Madonna - Music (2000)

UK release date: September 18th 2000
UK album chart peak: #1
US album chart peak: #1

Buy Music here (Amazon GB)
Read my Madonna album anniversary celebrations here

Imagine being nearly 20 years into your career and releasing an album this iconic. But face it - she's Madonna. The Material Girl entered a new millennium armed with some of the best reviews of her career (for the incredible Ray of Light album) and she wasn't giving up her critically acclaimed status without a fight. Music, her ninth studio set (yes, I'm including I'm Breathless), saw her collaborate with producers Mirwais Ahmadzai and William Orbit and the end results were an electronic pop delight. Infused with inspirations from rock, country and folk music, it became one of her most experimental collections to date which resulted in a futuristic dance sound. She delivered Cowboy Style imagery throughout the campaign with some typically Madonna eye-popping looks. Oddly it was her only non-film-related studio album to date not to deliver 4-5 singles; in the end just settling on 3 choice cuts. But with some stand alone tracks and plenty of options for fans to choose their own favourite should-have-been-a-single moments, Music is an embarrassment of riches. Meaty bass, sinewy synths and hooks a plenty. No wonder it topped charts and sold over 11 million copies worldwide - the simple message of "music makes the people come together" was a groove you could get into.

Pre-Music:

• Be Careful (duet with Ricky Martin) ~ thank the pop gods for Livin' La Vida Loca otherwise I might not have purchased Ricky's accompanying album and discovered this Madonna duet! I feel the world should have made a much bigger deal of this than they did. A lovely, spanish guitar laden ballad, fuelled by simmering passions and lilting melodies. A classic Madonna-William Orbit composition that deserved time to shine as a single. I love when Madonna taps into her lower register and here it is just utterly enchanting. 
• Beautiful Stranger ~ the accompaniment to Austin Powers movie was a swirling vortex of sixties psychedelia bought bang up to date. The walloping romp of guitars is mixed with an effervescent blast of electronica and Madonna's sweetly seductive vocals. Plus, throw in that dance flute riff and you have a melange of music made in heaven. Victor Calderone completely reinvented it for club audiences by mixing the melting pot of sounds with tribal infused beats. Delicious. Bizarrely, this wasn't actually commercially available in the States (though it did reach the top twenty on airplay alone and the remixes were an out-and-out club chart topping smash). It was the UK that embraced it the most, sending it all the way to number 2. 
• American Pie ~ Oh the audacity of turning such a staple of American music history into a dance pop number. Purists were aghast, but most of us were just glad Madonna knew how to edit (omitting 3 of the 6 verses from the Don McLean original). Whereas Beautiful Stranger was psychedelic and seductive, this was mystical and sensual. I may be in a minority with that assessment - it is hard to know which critics hated worse; the song or the movie. Love it or hate it, the song had the temerity to go to number one in the UK and reside in our top 100 for a whopping 18 weeks. Not so lucky Stateside where it stalled at a disappointing number 29...
• Time Stood Still ~ For me, this is up there with Gambler and Supernatural as one of the most overlooked Madonna songs out there. It may not be as obvious as American Pie (which is probably why the former was a single and this is tucked away on the Next Best Thing OST) but it is the more satisfying listen. This mournful, latin-tinged ballad is part La Isla Bonita if performed in the style of Live To Tell - and equally as intoxicating. Evocative lyrics such as "and like the castle in the sand, it had to fall apart" are delivered with aching melancholy. Beautifully done. 

The singles from Music:

• Music ~ There was no escaping either the genius or the sheer addictive nature of this single in the autumn of 2000. She just steamrollered in with her brilliant Mirwais collaboration, ensuring nearly everyone wanted to put her record on and dance with their baby. The unifying power of song has manifest itself repeatedly through Madonna's career (her debut single, Everybody; the incomparable Into The Groove; the ballroom styling of Vogue) yet here it sounded fresh and exhilarating. Electronic manipulations of her voice bounced alongside guitar flicks and Moog synthesizer riffs. It was the liberating message of letting yourself go that connected with fans across the world. It became her 12th (and, to date, final) number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In the UK, it helped her become the first female solo artist to have 10 number ones (she has since gone on to have 3 more) and lingered on the charts for a whopping 24 weeks - quite the accomplishment in the days before streaming. EPIC.
• Don't Tell Me ~ Years before Kylie became Golden (though a few after she went Cowboy Style), Madonna bought line dancing into the clubs via the album's second single. It is perhaps what the musical style of American Pie should have been; enriched by paying deference to American rootsy blues and mixing that with intricate electronica and a knife sharp beat. No one controls Madonna and her personality was on full display through the poetic lyrics and soulful vocal. Of all the club remixes, Tracy Young bought the magic, adding in violin and a sonic vibe reminiscent of Blondie's Heart of Glass. No wonder the song went to number four in both the US and the UK, whilst giving her an umpteenth club chart topper on the Billboard countdown. Suddenly, start-stop trippiness was all the rage.
• What It Feels Like For A Girl ~ I have no idea why I did not connect what many believe is one of Madonna's best singles. She reveals her soul through the lyrics of the song. Her incredibly executed sense of anger and injustice is palpable across the filtered bass licks and mid-tempo grooves. The video was visually arresting. Yet it is the rare Madonna single that I skip on my meticulously chronicled home made greatest hits collections. Still, pop is subjective and what some puzzle over others adore. It was critically adored by the music media, who lavished praise on the track. Its chart positions are only probably reflective of being a song from an album that had sold by the bucket load by the time this single was released. Still it was another top ten in the UK and, once again, a club chart topper Stateside. It was to be the final single from the album - something I believe was a mistake...

What might have been:

• Amazing ~ Every single Madonna fan will have their own opinion about what a fourth and/or fifth single should have been. Some will agree, some will vehemently defend their choices against others perceived incorrect notions. Despite Madonna herself thinking this track was too similar to Beautiful Stranger to be a single, I love the song. It is a ravishing, wonderfully textured pop song yet with an edge as cutting as Til Death Do Us Part. Those chorus lyrics ("its amazing what a boy can do") seem the perfect sequel to What It Feels Like For A Girl and one can only imagine the dance magic which would have been conjured up by the likes of Tracy Young and Thunderpuss. Just to ensure it couldn't be a single, Madonna didn't perform it on her Drowned World Tour so that the label couldn't insert live footage into a video. Bitch, she's Madonna!
• Impressive Instant ~ perhaps the most Ray of Light style spiritual cosmic ode of the entire opus. Madonna's preferred choice for fourth single would have been more than an acceptable choice. It is a club savvy stomper that delivers futuristic keyboard lines and vocals that are distorted in a way that are designed to bewitch and beguile. It is like you are thrust into another galaxy - exactly the effect I expect Lady Madonna was hoping for. Peter Rauhofer mixes were issued to clubs - and if you haven't heard the extended bliss of these, a quick YouTube search should sort you out.