Madame X

Pitchfork 4.8/10 Madonna’s 14th album feels stretched thin all over the globe, layered with an ambitious concept that ends up muddled and convoluted.

NME 4/5 Bold, bizarre, self-referential and unlike anything Madonna has ever done before, 'Madame X' finds the star with a glint in her eye.

The Line of Best Fit 8/10 Madonna is not merely returning to her origins on this fourteenth album, a regenerative fervour thrives on Madame X, traversing a gamut of disparate genres, stirring curiosity and wonder with rhapsodic intensity.

Evening Standard 4/5 Coming 36 years after her self-titled debut, Madonna’s Madame X might just be one of the most exciting, baffling and bold albums of her career.

Rolling Stone 3/5 Madame X is so admirably bizarre, all you can do is stand back and watch the girl go.

The Independent 3/5 Madame X is such a cultural melange ... that it sometimes verges on collapsing in on itself. At other times, though, what is thrown at the wall sticks beautifully.

All Music 4/5 While this thick, heady confluence of cultures and sounds may demand concentration, Madame X not only amply rewards such close listening, but its daring embrace of the world outside the U.S. underscores how Madonna has been an advocate and ally for left-of-mainstream sounds and ideas throughout her career.

Gigwise 8/10 It’s refreshing to see one of pop’s biggest risk-takers take one of her biggest risks in her career and it makes for one of the most daring albums you’ll hear all year.

Clash 6/10 ‘Madame X’ isn’t just an album (if it is that at all) – it’s an opera, or a comedy of errors. It’ll make you feel confusion, frustration, happiness and maybe joy, but it will definitely make you feel.

The Observer 4/5 Madame X is certainly a fluid album, but one tempered by Madonna’s solid confidence in her own aesthetic decisions.

Slant 4/5 Madame X sounds like the work of an artist reawakened, and one who’s got something to say.

The Guardian 4/5 Throughout, there is more density and musical adventure than at almost any other point in her career.

The Telegraph 3/5 A mad mishmash of an album.

The Irish Times 3/5 Big, ballsy and more than a bit bizarre.