Hard Candy - rev.2

Several weeks after the release of M's latest album, supported by numerous promo concerts, and the hype (hysteria, chaos, you name it) about the Sticky & Sweet Tour, I think it's time I revise my early review of Hard Candy.

While I do have to maintain my original views, ie, the album is ... somewhat less than what I expected, making it not hard at all, at least it's sweet. Sort of. What do I mean? Well, with that cover and title, I for one would surely have expected at least one "fuck" or "shit" or some such dropped in one of the lyrics somewhere, but there ain't no such a thing. I swear Alanis outdoes M-dolla there, with Flavors Of Entanglement, and I bet she never thought of competing in it. Oh well. Candy Shop, well, with that live performance she did at the promo concerts (and which I believe we'll see again at the Tour), it is a lot better, sort of filled with meaning, finally. Well, a certain amount, anyway. 4 Minutes is still second weakest for me - Spanish Lesson can't be overtaken there being as horrible as possible, I honestly don't know why these two songs made the final tracklist and Ring My Bell only the Japanese edition's. Give It 2 Me however is simply fantastic, by far the strongest song on the whole album, quickly followed by She's Not Me, tho I still don't really know if it's good to practically transfer samples from one track to another, within one album; the lyrics make up for it anyway.

Heartbeat, Miles Away, and Incredible are okay as they are, I guess ... nothing too special. Beat Goes On and Dance 2Night however still can't convince me enough...nor can Devil and Voices really. Devil just still reminds me too much of Kylie's Red Blooded Woman, while Voices... rephrase that first line: "Who is the garden, who is the snake?" - yikes. And still ~one bell short~, so to speak.

So, all in all, after a lot of repeated listening, I still don't think I should give HC an A. Maybe stepped up to a B from a C, but that's all. And I never actually went to buy the special edition of this one. Unlike American Life and Confessions, which I grabbed on release day, I just kept thinking and thinking and thinking about this one ... but you know what? Rather a Japanese import. At least that one has the extra song.