Madonna's 'MDNA' is a hit-or-miss affair

First, there's that $120 million, 10-year contract she signed with concert promoter Live Nation in 2007. It makes it imperative that she turn back the years and keep producing aerobically up-to-the-minute dance-floor pop suitable for playing in packed arenas and stadiums around the globe this year and in years to come. (The 53-year-old entertainer begins her 2012 world tour in Milan on June 14, and plays the Wells Fargo Center on Aug. 28 and Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City on Sept. 15.)

Second, there's that rat Guy Ritchie to deal with. Madonna and her British ex-husband, with whom she had one son and adopted another, were divorced in 2008. The director of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Sherlock Holmes reportedly walked away with a great deal of the Material Girl's hard-earned money, and judging by the frequency with which the topic of her vanished cash comes up on MDNA, she misses it.

From Dylan's Blood on the Tracks to Adele's 21, the breakup album is a noble tradition. And the main forces animating MDNA are (1) dabbling in dubstep and keeping up with the times by collaborating with French DJ Martin Solveig, Italian house duo the Benassi Bros., and longtime British helpmate William Orbit; and (2) sorting out her now-I'm-angry/now-I'm-sad reaction to not being married anymore. (The album title, lamely, is a play on MDMA, the acronym for the chemical compound for the dance-floor drug ecstasy.)

The results, on the seriously overlong 16-song MDNA (Interscope ss), which stretches on for more than an hour, are mixed.

The album isn't without its legitimate highlights, starting with the satisfyingly simple Solveig cowrite "Turn On the Radio." It's an unpretentious 1980s throwback that recalls such earlier confections as "Lucky Star" and "Into the Groove" and does not suffer for the comparison. Why this song was not released as a single, instead of the sorry pom-pom waver "Give Me All Your Luvin'," which Madonna performed with Nicki Minaj and the bird-flipping M.I.A. at the Super Bowl, is anybody's guess.

(OK, I'll hazard one: Because employing those cutting-edge types on "Give Me" was meant to show the world that Madonna remains relevant and revered among a new generation of innovators. And it also allowed her the heady pleasure of having two rappers dress up as her cheerleaders and reinforce her brand by chanting "Madonna!" in front of the largest TV audience ever.)

Other tunes on the positive side of the ledger include an Orbit-produced handful toward the end that ease up on the throbbing bass beats and grow ruminative. The ballad "Falling Free" is the best of that lot. And some of the club-bangers work, too, including the taut and propulsive "I'm Addicted," and "Beautiful Killer," one of many songs that toy with gun imagery.

"Gang Bang," which is about not sex but revenge, also works quite well for a while as it gathers steam and the singer takes great pleasure in repeating "Bang bang, shot you dead / Shot my lover in the head." Then it all goes horribly wrong in an excruciating coda in which our avenging angel follows the object of her disaffection to hell, and calls him a "bitch" repeatedly.

Music matters first, but at many junctures MDNA is marred by lyrics that are banal in the extreme. The cringeworthy rhymes begin with "Superstar," which starts out "You're my gangster, you're like Al Capone/ You're like Caesar stepping on a throne/You're Abe Lincoln cause you fight for what's right." Then there's an insipidly happy "B-Day" song, which feels completely out of place on the album. It's another collaboration with M.I.A., who is not served well by working with the icon she grew up idolizing.

Nicki Minaj, who also guest-raps on "I Don't Give A," fares much better on MDNA and emerges with her soul intact. The Madonna lyric to "I Don't Give A," however, stands as the low point of the album. The concept of the song — essentially, "I'm Madonna, and I'm really busy, so busy in fact, that I tweet in the elevator!" ? is annoying enough. The song really grows inane on the bridge, however, when she reveals that it means absolutely nothing to her that her marriage failed. It's a revealingly callous moment that makes her attempts to appear vulnerable elsewhere on MDNA appear calculated and hollow.