Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter – Bring Your Love Review 

A staggering read on the modern pop and disco scene came through with I Feel So Free, a liberating best from Madonna. In comparison to her works this century, it marks a peak of her pop powers. Pairing with those who have filled her shoes in the interim, Sabrina Carpenter, for instance, is an inevitability. Those who moulded the genre are now seeing how it has fared in their absence, collaborating with the contemporaries and, in Madonna’s way here, giving her seal of approval to a chart-topping artist. Bring Your Love does not offer a passing of the torch moment; there is no real need for that. These occasions happen naturally, and Madonna has not maintained a presence in the studio or on stage, fitting of such a milestone moment for Carpenter. It’s a strong credit to have, but many will be quick to forget the rough patch Madonna’s music has been in as she sets off towards Confessions II. Nostalgia bait? Most likely. But at least there are smatterings of modern momentum to this release.  

It makes all the difference for Bring Your Love, a song that serves as the album launch track. Forget I Feel So Free, then. Strong a song it may be, that was just an acknowledgement of Madonna’s return. Few artists can warrant a song solely to announce their return, but so be it. Madonna has certainly earned the right to do that, and did so with a strong take on contemporary pop sounds. Bring Your Love is more in line with what the genre has offered over the last few years, but it does serve up a delightful instrumental beat. Carpenter and Madonna serve as an excellent duo, a back-and-forth which spotlights the Manchild hitmaker more than it does the Like a Virgin legend. Collaboration with long-serving musicians and contemporary or lesser-known voices is all about that build, after all. Just look at what Gorillaz did with The Mountain, for instance. These collaborations are all about building strength between genres, bridging the gap between a well-known style and a lesser-known artist whose work may be of interest to those inclined to tune in further. Not so with Bring Your Love, which doesn’t quite nail the charm and chemistry it aims to showcase.  

Carpenter and Madonna is, on paper, an inevitable pairing. The two have dominated the charts at separate times and there is no stopping the name value of the two. It makes sense, too, that a powerhouse of pop would pair well with the legend’s return. Bring Your Love depends on that rather than the less-than-convincing lyrics or repetitive, dulling club beat. It falls to pieces because its focus is on a collaboration which does not need to be focused on. It’s hard to hear how Madonna and Carpenter would be a failure. It’s tailor-made to those who have an appreciation for Madonna and are avid fans of Carpenter, and vice versa. But for those who remain somewhat unconvinced by the on-the-nose, commercialisation of modern pop music (little difference to how it operated in the past, granted) then Bring Your Love has some heavy lifting to carry out.  

It’s a nice enough time but once it ends it’s hard not to feel as though the song is anything but vapid. I Feel So Free felt like an occasion, a song to mark an experience worth hearing. Bring Your Love successfully finds its way into modern pop motifs, and that is where it fails, and why it falls short. It has an instrumental rise and safety that features in just about every pop song. That’s fine if the lyrics are adding a new variation or twist, but this is a song built more on the pull of two major names than anything within. Madonna and Carpenter promise a confessional with Bring Your Love but it falls well short. The suggestion of liberation is not enough to actively free, and that’s what the pair struggle to come to terms with on this latest track.