Q was treated yesterday to an exclusive preview of Madonna’s upcoming album, Hard Candy. On the basis of the five tracks we heard, it sounds exactly like you’d expect a collaboration between Madonna and such super-producers as Timbaland and The Neptunes to sound: a slick, ultra-modern urban dance concoction. As has become customary for a Madonna album, it will be launched with a terrific lead-off single in the shape of 4 Minutes.

Produced by Timbaland and co-written with Madonna by Justin Timberlake, who also pops up on guest vocals, 4 Minutes rides the same sort of spare, sinuous groove as Timberlake’s SexyBack single. Here, rather than proclaiming to return sexy to the global arena, Timberlake intones "Madonna, Madonna" over a pumping opening beat, before the pair join forces to suggest they have but "Four minutes to save the world". Naturally, the track clocks in at precisely four minutes.

Elsewhere, Give It To Me, which features Pharrell Williams, is a typical slice of Madonna dancefloor pop, its sashaying groove given a smart upgrade by The Neptunes production team. Two other Pharrell contributions, opening track Candy Shop – with Madonna rather unsettlingly suggesting to listeners that she has "all sorts of Candy" on offer – and Incredible ("Sex with you is incredible," heaves our Madge) see similar makeover jobs being done on Madonna staples, the latter more strikingly so on initial listens.

Patently, no ’Madonna goes urban’ project would be complete without the presence of Kanye West, and the shy, retiring one pops up to deliver a self-aggrandising rap (no, really) on Beat Goes On, a maddeningly insistent track likely to follow 4 Minutes onto future Madonna hits compilations.

Hard Candy will be released on 28 April. Q understands that Madonna is likely to undertake a world tour later in the year.

Source: Q magazine (found on Drowned Madonna)