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8.0
73761
8.0 |
The Irish Times
Madonna is never one to shun progress, and several songs on Rebel Heart see her use the “club banger” strategy first deployed on 2005’s Confessions on a Dancefloor, with help from producers including Aviici, Diplo and Kanye West
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8.0
73836
8.0 |
The Independent
If the lyrics mine familiar tropes of sex, dance, religion and celebrity, the music pushes out from her electropop template, with the brittle beats and wheezing dubstep electronic flourishe
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8.0
73867
8.0 |
Digital Spy
Some of her most captivating work in years
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8.0
73901
8.0 |
All Music
The ambition remains, along with the hunger to remain on the bleeding edge, but she's allowing her past to mingle with her present, allowing her to seem human yet somewhat grander at the same time
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8.0
73938
8.0 |
The Arts Desk
The whole confection is so deliciously bonkers – and shot through with moments of such brilliance – that it replaces the musch-maligned MDNA as the comeback Madonna deserves
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7.6
74073
7.6 |
Paste Magazine
This new batch of songs feels and sounds raw and powerful, like the woman herself, if occasionally a little hamfisted
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7.0
73877
7.0 |
musicOMH
For all the jibes about her age or her perceived relevance in 2015, there’s still more energy and invention crammed into this record than someone half her age could produce
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7.0
73678
7.0 |
Drowned In Sound
A record whose strengths are timeless and whose faults are somewhat more modern
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7.0
73679
7.0 |
Slant Magazine
There are moments throughout where Madonna carves out new, exhilarating territory for both herself and mainstream pop at large
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7.0
73680
7.0 |
Rolling Stone
The album is at its strongest when Madonna shoves everyone to the side and just tells it to us straight
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6.7
73895
6.7 |
A.V. Club
While her reputation as a bulletproof dance-floor queen still looms large, Madonna endures because she’s never been afraid to own her imperfections, and be emotionally forthright about, well, everything
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6.5
73930
6.5 |
The Line Of Best Fit
It’s certainly not the worst record of her career, but it is the most frustrating
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6.5
73973
6.5 |
Beardfood
She still has it
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6.0
73933
6.0 |
Spin
Ultimately, even in the record's clunkier moments, it's gratifying to hear Madonna leaning defiantly (and gleefully) into what many would consider to be the less savory elements of her personality
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6.0
74332
6.0 |
NOW
Surprisingly full of acoustic sounds and wistful balladry reminiscent of her 90s material, but it also plugs into a load of dark, restless and weird club rhythms with help from a coterie of in-demand producers
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6.0
73682
6.0 |
Time Out
It all adds up to a sprawling and varied selection box that’s definitely worth cherry-picking from
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6.0
73739
6.0 |
Q
Often strikes a more tentative note. Print edition only
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6.0
73740
6.0 |
Uncut
Almost gets the balance right, but at 19 tracks, most in the industrial party-pop style of cheeseball producers Diplo and Avicii, there's simply too much going on. Print edition only
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6.0
73837
6.0 |
The FT
The tone swings wildly from poor-me break-up songs to hard-edged bangers
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6.0
73841
6.0 |
The Observer
Millennials will cringe, but Madonna just makes a far better basqued polemicist than she does a wise elder stateswoman
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6.0
73850
6.0 |
Mojo
No one does pop music like Madonna, at least as much for listeners as dancers. Print edition only
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6.0
73865
6.0 |
PopMatters
With Rebel Heart she’s dropped the overt hit-chasing to instead take on her most radical incarnation yet: that of an actual, relatable human being, flaws and all
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6.0
73763
6.0 |
The Guardian
She can come up with songs that are both mature and reflective and that function as fantastic pop music, and they’re all the more potent because they sound like they’re being made entirely on her own terms
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6.0
73780
6.0 |
State
A Madonna album works best when there is a clear stylistic approach that sews each track together seamlessly but like its predecessor MDNA, Rebel Heart is more of a disjointed affair- perfect for the one track streaming Spotifiers
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6.0
73833
6.0 |
Evening Standard
Musically it’s too of-the-moment for any songs to feel like real classics
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5.8
73681
5.8 |
Pretty Much Amazing
Her taunts have become strident, and her cultural currency is no longer backed by gold
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5.1
73971
5.1 |
Pitchfork
Rebel Heart grows confusing and irreconcilably uneven as it progresses
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5.0
74054
5.0 |
The Music
Too often, quality control is sacrificed for the sake of sounding cool, but thematically at least, Rebel Heart is the most honest Madonna album since Ray Of Light
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5.0
74325
5.0 |
Consequence Of Sound
When the world that you made goes on to change without you, keeping up becomes a bigger and bigger risk. If you’re Madonna, you take that risk no matter how likely you are to come out the other side without stumbling
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5.0
73736
5.0 |
NME
Ultimately, ‘Rebel Heart’ feels like a wasted opportunity
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4.0
75323
4.0 |
Crack
We’d rather return to the diamante cowgirl of 2000 or the Eva Peron vibes of ’96. It’s all depressingly vanilla
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4.0
82394
4.0 |
God Is In The TV
Most of the ballads (which make up almost half the record) blend into each other and are utterly forgettable
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