"Sorry": Not like we are.

Madonna - New Music - More Music Videos

It's a little fucked-up to review "Sorry" when we haven't slain its prequel, the krump-'n'-fun "Hung Up." But I'm not in the mood to review six minutes of Madonna queefing at a wall of mirrors and grinding her leotarded chode against a boombox because that's "hood," or something. So we're starting fresh with "Sorry," and I promise your education won't suffer. Unless you actually listen to the lyrics, in which case your spasms begin immediately. Then come the concussions, of course, in a Madonna's-Idiocy-is-Tyson-and-Your-Hard-Earned-Intelligence-Is-Michael-Spinks way. I feel like gnawing on alphabet blocks already.

In 2005, Madownsydnrome released the unobjectionable dance album Confessions on a Dance Floor, a glitter-ribboned apology for the clinical void that was American Life. It's more of a niche disco work than Madonna had released previously (and more gay, to be accurate, with its Giorgio Moroder throwback, ABBA lionization, and jewel-toned album artwork reminiscent of fine anal beading). It's listenable. Cogent. Atmospheric. Not trying so hard. Granted, you have to swat off the festering Cabala platitudes with a beach umbrella, but Confessions makes enjoying yourself a distinct possibility. Alert the fucking locals.

That brings us to the album's second video "Sorry," a sinister, aggressively airbrushed bacchanal that sets up camp in Madonna's longtime favorite place to reel in quality dong: the back of a van. Though I imagine it's distracting to see Rocco's shin-guards lay willy-nilly under the front seat while you're getting double-teamed by the Detroit Pistons. I mean let me tell you.



"Sorry" opens as Madonna and her twentysomething club buddies (Mmkay) bound out of "Hung Up"'s climactic video arcade and into a giant van. Three dudes spot the troop, roll their eyes in horny anguish, and think some more about lacquering their chests. In the meantime Madonna coos these adages:

"Je suis désolé / Lo siento / Ik ben droevig / Sono spiacente / Perdóname."

That's "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sad, I'm sorry, forgive me," in a bunch of languages. Unfortunately the Geography Bee starts next week, and it turns out the multilingual greetings are just really fucking stupid in the meantime. Contrary to what shitty theme park rides have long insisted, it is not that small a world after all.

Within the van, ladies strip off their Monday streetwalker gear and reveal their decadent Thursday selection of gold lamé, bangles, onesies, pleather, and leotards. Everyone's bouncing and titillated to shoot the American Apparel ad. As emasculating lyrics like, "You're not half the man you think you are / Save your words 'cuz you've gone too far," gargle forth, Madonna and underlings swerve through nighttime New York and stop only to yank men into their awkward Pimped Ride. Roof-raising male riders are soon kicked out one at a time. I encourage the producers of MTV's "Next" to begin the copyright suit any day now.



Among the kidnapped passersby: a baggy-jeaned black guy, a professionally Caucasian nerd, a vacant bodybuilder, a beaming tubbalard, a hottie or two, andddd your tolerance. None of this actually gets funny or entertaining, but Madonna does dress like a nervy hybrid of Battlestar Galactica and Dorothy Zbornak. To be fair, that's how I usually describe Madonna herself.



The video ends up in a literal cage-fight because Madonna has long loved both Spike TV and The Scorpions. Now a regular feature of her tours, the Madonna's dancers convulse, flip, turn aerials, breakdance and boast breakneck agility, and then Madonna throws herself to the floor and whips a leg behind her head. It's performance art, world. I think the music video directors need to establish a moratorium on "dance-fighting," because word: This shit was MASTERED. And think of the DISTURBED ANCESTORS.



Our tame little vid is topped off with top-tier roller-skating choreography that Jessica Simpson gleefully hijacked for "A Public Affair." There's more foreign-language moaning too, but we can be certain it all means, "I'm highly educated too, Lourdes, you smart little bitch." Cut to some hand-jiving from "Hung Up," mad-swirling under a disco ball, the 57th appearance of a boombox because this is just like Do the Right Thing, and we've got ourselves a hot-out-the-oven forgettable clip that million-dollar eyelashes can't save. I'd say look forward to a scrappy, super-suave comeback, but uh, that's not how the story goes. The story actually goes, "Konnichiwa, assholes. I'm on tour and don't have a budget. Sayonara now."

The message of "Sorry" is a little nobler: Madonna's jaded, so don't try to apologize for your juvenile love of inorganic couscous and hobbies besides pheasant hunting. I can dig that. And trust me, this video seems downright humble compared to the sanctimony it could've achieved. Oh, Madonna. Twenty-five years in the music business have taught you that the best visual accompaniment to a remix is a montage of starving children. Congrats on the exploitation! See you in Malawi... at the Club Med, of course! NYAR.