Madonna's New Album

I don't know what happened to Madonna. I was just listening to tracks off her new album MDNA (probably the coolest album name I've heard in a long time, by the way) and it strikes me that she just doesn't get it. She doesn't get Rave music. Or worse: she's just trying to capitalize off it without adding anything.

I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not bad music. I'd rather listen to it than a lot of music out there. But it's just not great. And what gets me is, Madonna used to be great. Her song "Material Girl" is one of my favorite songs of all time. "Vogue"—same thing: positive message, edgy, complex, confidence-building, interesting, entertaining, etc. And her album, Erotica, is not only brilliant music, but brilliant literature. It's great poetry that can stand up to just about anyone in the English literary canon. And I should know: I've studied the stuff seriously.

But MDNA is just not that great. Same thing with the past several of her albums. MDNA features a couple cameos from an artist I really respect: M.I.A. The cameos were stupid and vapid. So how come I still respect M.I.A. but not Madonna? Because M.I.A. makes sense to me. I understand her. She is one of the few pop artists out there who can legitimately say "I just want to put a cap in your ass and take your money." A lot of artists claim they come from the ghetto and are bad boys or bad girls. But M.I.A. came from an INDIAN ghetto. She was a war refugee. Her father was a Tamil Tiger. When M.I.A. does a stupid collaboration (and she does a lot of them) it's not because she's stupid. It's because she's a gangsta popping a cap in the ass of the music industry and taking their money. She's a musical warlord. She makes sense.

But I don't get Madonna. Maybe there's something I'm missing. I feel somewhere along the line she lost it somehow. And I wish she would just find a way to do the brilliant, amazing music that I know she can do. Whether it's because of greed, or if she's in a dark place right now, I don't know. But I don't understand. I wish she would just... come back.