Recording
The album features vocal appearances by Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Kanye West. It features production by Madonna, Timbaland, Timberlake, The Neptunes and Nate "Danja" Hills. Previously, Madonna had worked with relatively unknown producers like William Orbit, Mirwais Ahmadzaï and Stuart Price. However, for Hard Candy Madonna decided to collaborate with producers and artists who were already well-known. Talking to MTV, Madonna explained her decision to collaborate with well-known producers: "Because they're good, and I like their shit. I mean, I don't like to repeat myself, and I was sitting around thinking, 'What music do I love right now?' And it was actually record FutureSex/LoveSounds. I was listening to it obsessively." Madonna had already started work on the album with Pharrell, and during one of her breaks from recording, her manager Guy Oseary spoke to Timberlake, suggesting that it "would be cool" if he recorded some songs with her. Timberlake commented "'That would be awesome,' but I thought, 'That'll never happen', But it's a testament to Pharrell. He had already laid the groundwork where she was going with it. She played 'Candy Shop' for me, and a couple of other songs, and I thought, 'What a cool direction.' I thought she could essentially do the whole record with Pharrell if she wanted to, and I asked Tim, 'How do we fit in?' And it basically came down to how we did my record, co-producing, and just throwing Madonna in the mix." The first track recorded by Madonna and Timberlake was "Devil Wouldn't Recognize You". Timberlake felt that the song, which Madonna had been working on for years before the Hard Candy project, was comparable to "Frozen" (1998). He wanted to turn the line "'The devil wouldn't recognize you, but I do" into a catchy hook and make it sound like a concept.
Timberlake was impressed by the amount of recording material Madonna would already have ready. He said that he does not normally write down his lyrics, since the ideas come faster to him, but Madonna had "all these thoughts, riddles, poems, feelings, all written in huge notebooks ... she kept handing them over. It was amazing, taking these little bits here and there and putting them together like a puzzle." For recording "Miles Away", Timberlake played a guitar riff for Madonna and asked "How do we want to do this? What do we want it to be about? What do we want to say?" Madonna decided to have discussions between herself and Timberlake to develop other ideas for the songs. One of the ideas they connected on was the universality of long-distance relationships, which they felt was too personal for them, but nevertheless used the concept in "Miles Away". Madonna commented on the recorded version: "We put our stuff out there. And after we did the song, everybody in the studio was like, 'Oh, I can relate to that.'"
Read more about this topic: Hard Candy (Madonna Album)
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)