Madonna [ tickets ] attempts to reaffirm her position as the queen of pop and re-invention with her 11th studio album, "Hard Candy," a tedious collection of dance-club anthems and repetitious hip-hop mixes.

The biggest disappointment with "Hard Candy" isn't that it sounds bland when compared to everything in the current pop-dance genre; it's that it makes dance-floor tracks sound like more work than fun. Derivative lyrics paired with overly produced club beats do not make for anything especially artistic or extraordinary. After a while, these songs just feel like a lot of fluff and filler. It's painful to hear Madonna, who has always set trends and shocked listeners, struggle so much with finding a solid, or even interesting, direction. Even with the support of mega stars like The Neptunes, Kanye West, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland and Pharrell Williams, she seems to fall flat.

Instead of being a leader, Madonna seems more like a follower on "Candy Shop," chasing what has become Gwen Stefani's signature sound, for the most part. Stefani already did the sugar-themed album in 2006 with "Sweet Escape." Madonna even borrows the "tick tock," whistle and marching band samples that Stefani made central forces in her 2004 debut, "Love. Angel. Music. Baby." "Hard Candy" proves the adage "what goes around comes around." Madonna may have paved the way for her peers, but now she is fighting to stay on the path.

Lyrically, Madonna sticks to fickle matters about relationships, sex and dancing. These topics are nothing new for her, but on this effort the themes are repeated track to track, and lyrics are chanted relentlessly. Madonna again tries to conjure up the spirits of her past on "Spanish Lesson," another attempt at English and Spanish fusion ala "La Isla Bonita." This weak attempt at adding some international flair stands apart from the album's other tracks for all the wrong reasons; it lacks in dance-floor pull and purpose, and relies on Justin Timberlake-esque guitar parts and off-key Spanglish. The best "Hard Candy" gets is with "4 Minutes," a sexy, hot groove featuring Timberlake and Timbaland--whose support is clearly the reason this song succeeds.

"Don't stop me now," Madonna sings on "Give It To Me." It's a plea she's made before, but at what point should she call it quits? If "Hard Candy" is any indicator, that time may be sooner than she'd like.