Madonna’s New Album To Rot Your Teeth

Madonna - centuries-old empress of reinvention that she is - has decided to name her new album Hard Candy, but how will that affect her image?

Using our always dead-on powers of deduction, we've been able to work out that this means Madonna is ditching her purple leotard for Hard Candy to either dress up as an unnerving sweet-shop lady or she'll base her look on that film where Juno tries to cut a paedophile's balls off.

What's that? Pharrell has produced much of Hard Candy for Madonna and it features several guest spots by Justin Timberlake? Well in that case we're completely wrong - Madonna's new look will be that of a 50-year-old woman at a nightclub desperately trying to look three decades younger than she actually is and fooling nobody. So no real change, then.

Even though she's older than time itself - which is possibly why she maintains that she knows Jesus - it's still a big thing when Madonna releases a new album. It's been like this for years - when Madonna released Ray Of Light everyone was excited about her return to the cutting edge. With American Life, everyone was excited about seeing Madonna dress up as a soldier and rhyme 'Mini Cooper' with 'Super duper'. With Confessions On A Dance Floor, everyone was excited to see Madonna strip down to a gruesome leotard and show off her vagin… no no no, that didn't happen at all.

And now it's time for Madonna to release a brand new album. It'll be her last album for Warner Brothers before she ticks over to her $120 million Live Nation contract, and it'll be the last album she releases before she turns 50. Madonna's facial skin already looks like it's been winched back to ripping point in preparation for the album, which means all that's left is for Madonna to give the sodding thing a name.

And that's what she's done - the new Madonna album will be called Hard Candy.

Hard Candy? But what could it mean? As we implied earlier, Hard Candy is also the name of a movie starring Ellen Page, so perhaps this is Madonna's attempt to do what Jay-Z did with American Gangster and release an album inspired by a movie. But since we can't see any songs on Hard Candy called I'll Slice Your Testicles Off or Hang Yourself, Paedophile Scum, we'll have to assume that this isn't true. 

Or perhaps Madonna has decided to embark on a tactic of naming albums after food that she has trouble eating in her advanced years, in which case we can expect her next album to either be called Crusty Baguette or Anything That Hasn't Been Mashed Into A Paste Beforehand. But, again, that looks unlikely. So here's Madonna's long-time spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg with the real explanation being Hard Candy's title:

"She loves candy. It’s about the juxtaposition of tough and sweetness, or as Madonna so eloquently expressed, 'I’m gonna kick your ass, but it’s going to make you feel good.'"

She loves candy, so she called the album Hard Candy. Worth noting that she didn't call the album Hard Guy Ritchie, which obviously means that she doesn't love her own husband but that's OK because the mental image that Hard Guy Ritchie has conjured up has already taken us to the very brink of suicide.

We can't help thinking that Madonna's really shot herself in the foot with Hard Candy - due for release in April and preceded by single Four Minutes next month - because when she takes it on the road she'll find that it's especially difficult to offend an entire religion with an album named after some confectionery. And who'll go and see a concert where Madonna doesn't enrage a deity? She's done for.

Read more:

New Madonna album called Hard Candy - Marie Claire