Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake - 4 Minutes (Warner)
2/5
By: Michael Cragg
The other day, whilst eating my lunch at work (picture the scene if you will), a friend and I noticed the cover of Madonna's new album in a magazine. The resulting conversation went something like this: "What do you think of Madonna?" I asked. "She looks like Shirley from Eastenders in this picture". I nearly choked on my sandwich. Accurate? Perhaps. Nasty? Of course. But then that's Madonna's job as a cultural icon, to split opinion, to get people talking, to ride the pop zeitgeist until the bitter end. So here she is with Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, musing on the imminent implosion of our planet, whilst in the background the beat rumbles and the horns blare. But what does it all mean?
Well, not a great deal really. It's a great pop song, don't get me wrong. The verses are short and to the point, there's a great bridge bit where Madonna sings "tick tock" and Justin makes singing her name sound like a chorus in itself, and then for the actual chorus he sounds amazingly like Bad-era Michael Jackson (very different from 'bad' Michael Jackson). Plus, there's a brilliant breakdown bit at the end where Timbaland throws in one of those beats he used to save for Missy Elliott. The only problem is that Madonna, for all her use of younger talent, has previously always been able to take unknown producers and put them in the spotlight, whilst here she's literally barely audible, playing second fiddle on her own track.
Previous collaborator William Orbit was perhaps best known for his work with Belinda Carlisle before Ray Of Light, and both Mirwais and Stuart Price were struggling dance producers who could barely have imagined a call from Ms Ciccone. But '4 Minutes', and it's parent album Hard Candy (also featuring production from Pharrell Williams), feels a little desperate, like an obvious attempt to boost her stalling career in America. It's not as if she's the first to do that- Nelly Furtado basically became a whole new person on the Timbaland-produced Loose album- but crucially, '4 Minutes' isn't the best work any of the three people involved have done. It's not as good as 'Try Again' or 'Maneater', nowhere near 'My Love' or 'Sexyback' and not even close to over half of Madonna's own output.
The point about Madonna is that she's a great pop star, that she's always been the main attraction even when she's piled in the collaborators. By hiring in the best producer and the hot new singer she's allowing the spotlight to drift away from her and surely that's not really the point.
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