FEATURE:
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!
IN THIS PHOTO: Madonna in 2005
The Pull and Brilliance of Madonna’s Hung Up
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BECAUSE ABBA released a couple…
of new songs recently and have been very much in the news, I wanted to bring them into this feature about Madonna. On 17th October, it will be sixteen years since she released the first single from her Confessions on a Dance Floor album, Hung Up. It is one of her finest songs. After the slight disappointment of her 2003 album, American Life – the first where reviews where not largely positive -, Hung Up announced a revival and re-assertion that the Queen of Pop had lost none of her step! American Life was a more political album where, on the cover, Madonna assumed the look of a guerrilla fighter or world leader. I really like the album - though many were negative towards it or felt that it was a misstep. Confessions on a Dance Floor mixed Dance-Pop and Disco. It was sort of like Madonna returning to her 1983 eponymous album – but her 2005 album was glossier, punchier and more diverse than her debut (though I think Madonna is a stronger album overall). I love all of Madonna’s various guises, personas, incarnations and evolutions. On Confessions on a Dance Floor, she delivered one of her finest album. Hung Up is a fabulous single, in no small part because of the ABBA sample used. A single that announced a complete departure from American Life, Hung Up prominently features a sample from the instrumental introduction to ABBA's single Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).
Madonna personally sought (or begged, as some sources say) permission from the songwriters, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. This was only the second time Andersson and Ulvaeus have given permission to sample one of their songs (following the Fugees song, Rumble in the Jungle, for the soundtrack of the film, When We Were Kings). Ahead of its sixteenth anniversary, I wanted to spend a bit of time with Hung Up. It is not just the ABBA sample that sends it over the top. Whilst the lyrics are quite simple and are about desire/being hung up on someone, the mesh of sounds and Madonna’s incredible vocal is much more interesting. Madonna imagined the song to be a cross between the music played at Danceteria - the New York City night club she frequented in her early days - and the music of ABBA. It is no surprise that Hung Up is regarded as one of Madonna’s best songs! This is what critics made of the first single released from Confessions on a Dance Floor:
“Hung Up" received critical acclaim. Keith Caulfield from Billboard, while reviewing Confessions on a Dance Floor, called the song "a fluffier cut". Chris Tucker from Billboard explained that "Madonna returns with a song that will restore faith among her minions, fans of pop music and radio programmers". Jon Pareles of The New York Times said that Madonna kept her pop touch in "Hung Up" and called it a love song which is both happy as well as sad. Alan Light from Rolling Stone called the song candy coated. David Browne from Entertainment Weekly was impressed by the song and said "'Hung Up' shows how effortlessly she [Madonna] can tap into her petulant inner teen".
Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine compared the song to the remix of Gwen Stefani's 2004 single "What You Waiting For?". Ed Gonzalez from the same magazine called the song the biggest hit of her career. Margaret Moser from The Austin Chronicle said that the song strobes and pulses along with another album track "Forbidden Love". Peter Robinson from The Observer commented that "Hung Up" is Madonna's "most wonderfully commercial single since the mid Eighties". Alexis Petridis from The Guardian called the track a "joyous...single that could theoretically have been more camp, but only with the addition of Liza Minnelli on backing vocals and lyrics about Larry Grayson's friend Everard."
Ben Williams from New York magazine described the song as sounding both throbbing as well as wistful. Christian John Wikane from PopMatters called the song a propulsive track. Alan Braidwood of BBC Music noted of the track: "full-on dance, dark, disco, fun, big" and compared it to other Madonna songs like "Vogue", "Deeper and Deeper" and "Ray of Light". Tom Bishop from BBC Music commented that Madonna has either reinvigorated her career or she is "merely throwing one final dance party for her long-term fans before settling down to record more sedate material". Jason Shawhan from About.com commented that the song has "way too much Abba in it for its own good." He went on to elaborate that "[t]he only reason I can think of for this to be chosen as the first single was the Motorola ad campaign. It's not a bad song by far, it has pep and a sense of fun, but it's not even close to being one of the best songs on the record". Bill Lamb of About.com said that the ABBA sample sounded completely effortless like much of Madonna's best dance music.
He further elaborated that what "'Hung Up' amounts to is a big gushy love note to Madonna's core fans, those club kids who pack the floor every time they hear the pounding beats of a Madonna classic and the dj's who can't get enough of spinning her records. 'Hung Up' will send those fans into ecstasy, and it sounds good on the radio, too". Thomas Inskeep of Stylus Magazine declared that "Hung Up" and the next single "Sorry" might not have the same sleaze as Madonna's older songs like "Physical Attraction" or "Burning Up", but have the same modus operandi of being designed for "sweaty up-all-night dancing". Rob Harvilla from The Village Voice called the song a triumphant jazz exercise”.
Now that ABBA are back in the spotlight and have a new album coming next month, I wonder whether Madonna, on her next album, will once more channel the Swedish icons. Her last album, 2019’s Madame X, combined Trap, Latin and other genres. It is a harder-edged album compared to Confessions on a Dance Floor. I think that a return to the sound of Hung Up would be welcomed by fans. Everyone has their own opinions regarding the best Madonna songs. Few can argue about including Hung Up in the top twenty. It is such a powerful track that beautifully combines that ABBA sample together with one of Madonna’s best performances. Sixteen years after its release, it remains essential, hypnotic and…
OVERFLOWING with life and energy!