Music

Madonna feels that the current musical landscape is generic, homogenized & in the doldrums. She says of her new album 'Music':
"If this record happens, it might mean that people are ready for something different."

'Music' is decidedly steeped in youth culture emanating from the street. Like 'Ray Of Light', this set is drenched with the flavour of the underground club scene, with a continued emphasis on electronica. The twist is that Madonna digs deeper into cutting-edge territory this time around by enlisting French Mirwais.

"Music", the first single from the new album, blends elements of French electronica with 70s-style electro-funk"
la Cameo & Roger Troutman - BILLBOARD

Music is appropriately named, as it's an object lesson on the directions music travels in and what happens to it along the way. What happens to it here, of course, is Madonna, once again chewing on underground trends and regurgitating them for the masses.

This time out, she maintains her place on the musical food chain by swooping down on the French disco-house of Stardust, Cassius and the ultra-hip label Roule. Thanks to French producer/programmer Mirwais Ahmadzai, "Impressive Instant" and the title track showcase all the clichés associated with the European genre — pitch emulated vocals, 1980s bump-funk, muted breaks. But she's an equal-opportunity copycat as well. The William Orbit-assisted "Amazing" amazingly bites Madonna's own "Beautiful Stranger," which, if you recall, bit "Light My Fire."
What's undeniable is Madonna's inexhaustible drive to stay in, uh, vogue.

Are these simulations watered down, bastardized? We'll leave all that jive to underground purists. What's undeniable is Madonna's inexhaustible drive to stay in, uh, vogue. She is inarguably a big fan of the stuff she named this album after, and you can hear it on "Impressive Instant". The chorus, "I'm in a trance/ I let the music take me/ Take me where my heart wants to go," attests to her blissed-out contentedness as she willingly submerges those lines into a swirl of techno whooshes. Like the Donna Summer of "I Feel Love," she's so utterly immersed in pleasure we can't even touch her.

Unfortunately, most of the remaining tracks demonstrate that this album is also appropriately named for an altogether drearier reason. Folkish acoustic guitar and lumbering trip-hop rhythms grind the second half into one bland, undifferentiated musical mass. Because she's an icon, she probably doesn't feel comfortable releasing a formal coup of an album where she toys with French disco-house the entire time. Instead, she seems obliged to address sexism with "What It Feels Like For a Girl", and her own career with "Nobody's Perfect" , while ignoring anything that would make them sonically compelling.

So is this album better than 'Ray of Light'? Um, yes, but only marginally so. And so what, really? After nearly 20 years of imperfect full-lengthers, there's no reason to expect a mere album to stand as Madonna's ultimate aesthetic experience. She has taught us that music travels in all sorts of directions: through movies, concerts, videos, magazine covers, steel-plated books ... and that next medium that not even she knows about. So if you're not feeling this album right away, don't be surprised if a remix in a club or a snippet on "Entertainment Tonight" suddenly makes you feel, as the Voracious Miss M sang on "Ray of Light," like you just got home.