Now Playing: Madonna (featuring M.I.A.) – ‘B-Day Song’

Madonna - MDNA

Now Playing – twice every week, a roundtable of our writers will give their views on some of the recently-released new tracks. It’s as simple as that! If you want to tell us what you think of the song, feel free to leave a comment below.

Track: ‘B-Day Song’ by Madonna featuring M.I.A.

Average grade: 1.5

Thomas: ’Birthday Song’ – no, ‘B-Day Song’ – is the sound of money.  You can hear it as MIA grimaces along in the background, mentally counting the pay check.  You can hear it in the hired chorus of embarassed birthday whoops across the fade-out. And you can hear it in every second of this charmless song made with minimal content and effort. 1/10

Kenneth: Truly. Awful. Is she going for the playgroup audience now? If this was a bloke of her age the P word would be getting used. M.I.A.’s never floated my boat but she needs this collaboration like a hole in the head. 0/10 (or even -10/10 if that’s possible).

Richard: Madonna seems to have gone back in a time machine, sounding girlier, younger; this is perhaps one last attempt to retain her youth. No longer can she suck the life from young latin dancers with biblical names.

After Lady Gaga successfully stole and then repackaging pretty much her whole act, Madonna has tried to reinvent history, by bringing back her own unique brand of dated happy-go-lucky bubble gum pop on ‘B-day Song’ not seen since her songs featured on the soundtrack to the wonderfully underrated film Vision Quest.

Sadly, the downfall of Madonna as a relevant recording artist set in when she worked with Timbaland and The Neptunes about five years too late on Hard Candy. This track is a menopausal disaster, the sound of a woman in decline. 2/10

Stef: My guess is, if this wasn’t Madonna and M.I.A., we wouldn’t be talking about this. And judging by the (few) comments above me, even with those two names attached it was kind of a stretch. 3/10