I LOVE Madonna (part 6 section e)

Number 3: Music – released September 18th, 2000
In 2000, we all hotly anticipated the 9th studio album from Madonna. After the huge success that was ‘Ray of Light’ all eyes were on her to see what she would do next.
The major problem with Music is also it’s major strength, it is one of her least coherent albums to date. What it sounds like is Madonna, and her new musical producing partner Mirwais Ahmadzai locked themselves up in the studio and had a hell of a time experimenting with how far they could push musical landscapes. This is where the album works so well, and you can almost forgive the total lack of narrative flow because what you are hearing is new Madonna. The album stumbles because Madonna is a loyal woman. She collaborates again with William Orbit who expertly guided ‘Ray of Light’, but he seems to have completely run out of tricks this time around, and the few tracks he is mainly responsible for sound repetitive and cluncky in comparison.
“Hey Mr D.J. put a record on. I wanna dance with my baby.” And so the album begins with Mirwais’s quirky Daft Punk sounding slice of French electro reworked with enough Madonna sass and a reworked hip hop vibe to gain high radio airplay in the U.S. This turned out to be a giant dance-floor filler. Containing a swirling electronic pop-funk vibe, Madonna’s playful delivery gives startling ignition to this slick offering that caught onto the public like a magnet. Unsurprisingly and very deservedly, Music became a massive cross-Atlantic hit. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the next track which sees Madonna fully embracing the underground dance floor sound with a bass-heavy giant of a floor-filler with guttural synths, robotic voices and sexy cosmic whispers. It also contains the fun line "I like to singy singy singy, like a bird on the wingy wingy wingy". This eye popping and hypnotic tune flies with its strikingly synthesized effects and driving grooves. This would have made a perfect choice for release as a single however her record company refused thinking it was too unconventional to be a hit…..FOOLS!!!!
Then comes the first of the William Orbit collaborations with ‘Runaway Lover’. Although it has a dark and dirty bass-line, after a few seconds it becomes clear that Orbit does not fit with the new sound. Coming off as more of a ‘Ray of Light’ reject than anything fresh and new. All the electro effects are lost and it sounds like a jumbled mess of leftovers.
With three dance grooves in a row ‘I Deserve It’ is a refreshing and beautiful ballad, with its strum-a-long acoustic guitar and electro chirps, bleeps and chord heavy groans that amazingly mesh together. A synthesized folk tune with Madonna singing about the love for her new husband “Not running from the past, I tried to do what's best. I know that I deserve it” and so she should.
She collaborates with Orbit again on the ‘Beautiful Stranger’ rehash of the energetic if slight ‘Amazing’. This is a pure pop number that could have been a huge hit had it not been for the fact this sound has been done by her before, and instead of flowing this stands out as being very dated. Thankfully from here on in, we are exposed to come of her most inventive and lest commercial music. With her voice twisted up with the vocoder, the melancholy ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ could have come off as over produced with the synth heavy/acoustic mix had it not been for the intoxicating staggered beat, and whistful way she sings how “I feel bad. What I did wasn’t right. I feel so bad, and I must say to you…..sorry, but…Nobody’s perfect.”
‘Don't Tell Me’, offers a neatly gelled mixture of Dance/Country and delivers it with a vengeance. It is an outstanding piece, an infectious acoutstic guitar riff is chopped up, stuttering and starting all over the place, while Madonna sings the regreshingly strange lyrics written by her brother-in-law Joe Henry. The song ends with a gorgeous string arrangement, that will make your heart soar.
‘What It Feels Like For a Girl’ is the song to make the Britney’s and Christina’s of the world have pause. Beginning with the spoken dialogue of Charlotte Gainsbourg from the film ‘The Cement Garden’, the song bubbles with seduction at first with the Sapphic sounding lyrics “Silky smooth, lips as sweet as candy, baby”. Before you know it , however, Madonna launches into a tender examination of how difficult it still is for girls growing up to find a voice, especially through the eyes of men. The song hits a painful note with the lyric “When you’re trying hard to be your best, could you be a little less?” Her voice contains undercurrents of sorrow as she sings about the place woman are asked to live in a sexist world. Compelling stuff.
After that slice of nostalgia we are greeted to an six in a half minute epic of a tune reminiscent of Air with its swirling lush string arrangement. Proving that technology can have soul, Madonna again explores her creativity by giving one of her most emotional and sexually filled vocal performances even through the vocal manipulation of the vocoder. Lyrically she is again reflecting on fame and how she is seen, but without her obvious agenda “I was so blind, I could not see, your paradise is not for me”
And that takes us down to what I think is Madonna at her best. In ‘Gone’ she sings about why she continues to push herself to evolve artistically “Turn to stone. Lose my faith. I'll be gone before it happens” She sings over a slow plodding drum loop and more of that acoustic guitar as slowly the sound-scape changes. Swirls and bleeps dance as the synthesized chords take on epic urgency.

With Mirwais, Madonna found a new, less obvious way to express herself as a singer and musician. The end product is a wondrous mixture of the familiar and the audaciously new proving that Madonna is way ahead of the pack. Although the signature pop friendly diva was still there, she seemed more concerned with seeing in which new and exciting directions her creativity could take if given the outlet, and with Mirwais she found that. If all pop music was this well thought out and structured the radio would be a much more interesting place to dwell.