We seriously need money. Anything. A buck. Come ahhhn!

Oedipus Dreck

Madonna, Hard Candy (Warner Bros.)

Review by Eric Lingenfelter

Does anyone think about Madonna in “that way” anymore?

I don’t mean like going online to look for the pictures from her early ‘90s nudist phase. I’m talking about looking at the 50-year-old sack of bones, sinew and gristle that is the Madonna of today and saying, “I’d hit it,” without a hint of irony.

That’s the image that Hard Candy sells. But does anyone buy it?

The video for lead single “4 Minutes” – in which Madonna and Justin Timberlake express their sterile, robotic lust for each other through the magic of interpretive dance – plays like an extravagantly budgeted MILF porn that cuts off before the (supposedly) good parts. Everyone involved is just going through the motions to collect a check, but hey! Sex! It sells, right?

If Tom Jones did this kind of thing with Carrie Underwood, the ocean itself wouldn’t be able to contain the resultant worldwide pukealanche. But Madonna gets a free pass.

It’s supremely creepy that this woman is trying to con the world into believing that men who are literally half her age would line up for miles around so that she could grind their pelvises into dust. The whole charade reeks of a particularly smelly brand of desperation.

But Madonna is nothing if not a shrewd businesswoman. Perhaps she’s on to something here.

Major labels and their acts are sinking like dinosaurs into the tar pits of the Internet. Maybe the throngs of unimaginative gay men and milquetoast pseudo-feminists who cling to her in their desperate quest for identity aren’t enough to keep her afloat anymore. Maybe she’s using one of her infamous image makeovers in order to break some new ground, audience-wise.

One needs only to check out the album cover for evidence of her scheme.

By thrusting her half-century old crotch at us while dressed as a horrifying amalgam of John Cena and the Fabulous Moolah, Madonna seems to be trying to attract a demographic previously untapped by the music industry: wrestling fans with Oedipal yearnings.

World Wrestling Entertainment pulls in millions of viewers each week. According to WWE’s corporate Web site, their shows are consistently among the week’s top rated programs for the 18 to 34-year-old male demographic. And since people over the age of 12 who still enjoy watching gargantuan men in tights pretend to fight clearly exist in at least a mild state of arrested development, it’s a fair bet that a good number of them have some unresolved mommy issues.

Kudos to Warner Bros. for this fantastic display of niche marketing. It’s this kind of plucky thinking that’ll keep the major label monolith alive for years to come.

So, if you do the Five Knuckle Shuffle while fantasizing about showing Mommy who da champ is, rejoice! Your shameful existence finally has a soundtrack.

Hard Candy gets a rating of one brooch and two puddles of blood, tears and vitreous humor.

(The views expressed in this review are solely those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The BEAST or its affiliates. We’d hit it.)