Music

Pretty ostentatious to name your album "music", as if to encompass all music. Also, how does one talk about this album? "Have you heard music?" "yes, of course" "no, I mean Madonna's music" "like a virgin? yes" "no, I mean her album music" "yes she puts her music on albums" "no" All jokes aside this is pretty bog standard pop music. This is probably the worst of the 3 albums by her I've come across on this list (so far?), but it's inoffensive. Except for her cover of American Pie. That shit was a war crime.

Highlights: "Music," "Don't Tell Me" It's ridiculous to justify how awkward this album is and how terribly it's aged by saying any of this was 'experimental' even by the most mainstream US pop standards. Cher's "Believe" had tested the waters for autotune two years before, and NSYNC was having a blast earlier that year running the gamut of gaudy special effects from ring modulation to step filtering to sequencers and ARP. Madonna has always been derivative, and by this time she's just in over her head, too. Do we care about lyrics? Ideas? Because she pretends to. Laughably absurd lyrical bookends to the album: singing about the bourgeoisie and how "selling out is not my thing" when she is literally Madonna. Can't you just do what every honest sellout does and send audiences glum and bitter putzing dispatches on your barbarism of reflection from the barren apex? Whatever. No good songs, but only four I skipped halfway through out of disgust.

I always check the tracklist before listening to an album and omit the bonus tracks or international release tracks from my listen, which is how I avoided the human rights violation that is the Madonna cover of American Pie, which I'm about 60% sure is one of the direct causes of 9/11. Best track: Paradise (Not for Me)

I played this during my morning commute and now I am SO HYPED for writing INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL for SOFTWARE

Pretty glad when that one ended. It sounded to me like she was fulling a contractual obligation.

I wanted to like this but I found it formulaic and quite boring actually. A two is being generous

I danced to this when I was three and four years old. I love Madonna.

6/10 more interesting than i expected, cool beats.

I don't want to listen to this shit. I remember when the main single was released for this album, it was catchy but it's aged worse than the peanut M&Ms I cleaned out from my kid's car seat last week. It's not that I don't like Madonna...she's got some songs that are certified bangers, they're just not found on this album. I also don't think she has a great voice...distinct, yes, but not great. It's insulting that the presence of a cowboy hat and an acoustic guitar here and there makes people say things like she's experimenting with country music. It's also insulting for people to keep repeating the line about how she was a genius at "reinventing" herself...no, she just paid attention to what was happening in clubs and pop culture and adopted trends early enough to where people thought she was a trendsetter. She was smart for doing that, but she's not an original. Music sucked around the year 2000 when this was released. Nu-metal and rap/rock, boy bands, Eminem, Spice Girls, that goddamn Santana/Rob Thomas song, Britney and Christina were alive while Tupac and Biggie were dead, a lot of artists from the 80s and 90s were trying to figure out where they fit on the landscape and it was just a really weird, shitty time. And that's this album, Madonna trying to figure out where she fit into a weird, shitty time in pop music history so she made a shitty album.

In 2000 I was 10 and really starting to get into music on my own. I remember being younger than this age and liking rock music on the radio, like Nirvana and classic rock, but around this time is when I started to be more aware of music. Her song "Music" I remember hearing and being a real guilty pleasure. Of course to my friends I couldn't like her because she was "pop" and young boys don't listen to pop music they listen to rock music because you don't develop that part of your brain that allows you to not care about silly social conventions like that until you are older (atleast for me until I was in my late teens / early 20's). I think there is really something special for me personally about the general time period of 1998-summer 2001, the music that came out in that time period was so vibrant and I really vividly remember moments of life happening while listening to music from then. I think specifically of these records: Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory Korn - Follow The Leader Kid Rock - Devil Without A Cause Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication Outkast - Stankonia Eminem - Marshall Mathers / Slim Shady Those were really pivotal for me and it was a time period where I was able to more autonomously look for and listen to music on my own. I was 8 to 10 years old! I could listen to what I what when I want. And I did! I remember listening to so much music during those 2.5 years and just doing my thing and loving life- playing sports and hanging out with friends, becoming obsessed with baseball and videogames, and not really having a care in the world. That specific time kind of ended after 9/11 and I think that was the start of puberty / teenager issues / listening to music with more serious sounds and lyrical topics. I do theorize that 9/11 played some part in that transition because up until that point I didn't really have a concept for experiencing the sometimes really terrible parts of the world. I wasn't expecting the start of this review to end up about 9/11 but that's the fun of hearing records that take you to a place in your life. I wouldn't say that this album was as special as those others listed but "Music" was a single from that era. Outside of this track the album isn't that bad. I think it's short of a 4 but higher than a 3, like a 3.3 for me.

It's hard not to see the influence this album held on the next 7 years of pop music. It feels like a quintessential pop album of the 2000s because it's the first of that kind.

This was a nice revisit of a CD I had bought when new, but went with the other CDs into a box some time ago. It's been a while. This one really shows how Madonna has been able to successfully reinvent herself so many times. It was a sound that felt very modern at the time and which I think has held up since then. "This is the one with acoustic guitars and robot voices," is probably how I would distinguish it. I loved it, it made me move and groove today.

I liked this album back in the day, but it hadn’t stayed with me like Like A Prayer or Ray of Light. I’m glad to have revisited it, because I enjoyed the cool electronic vibe. Driving around Seattle listening to this today felt a little like I was in some kind of Tron universe. 23 years after its release this still feels like the future.

This album was everything when it came out. Listening to reminds me of good times, I’m just singing my lil heart out. Don’t tell me is soo good. I still love it and I think It’s fucking great!

MY FAVOURITE MADONNA ALBUM (and the first one that this generator has generated for me)! I was thinking of this album just earlier today! This album is an excellent exploration of electronic music, building on the experimentation of ‘Ray of Light’ (widely acclaimed as her best). Of course, it contains the monster hit ‘Music’, alongside plenty of deep cuts with important messages, such as ‘What it Feels Like for a Girl’ and ‘I Deserve It’. I’m unsure why there is so much Madonna hate on here. Perfect arrangements and fantastic vocal technique. The influence on every single pop song from the 2000s should not be underestimated. To paraphrase another review, it sounds like the quintessential 2000s album because it influenced plenty of albums from the 2000s, despite this being the third decade of her career. Unpopular opinion: Madonna’s cover of *that* song is better than the original 😘 10/10

Madonna has had one of the most successful, enduring careers in modern music. Music is her eight studio album, and a significant departure from the pop singles that made her famous. This collection of tracks are closer to dance and electronica than her earlier work. This is a surprisingly good album, with memorable tracks like "Don't Tell Me."

I liked vibing to this one. The music was sorta pop/electronic, but also soft enough that I could listen while working without getting distracted.

One of Madonna's most mature albums. Very entertaining, very catchy. I love it.

The 2000 U2 album All That You Can’t Leave Behind feels like it is desperately trying to re-capture former pop-star glory with mixed results. This 2000 disc by Madonna succeeds at that same task (apart from the clunker of an American Pie cover) without the desperation. It also innovates by combining techno and country in a way that hadn’t been done before (and not super-well since).

Meh. Bland, over produced, shiny and expensive. Not her best work. Also includes her cover of American Pie, which is so bad it is virtually a hate crime.

Whoa. I had no idea. The production has me floored

This has aged much better than I would have guessed. At the time it just sounded like the state of pop radio, because it was the music Madonna was making. But now it sounds inventive and creative, even refreshing. Unfortunately the album takes a nose dive with the last couple songs (I especially don't think the world needed that version of American Pie, which thankfully wasn't on the original release anyway). Take those two out though, and this is a surprising gem of an album.

Vapid and pointless. But wildlly successful, apparently. Once again it's people that are the real problem here.

2 star album, 0 star cover

m u s i c

Very good electronica that I hadn’t heard before.

Good album

Kind of weird use of electric sounds on some songs- but I generally liked it.

This album really surprised me. Much better than I remembered based off the radio singles.

I love this album. Sooo…yep.

Top notch turn of the century production, but the songwriting, particularly the lyricism and melodies were weak for a release for an artist this big.

Not as off-putting as the Yoga-core that Madonna trafficked in on Ray Of Light, “Music”takes its cues from the downtempo and trip-hop of its time. I’m not saying Madonna made an Air record, but…actually, I kind of am saying that, especially now that I hear her singing in French on “Paradise (Not For Me)”.

It has been a long while since I first heard Like a Prayer. I honestly forget Madonna exists sometime. But if you go back and look at that review, I didn’t not enjoy that album one bit. Safe to say those feelings were not a one time thing. I just don’t get it. And I could say that for a lot of albums I’ve heard over the last 191 days. But Madonna just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m going to say the same thing I said back then, because it still stands the test of time. Her music ellicits zero emotional response within me. Absolutely nothing. I feel lifeless when I listen to her music. What is the purpose of listening to music if that’s all I am able to take away from it? This is some of the most boring, bland, derivative and lackluster 2000’s pop music I’ve ever heard. What is she doing here than everybody else before her, and better at that? Even if this was considered “ahead of its time”, it would not be deserving of that title by any means. The autotune over her vocals on Nobody’s Perfect is enough to just throw the whole album out. Or the way the guitar is spliced up on Don’t Tell Me? Genuinely pissed me off a little bit. Such strange choices with the production and instruments that lack substance and stand as nothing but overly glossy and gimmicky pop trash. Keep Madonna far away from me. Rating: 3/10

I can only assume that there’s been an administrative error and that this was meant to be on the 1001 Ways To Die Before You Listen To This Album, as this is possibly the blandest and most pointless album that I have heard from Madonna (and I genuinely love some of her stuff). Bland lyrics, insipid delivery, plus a pointless cover version to round off the whole package. Seriously, what the hell is this on this list for…?

Hilariously abysmal. So bad. The robot voices, the claims of keeping it real, the horrendous cover of American pie. Laughed a lot, cringed a lot, never again.

I loved the mix of genres on this album. It is one of my favourites from Madonna and showed at the time how she could reinvent her sound and remain on top of charts as the Queen of Pop.

01) Music - 10,0 02) Impressive Instant - 8,5 03) Runaway Lover - 8,5 04) I Deserve It - 8,0 05) Amazing - 9,5 06) Nobody's Perfect - 8,5 07) Don't Tell Me - 10,0 08) What It Feels Like for a Girl - 10,0 09) Paradise (Not for Me) - 9,5 10) Gone - 8,5 TOTAL: 9,10 (91/100) Current ranking: 40/449 Finally some good pop after all that country, psychedelic rock, singer-songwriter bullshit I've been enduring for the past few weeks. Madonna really comes in like a ray of light... You either love pop or you don't. If you don't, you'll spit on this album and give it an average rating of 2.67. But if you like pop, this will easily be a 5 stars!

Interesting. I'd only really ever heard Madonna's pop hits before, but this album was much more than that. It started out as a dance club album, but got fairly soft and introspective by the end. The music is varied and good, and the lyrics are well written. Her voice is strong and she sings well.

Overall, an album consistent with pop trends of the late 90s, and yet another testament to Madonna's talent for picking the right producers who are guaranteed to make hits, which was on-point since the beginning of her career. Technically speaking, the production is very solid, although a bit muddy from track to track, and the vocals feel supressed from time to time.

Ahh yes, 2000's Madonna, brings back some memories. Overall, I enjoyed this album. I wouldn't listen to it regularly, but I can appreciate the music. Favorite Tracks: Music, Amazing, and Don't Tell Me. Awful Track: Nobodys Perfect. Shit 2000's auto tune (thanks Cher) and horribly grating noises that don't resemble good songs.

Actually really liked the album, apart from the aptly named "Nobody's Perfect" which is a good summation for the song itself because it's an overly autotuned piece of poop. The overall tone of the album feels like a mish mash of random directions but I don't really mind that, it provides relief from the norm of some albums to bore me to death with the same sounding songs.

I had never listened to this album until today. I haven't listened to many of Madonna's albums. I guess that I am not a huge fan. I enjoyed it.

I am a Madonna stan and it hurts me that this album was selected for this project. Do yourself a favor, skip this and listen to her debut instead (which absolutely SHOULD be on the list!) and then give her the five stars she deserves for single-handedly changing the music scene for female artists.

I know it sounds a bit bad but I'd like to know how much of this she really had a hand in? Maybe the lyrics? Yeah I can see that, but I don't think she produced it REALLY did she? I genuinely like Ray of Light and can hear Orbit in this as well. Whilst I applaud her intentions to push boundaries and put herself on the line this is at the end of the day just dancey Pop.

I wish the whole album was in the same vein as the two great songs “Music” and “Don’t Tell Me”, I think that would have been awesome. Unfortunately the rest of the album is mostly low energy dance tunes mired in an autotune muck. Mostly uninteresting save for a couple of high notes.

Madonna trying to be modern but what's lost here are any good songs. Best song is a cover of a song that's 30 years old

Typically like Madonna and this is right in the middle of her re-invention when I think she's perhaps a little too comfortable - she's at her best when working with up and coming producers and bringing outside influences to the mainstream, which I guess is being tried here mixing electronica with country. However as a listen it's not anywhere near her best "I deserve it" stand out tune. 3

Weirdest country album I’ve ever heard. Haha just kidding Production was really good. Very late 90s french electronica. Madonna was the weakest part of the album; is she good or just super hot? Will have to listen to more of her lesser known work.

It wasn't for me when it came out, and it still isn't for me. It's not outright awful or anything, but it all feels rather surface level. Oh, and the American Pie cover is a war crime.

Not sure why this 00s Madonna album is on here.

You know, I didn't really enjoy that.

Seriously!? I just got "Ray of Light" like two days ago!! Eat sh*t, algorithm. This is the absolute hottest of garbage. 1 star.

I can't believe that this is on the list. The whole thing of experimental music is the risk reward. It's risky, you might make something revolutionary but also there's a chance that people won't like it and you'll look stupid. This is the abominable spawn of eurotrash dance trot and 90s diva pop and it's revolting. Perhaps this failure is so revolting it's impossible to forget. If there is a merciful god, I hope he lets us forget this album so we can live our lives with dignity and grace.

Had auto tune just been invented when this was being recorded or something? Extremely liberal use here and it's fairly awful. I recognised a couple of the singles and they're all pretty bad, the cover of American pie is dreadful I don't think 1 is unfair

Boring, too commercial, uninteresting. Why is this álbum in this list? It made me lose my time. 1 star

I have no theory of mind for someone who considers this good music

Nobody's Perfect might be the worst song I've ever heard in my life. A loss for women.

Oh, fuck off. Are you sure the book this site derived its list from wasn’t titled “1001 albums to avoid like the plague if you want to retain even a shred of optimism about human potential or the value of existence over nothingness.”? Ray of Light is the only half decent Madonna album. Throw this and the rest on the metaphorical fire.

This album is fantastic but... of course, it's Madonna. It's great how in this album Madonna explores also new sounds and introduces more experimental aspects to her music, which was something that she started introducing even back to Like a Prayer. In this album there's place for more atmospheric tracks (Paradise (Not for Me), Impressive Instant), other folktronica ones (Gone, Don't Tell Me), as well as others heir of the (great) Ray of Light album, which is no coincidence at all (I Deserve It, Amazing), and club ones (Music, Runaway Lover), without losing any coherence. I absolutely love this album, I'm not going to hide it, and I would say it's one of Madonna's best, so diverse yet really well condensed. Madonna's music is often underrated, being her character/persona and performative skills more valued more and over her music itself. However, she is so fresh to deliver new sounds and adapt them to her music, always with a personal touch. This album is one of her most "pop" records, but still has her interest to dive in new sounds, and they match so well her style. For something she is called the Queen of Pop, she is so great at making very different albums from each other without losing her essence, and this Madonna period is one of her most creative ones. It's electronic, but also very human. It's fun, all the contrary to Ray of Light, it's an escape, a way of thanking music for what it's done to her and how it acts in our world, as a way of expressing ourselves, of freeing ourselves, of uniting ourselves.

this is my favourite madonna album i jus think the vibe and the sound are so perfectly curated. i wish cyber raga was included toooooo!!! my fav songs are amazing, nobodys perfect and that cover of american pie ofcourse

great I loved listening to her

Llama la atención la aparentemente decisión totalmente voluntaria de darle en este disco el máximo protagonismo a la guitarra acústica, viniendo Madonna como venía del universo electrónico de “Ray Of Light”, pero me parece una decisión acertada. No abandona la electrónica, pero hace que el álbum se diferencie claramente de su predecesor. El tono melancólico de algunas composiciones y la atmósfera ambient de la que fue dotado el disco hacen de él uno de los más coherentes de su carrera. Compacto y lo suficientemente experimental como para mantener a Madonna en la cima del pop por aquel entonces.

Great dance pop album. What it feels like for a girl is an underrated masterpiece by Madonna.

Madonna mostra nesse Álbum que o Pop da década de 2000 seria mais uma vez dominado por ela. Excelente disco! CVJ Neko.

Perfect!

this woman knows how to make an album

Iconicc

Vraiment cool, l'instru un peu expérimentale / glitchée est trop stylée

I like this album of Madonna Electronica, although some of the arrangements are a bit strange. A couple of times I thought my headphones were playing up. But that merely knocks it down from a hypothetical seven stars to a real five stars.

The girls that get it, get it

I really like this album. I think this was a great part of Madonna's career when she was making new, interesting, different music. She wasn't trying to recapture her old music or just bash out crap like she has done recently. I wished she'd stayed on this line.

Of all the albums in Madonna’s massive catalog, it’s been interesting to see what was chosen for this list. Neither, so far, have been my favorites, or her most influential. But this record does have her best track of all time: What It Feels Like for a Girl. Both the song and the video (directed by her then-husband Guy Ritchie) are the best she has ever produced. And for the artist with probably the most memorable, generation-defining records and videos, that’s really saying something. But this one is hands down the best. That said, the mixed media video for the title track did introduce the world to Sasha Baron Cohen. So there’s that, too. You can’t say shit to me about Madonna. It’s unreasonable, and I don’t care, but she’s gets 5s every time.

Ooh she is an under-appreciated diva.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug. This was one of the car CDs of family holidays and also my feminist awakening

Pop at its best

You can literally just hear however many millions they spent on this. The production is incredible, and it hides some of the cracks on the weaker tracks. "Music" is just so perfectly arranged, "Don't Tell Me" is, I think, my favorite Madonna song, and the cover of "American Pie" is just hilariously weird and doing its own thing, such a brilliant little oddity.

Her final epic album

Excelent album. Cant believe i never listened more of it

horrid lyrics on some tracks

Finally! After 709 days of partaking in this randomizer, it's about damn time that, at long last, it's decided to give my group 'Music'! I mean, I'unno what we were listening to those past 709 days if none of **that** was music~! And what sweet, sweet ... erm, largely dated music we got. Yeah, let's get to the point: this is some pretty dated dance-pop electronica from Madonna. Put a blindfold on me and ask when this album came out, and I'm sure I'd be able to nail it down to 2000 exactly. To which, I don't wanna act like that's all a bad thing to me. Sometimes I like me a bit of dated music. Y'know, sometimes it's fun to be able to pinpoint exactly when a song or album came out. Heck, sometimes you just want that specific year or decade sound. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and for good swathes of this album it was dated in a way I really enjoyed. Certainly, I feel like I enjoyed this thing largely more than I did 'Ray Of Light'. It might be blasphemy to diss on 'Ray Of Light', but I gotta be real, I did not dig the "yogacore" ambient trip-hop thing it was doing. I'm a simple gal: I want my pop music poppy, y'know? And where 'Ray Of Light' largely didn't provide that, 'Music' was able to, and I appreciate that. But not every song on this album is good-times music, no. Some of them are ... y'know, lesser than others. And I can name you the exact culprit behind this. So, there's, like, three or four different producer pairings across this album. William Orbit returns from 'Ray Of Light', and he has a pretty great showing on his tracks (minus one, but it's not an official part of the album). There's some other names I don't recognize on "What It Feels Like To Be A Girl", and I think they did a darn good job. These guys, without a doubt, produced the highlights of the album. Then there's the other guy, Mirwais. He did not produce any highlights. In fact, I'd say it's not a coincidence that the best songs on the album don't feature him at all. Here's the thing about Mirwais. I've read somewhere that people consider this to be a bit of an "experimental" album (at least by the standards of Madonna and her variety of pop music), and if it gets that from anything, it's Mirwais's production. He **loves** to slather tracks in robotic vocal filters and stuttery start-stop glitch nonsense ... I can just imagine a Big Important Critic™ at the time hearing this stuff and having his socks knocked off. "Wow! Listen to how far out there this production is! This is amazing!" Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here and understanding more and more why 'American Life' is the disaster it was. Mirwais comes across to me like a guy who has this big bag of tricks that he just **loves** to reach into — by gawd, he can't help but dig into it on every song he produces. "Let's chop the guitar up with abrupt cuts to silence!" "Let's do robot voices!" "Let's turn the autotune up to 11 like you're T-Pain or on Cher's 'Believe'!" I'm sure all of this sounded cool at the time, but in 2025 it's just a little ... much, y'know? Like, my guy, you don't hafta try so hard. You can tone back on the production! I mean, seriously, finding out he co-produced every song on 'American Life' really helps explain why that album sounds as bad as it does. Like, this shit's dated, but less in a "charming of-its-time" kind of way and more in a really goofy way. Like, Madonna's big robot voice at the top of the album asking me if I like to boogie-woogie, as if I'm gawdamm Cool Cat. And to the idea that this album is experimental — I don't really buy it? Mirwais is just throwing all of his favorite glitchy effects at the wall over top some 2000's Britney/Christina-style dance-pop. Like, it would've been just fine on its own, and either way it's hardly experimental. 'Ray Of Light' felt like the bigger experiment. I mean, jeez, I didn't care for its ambient trip-hop shit, but I can at least appreciate the swing it took, and I can give a nod of acknowledgement to how well it worked for others. Mirwais — I'unno. I don't wanna make it sound like his production's unlistenable or anything, but if I were Madonna, I would not have let him co-produce an entire album with me. At the very least, I would've traded him in for someone who wouldn't have let me do **two raps**. (Seriously: we all know 'American Life' isn't a great album, but goodness.) There's also the "American Pie" cover. As I said in my allusion to it above, it's not a part of the main album; it was only included on international releases and the 2016 vinyl ... but, hey, it's here, and I'd always heard it was a trainwreck, so I figured I may as well give it a shot. And I gotta admit, I'm sort of underwhelmed? I guess I'd always assumed it'd be more obviously awful. Most of the feeling I get from it is just ... why? Y'know? Why did you do this? Who asked for this? Who wanted "American Pie" to sound like this? And have so many of its lyrics chopped out? I don't think it's worth the particularly terrible Madonna movie it's attached to. And if you wanna count it as part of this album, well, it's the one non-Mirwais black mark this thing has, so ... points in Mirwais favor, I guess? Y'know, 'Music' is not a bad album, not at all. It can be pretty darn enjoyable in spots. Even the Mirwais tracks had their moments. I just wish he could've shown some restraint and didn't stick out like a big sore thumb as a result. But ultimately, yeah, it's pretty good. Believe me, when it comes to music, I've heard far worse than this. Like 'American Life'! Ha! Ha! Ha! Yeah, I'll stop now.

Doesn't hit as much as Ray Of Light, but it's still decent otherwise. Solid 4 Stars.

I’m at a 3.5 that I’ll bump up to a 4, though I’d MUCH prefer to leave it at a 3.5. This is the first time in a while I’ve been totally frustrated with an album; not because this is explicitly bad or anything, but because this thing is absolutely dripping with potential to meet the same mark as the contemporaries that Madonna was trying to hang with at this time; Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, N*SYNC, etc. It is so close to getting there, and yet it finds ways to feel a little dated & falls short at the parts where it matters most. It’s never in Madonna’s vocals – she sounds really good throughout. It’s a little bit in her songwriting; I think a lot of this album is based in reflections of previous addictions to love, & while it generally works well, I think a few tracks just cover the same topic base a little too much (namely a perceived overlap for Amazing, Paradise & Gone). It’s in the production. It’s *so* close to feeling as catchy as her peers, and while it generally hits something reasonable, it just doesn’t hit the same timeless marks as them. I know tracks like “Oops!... I Did It Again”, “What A Girl Wants” & “Bye Bye Bye” are cheesy as hell, but they’ve aged pretty well into 2025 because they lean into being explicitly catchy. Madonna & her team of producers take themselves more seriously here with more of an adult lean, so that does play a factor, but it’s not the underlying issue here at all. Mirwais Ahmadzaï & his ambitious production style, with a desire to feel unique & innovative for 2000… it just hasn’t aged well. It’s not that he didn’t see the trends that were soon to come in the genre; there’s a lot of tracks here that can tell where the tide is going, with production tricks that would be a lot more refined by 2003 through 2005. It’s just too early for them, and their use here feels deeply dated by comparison, creating a different air around the whole album that just lingers. It’s like early 1980s CGI trying to do the T-1000 effect in T2; it maybe could’ve been done, but it wouldn’t have looked as good. Hell, I’ll even give Mirwais his credit – so many of his tracks are really close to being good, and I admire the ambition he’s trying for. “Music” is a fine opener, it’s just overproduced in a way that feels noticeable by 2025. “Impressive Instant” has a solid base for a track, but if it leaned even more into French house sensibilities ala a Daft Punk track, it could be REALLY good. “I Deserve It” feels like a dollar store version of “Drive” by Incubus, and if they had leaned a little more incorporating some extra electronica, it might’ve shaken off that perception. “Nobody’s Perfect” is drenched in autotune, in a way that feels even more egregious than Cher’s use of it on “Believe” just a few years earlier. Again, it’s just overproduced. “Don’t Tell Me” is good, at least. It’s just a stuttered percussion sample & some string work interrupting a guitar melody, but it’s well done. His simplest production job is his best; almost like he overproduced too much of this thing, you know? “Paradise (Not For Me)” would’ve been good… if it ended about 2 minutes sooner. Letting that track continue for one more useless lap just lessens the impact. It’s the story of the album. However, the tracks where Mirwais isn’t the lead producer DO hit that sort of timeless point, which is where my frustrations with this album REALLY come to light. William Orbit’s production standards from Ray of Light carry over really nicely, and his tracks are great, save for the dreadfully strange cover of American Pie that I’m not counting in this little review. “Runaway Lover” is awesome, with a sort of Eurobeat lean that reminded me a lot of Sonic R and other ‘90s racing games of the era. Same thing with “Amazing”, which has a good punch to its percussion that really makes the track pop. “What It Feels Like For A Girl”, produced by Guy Sigsworth & Mark Stent (who both worked on Bjork’s “Vespertine”) is really catchy, even with a slight overreliance on the chorus. “Gone” (back to Orbit) is a fun closer with a slightly spiritual lean – I do think it doesn’t quite hit the “high” point it’s trying to achieve as a final track, but it’s a good track regardless. So, with just 3 of Mirwais’ tracks hitting a reasonable mark for me, and everyone else really nailing their stuff, I can’t help but wonder if Madonna just made a mistake in letting him produce most of the tracks. It just seems like someone else could’ve handled it better. I’m going to bump this up to a 4, since that’s 7/10 tracks clicking well enough, and there not really being an explicitly bad track, but I’d much prefer to leave it at a 3.5. I don’t blame anyone for giving the rating it has on the site, and it’s certainly not as good as Ray of Light was to my ears. It’s frustrating that it’s dripping with the potential to get there & really hit the mark she was going for, but it ultimately doesn’t meet it. I do admire the swings though. I can only hope “Like A Prayer” will really be that timeless Madonna record whenever we get it.

Man I really wanted to hate this album. I always liked "Ray of Light" but the fact that the follow up was a cowboy themed 42 year old Madonna trying to compete with the Britney Spears' of the world did not interest me in the slightest. But of course, now that I get it here, I have to try to have an open mind. And I'm alarmed to say that it's a lot better than I'd expected. Madonna was never really that innovative. The vast array of music on this album includes electrohouse, glitch pop, and folktronica, but she didn't invent any of these styles. "What It Feels Like For a Girl" (the album's highest point) sounds like it has the microbeats limited directly from Bjork's "Vespertine". Plenty of other influences are present and borderline ripping off fellow artists. But the thing is, these styles are mostly hiding off in the distance at this time. Madonna not only brought them together but also gave them a pop makeover, selling millions across the globe in the process. I can't completely hate her for that. I'm loathe to go as far as calling Madonna cool. But credit where it's due, she pulled together an groundbreaking album here, despite my initial prejudice.

It’s funny for me to listen to this album as I only knew it from 2 singles that I downloaded from a bit torrent back in the day. Completely forgot how obsessed I was with “Don’t Tell Me,” probably because it was one of the few songs I had downloaded at the time, what a time capsule.

This is pretty groovy. I really only knew the title track (inescapable hit single)... it all hangs together quite nicely.

Solid pop record. More good songs than I remember originally.

Madonna was my favorite artist somewhere around sixth grade, after Motley Crue and before Van Halen. I liked this. Not sure about the American Pie cover, but I'll allow it. 4

Ist da Musik drin? Ja doch!

Although I'm still not much of a Madonna fan, I have to say that this album is *not* what I expected from her, and in a good way. It seems that a lot of the inspiration for the unexpected sound and style is courtesy of Mirwais Ahmadzaï's production skills and talents, as well as Madonna's obvious willingness to stretch herself into more modern pop territory. The highlights for me were all Madonna/Mirwais produced and written tracks, especially the title track (with a fun accompanying video), "Impressive instant" (probably the closest she'll ever get to true electonica, and largely Mirwais' creation), "Don't tell me" (with a tough balancing act in its entertaining-but-too-country-camp video), and the curious Enigma-like "Paradise (not for me)". I'm not sure exactly why she went with the cowboy look on the album cover, but it's funny to see this 2000 album's country kitsch contrasted with Beyonce's much more recent foray into less-kitschy (but no less pop-oriented) country music. I'm torn between three and four stars for this album (especially after having made the mistake of listening and watching her bonus single cover of "American Pie"), but I feel like my ingrained skepticism of Madonna's talent needs to acknowledge how different and fresh-sounding this album is, *especially* for Madonna.

I’ve always liked this album. Music and Don’t Tell Me are bangers. I don’t even think the American Pie cover is that bad. The vocoder effect is a tad overdone though. Still a good pop album, which is always welcome in my book

Amazing. Never really intentionally listened to Madonna. The sound production on this album is peak. Holds up 25 years later. Wide berth of musical styles. Perhaps that’s the concept of the album. Lyrically, not always bangers, but great bits and pieces.

Soft 4. I like Madonna, and I like 2000s music, but this felt really generic for both of those tags.

Random thoughts: * I thought I owned this on CD but I can't find it. It could be in the boxes in storage and means that when I had to cull down the CDs this is one that didn't make the cut. * It did make me find out that I do own the Immaculate Collection. I dusted that one off to give a listen on my Bose CD player. :) * "Don't Tell Me" is my absolute favorite Madonna track. Seriously love this song, I think it might be in my top 50 or top 100 songs of all time. * I have a hilarious memory (to me and my sister at least) of "Don't Tell Me" where I did a little drunk cowboy dance to this tune while in Blackhawk. I think you had to be there. * "Music" is also a banger! Still fun to play years later. * This was a fun time in music when Madonna went EDM. Actually all of pop went electronica. This was right around the time of Cher's "Believe". * I didn't remember any of the other songs but listening through today, there are some good ones. "What It Feels Like for a Girl" was a stand out on this listen. Maybe being a girl dad or becoming a feminist made me really feel this one. * Dude! American Pie came on and I said "What is this abomination?!?!?" I don't remember this or blocked it out. Apparently, it is only on the international version. And since 1001 is a British endeavor, when you click on the album from 1001 it has "American Pie" tacked on at the end. Good call to leave this off the American version. You don't mess with perfection. * This is probably somewhere around a 3.5 rating but since that is not an option, I'm giving it a 4 for the American version of this album. The international version would be a 3 or 2 for touching Don McLean's masterpiece.

I find it best to treat the song American Pie as optional in all circumstances. In this case it was marked as a bonus track, so I feel fully justified.

Madonna is a very good musical artist. I love how she always reinvents herself but never loses her own ... autograph. Yup. It's Madonna, and yeah, it is good actually. But she is a queen for a reason. She made her own table and deserves it. Worth listening to? Well yeah, of course!

LOVE ITTTTT

A true time capsule. The title track has a grip on my childhood I didn’t know I forgot - my neighbor Loved this album when I was barely a few years old. They had a big statue of a smoking monkey and a broken grand piano. Anyways, why is she dressed up all country on the least country album?

If I have learned nothing else from this exercise it is that (a) Elvis Costello made some absolute turds and (b) I actually can get down with Madonna. This album, along with its predecessor are music that I otherwise would never have listened to because I wrote Madonna off as pop bullshit. And yet, both albums are fantastic. Not just in their quality music, but also in terms of experimentation and variety of sounds. The title and artwork do this album no favors, but it is an enjoyable ride all the way through. As far as pop albums go, this is top tier IMO. Title track is instantly recognizable though I never knew its name. Gotta say, this is one of the most turn of the Millennium sounding instrumentals I have ever heard. Ngl I dig it. Impressive Instant is kind of fun, with a backing instrumental loop makes me think of something Marc Rebillet would build upon. The party pauses momentarily as Madonna pulls out an acoustic guitar on I Deserve It. Actually really like this song -- in a different setting sans vocals I would believe someone if they said this was a Gorillaz song. Amazing takes a dip into the turn of the Millennium 60s pop revival sound -- makes me think of Austin Powers for some reason. and Nobody's Perfect is an auto-tuned adventure that reminds me of something that I can't quite put a finger on (I think its a Blur song, but not sure). Absolutely love What It Feels Like for a Girl. Vocals are solid, but the underlying instrumental is dreamy AF. And Paradise (Not for Me) is a wonderful trip-hop influenced piece -- one of my favorites here. In the end, I'm left feeling that this was a really strong album front-to-back. And yet, I don't feel quite pulled to give it a 5. Instead I'm falling in at a very high 4.

'Music mix the bourgeoisie and the rebel.' The title track, the ostentatious 'Music,' incorporates the same whiny synths that Dr. Dre had been known to employ for his baptism of the g-funk era. Those synths appear on other tracks as well, giving this essentially genreless record a consistent hip-hop bite and confidence. The album cover would have you believe that there is something Western going on here, but besides the few folksy moments of acoustic guitar, make no mistake, this is a record of a city slicker, certified on the wonderfully sophisticated 'What It Feels Like for a Girl': 'But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading / 'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading.' And brava for not 'selling out,' as she closes out w/ on 'Gone.'

79/100. The stuttering synths, warped vocals, and glitch-pop textures give the album a futuristic edge that still sounds good today and those moments shine the brightest. The more traditional pop tracks add a warmer, acoustic balance, though they can’t quite match the freshness of the experimental core.