Bop or flop: GAYLUV

Don’t play that stupid game cause I’m a different kind of girl


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Awful. To think this was only one album cycle removed from 4 Minutes (which really needs to go viral on Tiktok soon, ideally on the day someone launches a nuclear ICBM :disco:).
 
It had potential, if beefed up with the right producer, to have been her Bohemian Like You of sorts, but lazy lyricism and both inept vocals and features really mar it as an almost bankrupt attempt at a hit were it not a souvenir of the otherwise triumphant SuperBowl moment. It was like a placeholder release that somehow worked for a split second. Never have I ever been so incredulous at such a generic offering from her. As a lead single.
 
Awful. To think this was only one album cycle removed from 4 Minutes (which really needs to go viral on Tiktok soon, ideally on the day someone launches a nuclear ICBM :disco:).

This is so true.

Celebration was in between, of course, and that just felt a bit cheap/ naff too, but I feel like 4 Minutes was actually the outlier on Hard Candy- Give It 2 Me started the trend of the tinny, cheap production that followed and was the beginning of the rot for me.

GAYLUV isn’t appalling- it’s a 6/10 for me- but it remains astonishing as a lead single from the world’s biggest female artist at that point.

An absolute flop.
 
I like it more than I hate it, so I went with bop.

I actually think MDNA is a mostly brilliant album.
 
In many ways this was the end, really, wasn't it?

She'd taken big swings and missed in the past, and obviously Hard Candy wasn't very good, but this feels like the moment it became clear that her legendary instincts had finally deserted her and she just looked foolish and out of touch.
 
In many ways this was the end, really, wasn't it?

She'd taken big swings and missed in the past, and obviously Hard Candy wasn't very good, but this feels like the moment it became clear that her legendary instincts had finally deserted her and she just looked foolish and out of touch.

Yes and no. It was the first time she felt truly out of touch, but Hard Candy did the damage as it did the unforgiveable thing- and reviews mentioned it at the time- it chased trends rather than setting them. She's always found up and coming, hip producers to work with but suddenly she sounded like she was guesting on a Neptunes/ Timbaland record.
 
True, but you could (if you were being VERY GENEROUS) make the case that Hard Candy was a Bedtime Stories-esque consolidation effort. The fact that she got at least one big hit out of it justified the approach somewhat, even if the overall reception was negative.

GAYLUV was both nakedly trend chasing and a complete dud, so it was really neither use nor ornament. And of course she never really bounced back from it as she had after previous missteps...
 
True, but you could (if you were being VERY GENEROUS) make the case that Hard Candy was a Bedtime Stories-esque consolidation effort. The fact that she got at least one big hit out of it justified the approach somewhat, even if the overall reception was negative.

GAYLUV was both nakedly trend chasing and a complete dud, so it was really neither use nor ornament. And of course she never really bounced back from it as she had after previous missteps...

What Hard Candy was was a cynical attempt to get onto US radio. She's just had one of her bigger later era and best reviewed albums in Confessions, but none of the singles really stuck in the US. Hung Up is basically one of the biggest selling singles of all time but it only reached #7 in the US, mainly due to airplay. (And the US pigeonholing it as "gay music").
 
hopefully she's just being reductive in calling it that. I dont think it will be such a blatant "sequel" (in title or sound!) because it will be met with a lot of critique if so.
 
I'm no more or less concerned than with anything she's released for over a decade.
 
hopefully she's just being reductive in calling it that. I dont think it will be such a blatant "sequel" (in title or sound!) because it will be met with a lot of critique if so.
Oh I'm not concerned about the title (I'm pretty sure she won't call it that) but more about the content...
 
Suede, love you, but do shut up.

As if you won’t declare it the second coming at some point, possibly nine months after declaring it terrible, the worst thing she’s ever done and six months before deciding it’s better than Erotica.
 
And for the love of god, SOMEBODY CALL UP PAT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE
 
MDNA had a few keepers (Love Spent, Masterpiece) as did Hard Candy (Devil Wouldn't Recognize You, 4 Minutes), but both fell off a cliff quality-control-wise vs. the four previous albums, which had all been stellar.
 
I do think it's one of the most interesting albums of her career. But best? Pfffrt
 
The concept of Madame X was definitely interesting in terms of the sounds she suggested she wanted to explore, she just didn’t go full enough or hard enough in. If she had done so the fusion could have been so much more.
 
I'm not trolling. I genuinely believe that Madame X is a far, far better album than Mayhem.
 

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