very same show she performed her then biggest hit Like a Virgin in a wedding dress to leave an indelible impression. Nowadays pretty much all the top solo acts we know are female, but in the early 80's it was a man's and Michael Jackson's world. Madonna broke boundaries for women in pop with her apologizing image and control over her own career.

The contrast between Madonna's first two albums Madonna (aka The First Album) and Like a Virgin is already measurable. It would have been natural to keep doing the same thing because her debut was hit, but Madonna had other plans. Nile Rogers (best known for David Bowie's 1982's record Let's Dance) was chosen to produce most of the album and together he and Madonna came up with something that marked a major milestone in both of their careers. Even to this date when Madonna does an interview a clip from her Like a Virgin or Material Girl videos is shown. They are definitely hits, but are Madonna's first two records really anything special today? Few of the songs have managed to withstand the test of time and some Madonna fans like me aren't even  that big of a fan of her early recordings. Songs on Like a Virgin are played by an actual band while The First Album utilized more of that day's modern technology. Like a Virgin was also considerably more expensive to make mainly thanks to Nile Rogers's big pay check.

What should be noted about Madonna is that before she had everything, she had nothing and had to do with very little money and property. She became very stingy in her early years in New York city and even today she is very cautious about how much money she is spending and this awareness applies for the recording process as well. Most of the time she likes to stay away from flashy studios and big names in the business. Madonna rather finds a relatively unknown DJ and makes a song with him in his apartment with the equipment available. This is the way she worked in her early years and this is the way she still likes to work today.

Madonna's third record True Blue (1986) sailed on more serious waters while still catering to the more up-beat audience. She sang about topics such as teenage pregnancy on Papa Don't Preach and abusive relationship on Live To Tell (a song that can be perceived in many ways). True Blue was dedicated to Madonna's then husband Sean Penn and this has a clear effect on the overall atmosphere of the record. However, while True Blue is her biggest selling album worldwide, it is just another ”some killers some fillers” in Madonna's catalogue. It was her fourth album Like a Prayer (1989) that really worked from the beginning to the end.

Like a Prayer achieved critical acclaim and Madonna was recognized as ”a real artist” for the first time during her career by people whom hadn't been paying any serious attention to her in the past. Madonna already had a bigger role on True Blue as a producer, but Like a Prayer took another step forward in this area. Most people who've heard about Madonna don't give her credit as a producer-songwriter, but she definitely deserves this. While making Like a Prayer Madonna could go to a room with the band, play a song and give directions to musicians what she wanted them to do in each part of the song after they played it.

Year 1990 is the peak of Madonna's career. She released the delightful I'm Breathless soundtrack for the movie Dick Tracy which she also acted in and went on the unforgettable Blond Ambition tour. One of her biggest hits, the gay-anthem Vogue thrilled everyone, and if I had to come up with the list of the best bass lines ever, Vogue would be a strong contender on that list. This song strengthened Madonna's status and made her seem almost completely infallible. Madonna must have also felt this way, because on her next moves she began to challenge her audience even more.

Musically Madonna had everything at this point. She embarrassingly had to admit that to that date MTV hadn’t banned any of her somewhat raunchy music videos, a fact that was about to change. Justify My Love is a twisted sex fantasy in a nameless, plain hotel. Madonna might not have been nude herself on this music video, but she was about to show everything in 1992 with her controversial sex book and supporting studio album Erotica. The Sex book was released two weeks earlier than the record, scaring the conservative world to not give Erotica the appreciation it deserves. Either Madonna had misjudged her audience or she simply didn't care about going too far, but musically she was stronger than ever.

Erotica (1992) is some of Madonna's best work. It sounds cold, ascetic and unproduced, like it was recorded on the streets of Harlem with some jazz club thrown into the mix. Madonna doesn’t even sing most of the time, she speaks and acts as a storyteller in a journey through topics such as, yes  sex, but also loving one another and self-consciousness. Erotica is very hard to listen to, it leaves you frigid and hollow. It's also one of Madonna's least successful albums to date. Although commercial success has always been important to Madonna, this record clearly wasn't supposed to be a treat for everyone.

By 1994 Madonna had been driven into a corner. She was unpopular and had to find a way to recover from all the bad publicity. R&B was very popular at the time, but as Madonna didn't have the voice for it, what can be heard in her vocals on her sixth album Bedtime Stories (1994) is a successful compromise. Bedtime Stories was a softer, warmer record, an antidote for Erotica. However, it lacked coherence. Madonna had never worked with so many people before, branching from Babyface to Björk. While Madonna didn't meet Björk personally, Björk did write her an ambient electronic track Bedtime Story, a song that acted somewhat as a base for Madonna on her journey to more electronical music later in the 90's. Other examples of the songs on the record were hip hop flavored Human Nature and Secret that leaned towards softer R&B beats and acoustic guitars.

After Bedtime Stories Madonna landed a role in Evita, a musical movie project which had been on and off the works for years. To perform the lead role in this musical about the 1940's Argentina's first lady Eva Perón, Madonna had to book lessons with a voice couch. It debatable whether this made Madonna's voice better or worse, but it did make her more aware of her voice and opened her new possibilities vocally. This new found glory can be heard in her mid-90's work in songs such as You'll See and the Oscar-winning You Must Love Me.

After finally becoming a mother in her late 30's, Madonna went through periods of deeper self-examination. What could she teach to her daughter? Kabbalah, while a religion resented by many, offered her new stories to tell to her audience. Ray of Light (1998) is the great masterpiece of the 90's pop. It's relaxed, restrained and full of live's wisdom. Madonna worked on the record mainly with William Orbit, and the biggest change of all compared to Madonna's previous work is the limited use of a live band. Everything on the record was mostly done with computers, synthesizers and electric guitars. Every song is there for a reason and five singles were released, all reaching either great or moderate success.

For me Ray of Light was my first touch with Madonna. At that time MTV was still a real music video channel and I remember watching it in the mornings. Madonna's videos such as Frozen, Ray of Light and The Power of Goodbye aired, but I couldn't read the info box so I thought it was a different artist in each video. From there on Madonna began to appear more in my life and each time I got more and more interested in this mysterious, ageless woman.

Madonna made her next two records Music (2000) and American Life (2003) with a French producer called Mirwais Ahmadzaï, whom Madonna found through her own record label Maverick. Madonna began to study guitar playing and was able to have a bigger part in the composing process of a song. While Music experimented with house music, American Life was more folk-electronica. As these two records were mostly done by the same producer, they do sound similar, but are still two different sides of a coin. The biggest change between the records was Madonna's political awareness which was sparked by 9/11. Lyrically American Life doesn't reflect this event as the themes on the album evolve mainly around fame such as in the desperate sounding Hollywood, religion in X-Static Process and antimaterialism in I'm So Stupid, an antithesis to Material Girl dating two decades in the past. In any case, American Life can be seen as a flop. People hear what they see and this time they saw Madonna in a military outfit throwing a grenade to George W. Bush's lap. Such imaginary was resented in the USA at that time and Madonna once again lost audience although she pulled back from releasing the controversial American Life music video in question. In 2001 when Madonna toured for her Ray of Light and Music albums, she focused mainly around songs from those two albums, but on the 2004's Reinvention Tour she cave little room to American Life, performing many old hits instead. No wonder this tour is widely considered a fan favorite.

Madonna had worked with a young British DJ called Stuart Price on both of her most recent tours at the time, so he was a natural selection to work with for her next album as well. What was originally supposed to be music for a play (in a theater), the play was canceled and little of that music was salvaged to Madonna's next album. Madonna ordered Price to come up with something that sounded like ”Abba on drugs”. What resulted was the Gimme Gimme Gimme -sampling Hung Up, her biggest hit to date reaching top of the charts in 41 countries around the world (yes, I do remember this kind of trivia). Digging deeper into Madonna's tenth studio album Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), more samples await if you are able spot them. I Love New York samples the guitar riff from The Stooges's I Wanna Be Your Dog while Future Lovers loans from Donna Summer's 70's disco hammer I Feel Love. Almost every song on the album sampled something, so it can be debated whether Madonna had lost her ability to come up with stuff of her own, but in its core Confessions was a tribute album to music she grew up with. Older generations got to spot all the samples while younger generations could simly enjoy the modernized retro sound. At that time the music critics praised the record, but were not sure how it would stand the test of time. In my opinion Confessions on a Dance Floor has managed excellently and it still sounds fresh and exciting today.

Something what Madonna hadn't really done in the past was to go mainstream, at least to what extent she was about to go on her eleventh studio album Hard Candy (2008), produced mainly by Pharrell Williams and Timbaland. Hard Candy was made is short sessions and took all 2007 to make, so when it was finally released the wave of this sound was already settling down. Madonna wasn't anymore the trendsetter she used to be and many fans were let down. Hard Candy isn't a very good record, but it has its moments such as the experimental 4 Minutes, relentless Give It 2 Me, sleek She's Not Me and slowly accelerating Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You.

It's been four years of Hard Candy and we are finally getting new material with her twelfth record M.D.N.A released in spring 2012. In the future Madonna wants to focus more on films so do us all a favor and don' watch her newest film W.E. or buy it on DVD. Buy M.D.N.A instead and go see her on tour so she wakes up. She has to pay her rent. If she doesn't make enough money with movies, she'll have to keep recording great studio albums. Fortunately she has signed a three record contract with Universal so her last efforts in music shouldn’t be around the corner just yet.

People keep thinking who will be ”the next Madonna”, but I personally think there won't be any next Madonna. Like there were no next Elvis, or next Michael Jackson, or a hundred other artists and bands that are so unique that no one is going to take their place. Madonna is an icon, and icons are irreplaceable. 

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The picture used in this article was taken from http://www.mad-eyes.net/tours/sticky-and-sweet-tour/madonna-pictures-london-o2-press.htm

What is the Record Shredder?

I sort out the content of this blog according to following categories.

Shred – Simple review of a recently released album.

Retrospective – Review of an older album that is still worth listening to.

Roast – Review of something hazardous to human ears.

Bandspan – A relatively ”short” peak to some band's or artist's history.

For some record to be featured in retrospective, it must be at least three years old. Newer records are reviewed in Shreds. Roasts I will write far and between, but when I do, I do it with a humorous tone. A successfully written roast might even make the reader want to find out what I'm all about in my roast, but beware, you've been warned for a reason. Bandspan as a section has the same problem as most biographies. To change it up a little I'm not going to write my take on only the bands and artists I'm interested in and know a lot about, but also on bands that I outright hate or never even heard of. As bandspans are very time-consuming to write and to read, they will be the rarest type of text I come up with and publish in this blog.

I give a chance to all kinds of music and I try to discover something new, if not every week, at least every month. I do this mainly by visiting the library and boldly picking up records from the shelf which I might have never heard of. I know that even in genres that I don't pay a lot of attention to, there is still some rap or jazz that please my brain and ears. However, I don't have time to listen through thousands of records so my discoveries are strongly guided by what artists I have heard of in the past. Everyone knows Motörhead, but has everyone really listened to it? My answer to this question a couple of months ago was a no, but I gave it a spin and liked it a lot.

We all should remember that although we might not like something, to someone else that music is a big deal. Let's take Justin Bieber for instance. To some girls JB is probably the center of their lives although this artist causes strong polarization and many people have expressed their loathe towards him. I turn my radio off when Justin Bieber is playing, but I still don't judge him or the people who dig his music. It's just not my cup of tea.

I start my blogging with this kind of speech, because as I keep updating new material to the site, this blog won't ultimately become a rock blog or a metal blog. This is a general music blog which gives credit to whole albums listened from beginning to the end. No matter what genre they are.

About the author of this blog

I am a 20-year-old business student from eastern Finland. One day I was given a school assignment to start my own blog and since I have been thinking about doing something like this for a longer period of time, I decided to take the assignment seriously. I found this good a chance to get creative so I began writing about something I am very fond of, music.

I have never played any instruments seriously until I walked into a music store in the summer of 2011 and bought my first electric guitar. Better late than never some might say.

I listen to a lot of different records and want to share my opinions on them (with respect to the artists and people behind them). I don't care if I get only a single follower. I always write like my text was read by millions, though there is a point where I decide that "Alright, this text is now ready to be published and I am not going to work on it any longer". Bare this in mind while reading my blog.

Please have a good read.