The Madonna media stampede is upon us and already the first album review has hit the Internet. In her review "New album is Madge-ic," Victoria Newton of The Sun calls herself "the first journo IN THE WORLD to have heard her new album," calls the upcoming album, Confessions on a Dancefloor, "an absolute belter" and added, "I'm confident the album will be hailed a masterpiece on its November 14 release." (November 15th in the States.) Of course this has all the critical weight of an adverb-laced movie review from Larry King since Ms. Newton writes a low-brow gossip column for a tabloid newspaper (with such recent topics as Adele Silva's breasts and Robbie Williams' "pot shot" at Oasis' Liam Gallagher) but a review is a review. Comments like, "This is Kraftwerk inspired and features computer generated, vocoder style vocals," won't win over any Greil Marcus fans, that's for sure.

"Hung Up," the lead-off track, is streaming at Madonna's website. Check it out and decide for yourself. (There's a music player at the top of the screen. Click through the tracks until you find it.) Coolfer gave it two listens and thinks it's an immediately lovable dance track. The fabulous production by Stuart Price and the sample of Abba's "Gimme Gimme Gimme" makes even a mediocre-quality stream sound good.

The album is available for pre-order at iTunes in both regular and continuous mix versions.