Noted producer William Orbit has apologized for a particularly candid Facebook rant about his time spent working on Madonna’s latest album, “MDNA.”
After a strong start, “MDNA” fell precipitously down the Billboard 200, prompting many critics and fans to label it a failure. Some criticized the lack of promotion and poor singles choices on the label’s part.
In a rare move, Orbit — who previously helmed the 1998 Grammy-winning album “Ray of Light” — seemed to agree with those sentiments, but later apologized for speaking his mind. His sorrowful tweet read: “The MDNA comments. I should not have said them publicly. I see that and I regret that I said online. Not fair to M.”
Those comments came a day earlier when, responding to a fan on his Facebook page, Orbit expressed himself by implying that the smooth and harmonious pre-recording sessions gave way to time-wasting recording sessions.
“The sessions for the six songs I did were hugely enjoyable for all of us. [Madonna] was on form and better than ever with her singing and writing and musicality, and was having a great time,” but he was unhappy with the end result, arguing that he and his collaborators weren’t given enough time to craft the best album they could.
Orbit elaborated by attacking a certain unnamed engineer’s work style. “The time wasn”t there,” Orbit continued. “Great swathes of it taken up by the engineer and his assistant bouncing reverb tracks for hour after hour, night after night. A purely procedural thing. Although not a procedure I or any of my own colleagues in this game would want to squander time with.”
Orbit even somewhat took Madonna herself to task, lamenting the “various pressing commitments that took up the artist’s limited time, such as perfume ranges and teen fashion contests and other such endeavors which are beyond my own limited understanding of pop star agendas.”
Meanwhile, some of the songs from the session that the Material Girl passed on will end up in other artists’ discographies. “You”ll hear some of them on Chris Brown”s new album, and they are the best ones, Kreayshawn”s new album, my own recently completed ‘Strange Cargo” album,” explained Orbit.
Let’s hope he’s happier with the way those tunes turn out.