4 Minutes: The Story Behind Madonna’s Quickie With Justin Timberlake

The video: One of Madonna’s most conceptual dancing performances

Environmental issues are certainly high in Madonna’s catalogue of causes, but 4 Minutes has perhaps as much to say about the urgent rush of desire as it does about global warming – as us no more evident than in the song’s promotional clip. There is plenty of heat between the two stars, and the video, directed by Jonas Euvremer and François Rousselet, knowingly dials up the erotic charge between Madonna and Timberlake. Jamie King’s choreography is ambitious, ranking among Madonna’s most conceptual dancing performances. If Timberlake was struggling to keep up, he masks it well!

Co-crediting Justin Timberlake: A first on a Madonna record

Timberlake’s billing marked a first on a Madonna record: she won’t shy away from collaboration, but her partners are never usually given so much prominence. (In 1994, when she essentially duetted with Babyface on Take A Bow, he didn’t secure a formal performance credit.) In fact, Hard Candy’s broader collaborative approach is reminiscent of Madonna’s sixth album, Bedtime Stories, which saw her work with hot R&B producers to reposition her sound away from the club grooves of Erotica (and some of the controversy generated by the Sex book). In the late 2000s, Madonna was less concerned with career repositioning, but the Euro-disco success of 2005’s Confessions Of A Dance Floor album hadn’t been replicated stateside.

The release: A singular mission – to become an enormous hit

Hard Candy was an attempt to remedy that, while the album also marked a more reflective period in her writing – the fractures in her marriage to Guy Ritchie perhaps becoming something of a source for the album’s more personal lyrics. Released as a single on 17 March 2008, 4 Minutes didn’t delve as deep as tracks such as Miles Away; it had a singular mission in mind: to become an enormous hit. And it certainly succeeded. In the US, where radio play remains the critical factor, the single made it to No.3 – Madonna’s best placing since 2000’s Music album – and in the UK it topped the charts for four weeks. 4 Minutes proved a similar success globally, with more than 20 chart-topping peaks.

The meaning: “I think the song is about having a sense of urgency. We are living on borrowed time”

The track, recorded at London’s SARM Studios, was a technical challenge, with scores of vocal, synth and brass edits constructed to create the layered recording we know today. Critics were generous to the single, while Madonna acknowledged the complex themes at play, suggesting: “I don’t think it’s important to take it too literally.” She told MTV: “I think the song, more than anything, is about having a sense of urgency; about how we are, you know, living on borrowed time essentially and people are becoming much more aware of the environment and how we’re destroying the planet.”

Timberlake managed to join Madonna on stage for a couple of live collaborations of the song in the year it was released, but most of Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet concert dates saw her perform it alongside a video screen. Ultimately, she needn’t have shared her commanding presence with anyone. If a lead single’s primary purpose is to provide a hit, 4 Minutes delivered that generously. Madonna proved that time had not yet run out for her.

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