Santigold’s (previously Santogold but that name was already taken by a jewellery retailer, of all people) second album starts with a magnificent, euphoric rush that would be near impossible to sustain throughout an entire 40 minutes. The appropriately named ‘Go!’ was released last year and features Karen O from the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s and, like ‘L.E.S. Artists’ from 2008′s debut ‘Santogold’ album, presents a new artist so completely at one with her craft  that you felt genuinely thrilled that she’s here.

‘Go!’ conjures up memories of Lene Lovich, Bow Wow Wow and Burundi Beat and has a dancing vocal melody which makes me want to pogo wildly in the kitchen (not advisable, very small space). The two melody-strong tracks that follow, ‘Disparate Youth’ and ‘God from the Machine’, establish a more downbeat mood and energy utilising ska, world music and reggae which is the overall influence on this album generally and is more of a cohesive and richer sound than that found on her debut which often went in some odd directions sonically that maybe didn’t work in quite the way that Santigold may have wanted them to.

After this strong opening it takes some time before the only other real standout track appears; a sing-a-long 80′s-reminiscent track called the ‘The Keepers’ with a big chorus and Talking Heads lyrical reference (‘We’re the keepers, whilst we sleep in America our house is burning down”) that does make me wonder why the trio of ‘Freak Like Me’, ‘Look at These Hoes’ and ‘Big Mouth’ are here. All 3 are Diplo and/or Swith produced and carry the frantic, rhythmic, sharpness of ‘Creator’ and ‘You’ll Find a Way’ from her debut but these tracks feel slight compared to the emotional heft of the remainder of this album.

Also all 3 continue a lyrical theme of bashing young female artists based either on looks or talent (‘You look good in Photoshop as long as it’s a day when it’s not sunny’ is a typical example) whom surely Santigold doesn’t consider her contemporaries? Lyrically it seems mean-spirited and at odds with the general tone and sentiment of the album. And the dour ‘Fame’ sounds so much like MIA that I thought she was the guest vocalist.

It’s been pretty well documented that this was a difficult album for Santigold to get finished explaining the four year gap between this and her debut. Big name pop producers were hired to oversee the project the results of which were subsequently scrapped; she may have a strong pop sensibility but Santigold is not just a pop artist and is certainly not a manufactured puppet. There is enough that is good here, just, to have faith that she will remain an intriguing and gifted artist who will finally deliver what she’s been promising.

Dawn Richard is someone who I’m familiar with only because she appeared on the under-rated 2011 P Diddy (is he still calling himself that? who can keep up) album “Last Train To Paris” as part of the female duo that accompanied him called Dirty Money. They have since split up with the two members, Dawn Richard and Kalenna Harper, now going it alone as solo artists. Richard was also a member of the successful American manufactured girl group Danity Kane who disbanded in 2009, again put together by P Diddy. If that’s put you off then please don’t let it, you’ll be missing out on something very special.

This album is being marketed as an EP but it’s almost 40 minutes long with 10 tracks (including an intro and outro) and is longer than many traditional albums, not that length is any indication of quality (ahem). Richard has also stated that it’s the precursor for her first album proper “Golden Heart”, out later this year, which will be the first of three conceptually linked albums. This may sound a little cumbersome and ambitious for a first time solo artist but judging by the talent shown here, maybe not.

“Black Lipstick” is apparently a metaphor for the music industry, ‘she smelled of temptation and made me impatient’ and is a moody, softly drum and bass skittering groove which quickly establishes the tone for the rest of the album. Strangled tribal yelps at the end of the track bleed into the first single’s introduction, the appropriately militaristic “Bombs” which is one of the more straight forward and commercial dance tracks here but the steeliness of Richard’s vocal and the subtle but dramatic string motifs insure that it’s anything but generic.

The looped sirens of “Automatic” with a scolding Stepford wife-charged Dawn pushing her inconsiderate lover aside morphs into the fractured piano notes of the sonically diverse and exhilarating trilogy  of “Change”, “Heaven” and “Faith”. Samba, Italian house, world music, soul and disco are influences that shade and propel these tracks using some of the most creative, cutting edge production that I’ve heard in a while in respect to the RnB genre. The two slower, closing tracks are probably the most fully realised and powerful songs here and are both magical. The cinematic, coolly restrained “Scripture” and the stark, hip hop-influenced “Save Me from U” (reminiscent of Kanye West at his most melancholic) are an exercise in quality control and subtle detail.

Although Richard may not possess a full throttle soul voice such as Mary J Blige (she actually sounds very like Brandy), her vulnerability and impressive falsetto work beautifully with the material; exactly as it should be. So, welcome Dawn Richard, a modern R‘n’B superstar in the making.

Highly recommended.

Not a re-issue of Minaj’s disappointing but hugely successful debut offering ‘Pink Friday’ with a few added new tracks and remixes as the title suggests but a brand new album with 19 tracks and no interludes; 22 on the obligatory ‘deluxe’ version. The second red herring is that Nicki’s alter ego and referred to in the album’s title, Roman, is almost completely absent in his revenge. The two lead singles ‘Roman In Moscow’ (oddly not included, not even on the digital deluxe) and ‘Stupid Hoe’ (one of the best things here) do feature the Roman persona but somewhere along the line he (Nicki has suggested that Roman is in fact a bitchy gay man but that depends on which publication she’s talking to and Roman’s ‘gayness’ certainly isn’t evident in his lyrical content) gets lost under the massive weight of this odd, confusing mess of an album which in itself suffers from a severe identity crisis.

The album is sequenced by genre with the first being what’s best described as hardcore, mix-tape Nicki and probably the most representative of the Roman character. This abruptly switches to what can only be described as euro-cheese rave, predominantly produced by Lady Gaga’s original main-man, RedOne, and closes with a run of Katy Perry, Rhianna (at her blandest I must stress) and Jessie J type American-produced power pop tracks which are to be heard all over mainstream radio and media at the moment. This could be a fascinating collection and really show what Minaj can come up with working with such diverse sonic components in the hands of hugely prolific song writers and producers. Instead this degree of genre shifting feels so cynical and insincere and with the exception of a handful of tracks (including the completely ludicrous and amazing ‘Starships’) there are very few decent songs here.

In the first and most successful third of the album rap Nicki explores nothing new lyrically but in the aggressively buzzing ‘Come On a Cone’ she really does do something quite exciting. Towards the end of the track she starts singing (not rapping it as she does earlier in the track) ‘Ooh, my dick in your face’ over and over in a sweet, soulful coo, it’s as if she’s both taking the piss out of the Nicki persona and also the ridiculousness of the current state of chart music. It’s a funny and sharp track and unlike the majority of the album sets Nicki apart from her contemporaries as an artist with something to say, however ridiculous. The following track ‘I Am Your Leader’ is another great diss track with a lyrical pay off referring again to a particular male body part.

So we go from this to the ‘let’s take pills and dance’ Aqua/The Vengaboys/Whigfield (no really) section which is RedOne extending ‘Starships’ over 4 tracks with little deviation and even less imagination. There is some astoundingly ugly, uninspired music here, some of the most disposable I’ve heard in years. I hope she isn’t a sign of something bigger that’s yet to come in mainstream pop. Missy Elliott was one of the first hip hop and rap artists to explore house and dance music and incorporate it into her work in 2001 but you always knew that along with producer and musical soul mate Timbaland, Elliott knew her references and was paying homage to a genre whilst also wanting to push r n b and hip hop as far as she could sonically with often awe-inspiring results. With Minaj you get the feeling that she wanted to hire the producer who made Lady Gaga a superstar to get her ‘Barbs’ to become as obsessed about her as the ‘Monsters’ are about Gaga and to continue expanding the brand (which is how she refers to herself on the album) as much as possible regardless of any compromise that’s been made to the actual music itself and how Minaj portrayed herself 18 months ago.

I hope that Nicki Minaj can figure out who she is and just doesn’t get replaced by the next Minaj (Rita Ora?). She can make a massive impression and initially was an exciting new presence in a market where successful female rappers had all but disappeared; Missy Elliott for example hasn’t had a new album out in 7 years.

Many loved Minaj’s early mixtapes and guest raps (Trey Songz ‘Bottoms Up’ and Kayne West’s ‘Monster’ are just 2 examples where she out shines the actual artist) but pop stars are appearing bigger, bolder and faster than ever before (Lana Del Rey, Gaga, Adele ; already all of them considered to be ‘icons’ after a maximum of 2 albums) and I hope that Nicki is as focused on her musical output and where this may lead 4 albums down the line as she is on the marketing of her first perfume, out later this year.

So she’s definitely made it then, at least for now.

Will MDNA contain Madonna’s first number 1 single this decade? She’s had at least two for the last three the last one being in 2007 with ‘Hung Up’. But does it even matter? This album is the equivalent of a can of Coke, an I-Pad, a pair of Converse; not because it’s disposable necessarily but because it’s a product designed to sell in shed loads because of pure brand loyalty and in the music industry there is no bigger brand than Madonna. The digital pre-order for the album alone has made I-Tunes history with the most copies ordered in one day and immediately sent it to number one in 50 countries over the world, and at that point nobody had even heard it. Buy tickets for her upcoming tour and you’ll get a copy of “MDNA” thrown in for free; regular or deluxe? You decide. Her passion is now film making (her second film W.E. currently standing at 12% on Rotten Tomatoes) but, in her words, music ‘pays the rent’. Ok then. She doesn’t even seem to want to talk about the music referring to the influence for this album as ‘having fun, forgetting your troubles and turning up the radio in a fast car’. So is there any reason to see this album as anything other than a product to promote a tour that will probably make more money than the last, which was the highest grossing tour of all time? Her first scent (why now? that’s not the name of it by the way but maybe it should be) is also out next month and then some specially designed shoes under the brand name ‘Truth or Dare’ (that’s the name of the scent too). Is the music anything other than corporate pop and is anyone really listening anymore?

There are some great songs here. ‘Turn up the Radio’ had already been recorded but not released by Sunday Girl and Martin Solveig and Solveig produces 3 of the songs on the main version of the album including this. The production’s a bit flat and muddy and desperately tries to recapture the energy and vitality of the sonically similar ‘Hello’ that Solveig produced for Dragonette (and surely the reason Madonna hired him) but “Turn up the Radio” is a huge song which should have been the lead single and will sound great on the radio (oh yeah!). ‘I’m Addicted’ is a twisting, slippery synth monster that gets more out of control the longer it plays with Madonna referencing the drug MDMA (recently asked what she would you never do, Madonna replied ‘drugs’) before it morphs into a chant of the album’s title; MDNA. It works as it sounds like peak period Madonna (‘All of the letters push to the front of my mouth, and saying your name is somewhere between a prayer and a shout’, a fantastic Madonna lyric on a lyrically dire album) and it authentically evokes the feeling of being in a nightclub at 4.00am in the morning, probably not with the people you arrived with 6 hours earlier, just as Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”, an obvious influence, did some 35 years ago.

The horribly-titled “Gang Bang” (a phrase thankfully never said or sung in the entire song) is the oddest thing here. The longest track at nearly 6 minutes long it’s a dead eyed spoken performance of sadistic revenge with repeated use of the word ‘bitch’ over a thudding minimalist beat, a guitar riff and a techno synth line. It has the most successful use of a dub step break (worst example would be the lyrically embarrassing ‘Superstar’ which features daughter Lola on backing vocals) but is hard to love. William Orbit, one of Madonna’s most successful collaborators has a co-production on this track and is also responsible for 4 other songs including an homage to Abba’s “The Visitors” album, the one proper ballad ‘Falling Free’ (sung in her posh Evita voice) and the ‘Ray of Light’-ish ‘I’m A Sinner’ and structurally complex ‘Love Spent’. Her vocal style, although sounding heavily manipulated on every track including the ones where it’s not meant to, changes for the better when she records with Orbit singing in a higher more emotionally charged register instead of sounding like she’s struggling with a sinus infection as she has done on her last couple of albums. But these songs are neither Madonna’s nor Orbit’s best and certainly not in the same league as the elegant, haunted ‘Frozen’ or bombastic ‘Ray of Light’.

The two lead singles are probably the worst things on here; the completely generic ‘Girl Gone Wild’ in particular is aiming at a demographic that won’t want to know as they are many (many) other performers in that field that they can actually relate to, who are the same age as them and Madonna’s most childish song since Material Girl, ‘Give Me All Your Luvin’ (‘L.U.V. MADONNA, Y.O.U. WANNA?’)” feels wholly inappropriate and depressing at this stage in her career and it’s hard to understand why she’s so desperate to ape popular musical trends that already borrow so heavily from her in the first place and sell them back like an inferior copycat. And ‘Beautiful Killer’ is a lovely album track and will probably become a personal favourite of many fans but it’s only available on the deluxe version. So it’s a bit of a mixed bag then.

I remember the excitement surrounding the release of Madonna’s Ray of Light album in 1998. Her previous two albums (the r ‘n’ b influenced, uneven “Bedtime Stories” and the almost career destroying, not very ‘Erotica’ album) sold way less than anything she’d released before and presented a once supremely confident superstar as uncertain and dubious of committing to the music that she was now producing. With William Orbit, a resolutely non-showy British musician and producer, Madonna seemed to have found her musical soul partner. She appeared to have a very real attachment to the record and to Orbit and was considered to be her most creative and interesting album since 1998’s “Like A Prayer” and it was deservedly a huge hit. For the follow up she continued to work with Orbit but he was overshadowed by French producer Mirwais whose “Music” album is like “Ray of Light”‘s even stranger, more introverted sister and Madonna seemed very much at home and relaxed in this world. However with the release of the commercial and critical failure ‘American Life’ album, something to scare Madonna and introversion and experimentation was replaced by Stuart Price’s filtered disco and Abba-sampling “Confessions On a Dancefloor” which took Madonna back to the top of the charts. It was all a bit hen party come provincial gay club and since then there seems to be a resting on the laurels of the Madonna legacy; she began to acknowledge herself as The Queen and working with superstar American r ‘n’ b producers who were well past their sell by date.

Madonna continues to be a fascinating artist but not necessarily for the right reasons anymore. Ask anyone what they think about her now and their response will usually be along the lines of ‘She looks amazing, she’s so fit’ or ‘She’s too muscular, she’s had too much surgery’. These comments may be sexist and a reflection of our appallingly youth focused era but Madonna appears to be as obsessed with these things as we are and that was never what she was about. It would be great if people started to respond to and talk about the music again but unfortunately if the Queen continues to make albums as dreary and unimaginative as this one then maybe the time has come for her to finally bow out. If we used half-stars, I would take one off this 3 rating.

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