While one generation frets over the scarring of Miley Cyrus because of photos about as shameful as Botticelli's Venus, another generation welcomes something new from the Queen of Scandal-Baiting.

In two decades, Madonna has changed so much about pop culture. We now willingly accept style over substance in our music when it's her style, because it's so alluring.

We now expect to see pop stars prancing around in bustiers and thigh-high boots even when pushing 50 -- because she's done it so well and somehow made it acceptable.

We now rarely register it when other graying pop stars hook up with the Timbalands and Pharrells of the industry to retool their sound, because Madonna has done it, so it must be cool.

But with her 11th studio album, "Hard Candy," out this week, will she continue to wield her trendsetting influence with the same potency?

Oh, of course the album will bow at No. 1 next week -- and likely challenge Mariah Carey's recent coup of scoring the biggest first-week sales of the year with a reported 463,000 copies of her "E=MC2" moved.

And Madonna deserves that perch because a solid three-quarters of "Hard Candy" is delectable: fresh, thumping workout music with a sprinkling of emotion over songs throbbing with two of Madonna's favorite themes -- sex and dancing.

While "Candy" continues the pattern of 2005's "Confessions on a Dance Floor" by sticking to ready-to-spin club tunes, it's always interesting to analyze the two sides of a woman who began her career playing drums in a New York pop band.

The cover of "Hard Candy" depicts the Madonna who still wants you to buy into her sexiness -- a leather-adorned boxer/dominatrix who would sooner let her roots show than miss a Pilates workout.

Counter that with her recent cover on Vanity Fair's "Green Issue." That's the slightly less severe Madonna, the one still posing in a curve-hugging leotard and whose biceps lie somewhere between enviable and frightening.

But the accompanying story enlightens us about the woman we've seen in public a lot more lately. The fiercely protective mother who won't let her kids watch TV. The Material Girl version of Angelina Jolie who travels to destitute countries such as Malawi, adopts an adorable little boy and produces a documentary about the hardships in the country.

It's sometimes difficult to reconcile that personality with the one who beckons over a ska romp, "If it's against the law, arrest me/ If you can handle it, undress me" on "Candy's" "Give It 2 Me," or wades through an everglade of innuendo on "Candy Shop."

So maybe that's why Madonna continues to matter. Because years ago -- probably around the time of motherhood -- she stopped being a one-dimensional, power-demanding pop robot and became a person. Yet she's still able to put the earthy Madonna in a box when it's time to pull on the stiletto boots and frolic with Justin Timberlake.

Actually, Madonna's continued relevancy will become more apparent when her deal with Live Nation kicks in.

As the founding artist in its new Artist Nation division, Madonna last year signed a $120 million deal that will give the concert promotion company exclusivity in promoting her tours and anything else attached to the Madonna brand. That includes albums ("Hard Candy" is her last for Warner Bros., not including a greatest-hits package due next year), merchandise, fan club memberships, and music-related film and TV projects.

Not surprisingly, shortly after Madonna inked her contract, other platinum-sellers, from the hotrightnow Jonas Brothers to the venerable U2, followed her lead and joined the Live Nation team.

There's that trendsetter label again.

In "She's Not Me" on her new album, Madonna sings over an'80s guitar groove, "She's not me/ She doesn't have my name/She'll never have what I have/ It won't be the same." She's likely singing about a replacement lover, the one-night stand who temporarily stole her man's emotions.

But she could also be sending a subtle warning to the procession of tartlets trying to encroach on her terrain. They might be younger, but Madonna is the one who still matters. mruggieri@timesdispatch.com.