Madonna Embraces The Future Of Music

Madonna has never failed to reinvent herself with the times, somehow always managing to stay relevant, and her 11th studio album, Hard Candy, seems no different. Showing she is still with the times, you can catch her new album streaming on her MySpace page four days before it’s official release.

Madge has never made a secret of her distrust of the Internet and music, being very vocal about her feelings over music piracy. On her last album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, she had it streamed over AOL, but with some colorful comments inserted in to each song to ruin the tunes for anyone who might be inspired to try to steal them and release them over the torrents. This time she seems to have skipped the comments, I am only on the fourth track as I write this, which is amusing since there is a complicated formula out there as to how you can strip down a MySpace page and download any embedded track you choose. So while embracing the Net, she seems to be not quite as up to speed as she may think.

As Mitch Michaels of 411Mania reminds us, she is following in the footsteps of other bands such as Nine Inch Nails, 50 Cent, R.E.M. amongst others to debut their albums on the popular social network. If it actually helps sales is a difficult thing to measure, but it could also be seen as a rather large gamble to expose an entire work to the public before sales. I must say as each track plays, I am finding myself less enthralled with this particular outing from the Material Girl. The “studio” tracks are fairly obviously cut to be remixed umpteen times by DJs like Tiësto and Paul Oakenfold, so this marketing move may have the exact opposite of the desired effect on me.

This is Madonna’s last album under her contract with Warner Brothers, and from here on out she will be signed with Live Nation Inc., a deal reportedly worth around $120 million. Her next three albums, and all subsequent tours, will be handled by the ticket seller in yet another sign the old school music industry model is falling apart. More and more artists are moving away from the big name record labels, leaving one to wonder what the music business to look like in the years to come. If the likes of Madonna, Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are any indication, it will be filled with self-promoting artists, deals with non-traditional labels and social networking.