This is Madonna's first studio album for three years, following the smash success of "Music". That album's main producer Mirwais Ahmadzai returns on this record to co-produce the songs with Madonna (with a couple others), but the music has moved on somewhat...
Songs
- American Life
- Hollywood
- I'm So Stupid
- Love Profusion
- Nobody Knows Me
- Nothing Fails
- Intervention
- X-Static Process
- Mother and Father
- Die Another Day
- Easy Ride
American Life is the title track and first single released from this very eagerly-awaited album of Madonna's. The song starts with Madonna chanting "Do I have to change my name? will it get me far? Should I lose some weight? Am I gonna be a star?". Immediately, any keen Madonna fan will recognise this as part of the story of Madonna's early career; Madonna was taunted as being somewhat "plump" in the beginning by the 80s media (before her transformation for "True Blue"), her name was somewhat controversial given her shock tactics, and her relentless chase for stardom (some people even think to this day that "Madonna" is not her real name and that it has been chosen purely to shock). Madonna seems to be railing against modern superficial life where the relentless chase for fame and stardom for its own sake overshadows what is really important - the so-called "American Dream". A heavy electronic bass overlying a slamming drumbeat kicks in and one begins to appreciate that this song's verses have a strong if sparse looped structure around which slight changes are made with minimal stuttering electronic effects. The chorus suddenly segues into an acoustic folksy sing-song - it all sounds like nothing that Madonna has ever done before...so far so good? Well, not entirely. The chorus jars with the verses and it doesn't really sound like it's supposed to be one song; rather it sounds like two different songs botched together. Musically, it isn't interesting to hold one's attention for long; it almost seems like Madonna is singing acapella with perhaps a few beats to keep her company. So is there anything good about this song? Sure...and it's perhaps the part that professional critics have criticised the most - the hilarious rap towards the end. In it Madonna describes the staff (lawyers, nannies, butlers, chefs, agents etc) and expensive toys (a Mini Cooper and a jet) that she has and what she gets up to (yoga and pilates whilst checking out the hotties' bodies!) with tongue firmly in cheek (which is perhaps where the critics missed the beat) - Madonna isn't seriously trying to move into Puff Daddy, Eminem or Missy Elliot's turf, she is creating a pastiche. And as such, the rap works brilliantly, with the start "I'm drinking a soy latte, I get a double shott�, it goes through my body and you know I'm satisfied" set to be a classic. While the verses of the song sounds like Justin Timberlake rejects and the chorus sounds like a bad 70s folk singer, the rap really does work and the help that Madonna got from Missy Elliot with rapping tuition shows. Unfortunately overall, it's a really poor showcase for the album as a lead single (although it's set to be a bit hit commercially) because nothing sounds like it on the album and - wait for it - it's actually the weakest song on the album! So if you liked this one, there's a good chance that you'll be blown away by the rest - so good news all around!
Hollywood starts with the tweeting of birds in the background and then a glistening guitar loop brightens the scene as Madonna bursts straight into the song, with a playful and shockingly young-sounding (like a carefree teenager just larking around in a convertible car in Hollywood!) voice that is very reminiscent of her days before she was famous (if you've ever heard her song "Love For Tender") but better of course. That same slinkiness of her vocals as she vocally gambols around the lyrics is a real pleasure to listen to again, especially against the summery synth bass and beats of the backing track. In contrast to "American Life", Madonna seems to be extolling the virtues of Hollywood and why people want to come there to be famous. However, like her early hit "Material Girl", there is a heavy dose of irony and the subtle criticisms of Hollywood are there to feel, though the average non-fan listener will probably miss them. Examples include "music stations always play the same songs, I'm bored with the concept of right and wrong" and "this bird has flown". At the end, Madonna's voice morphs into that of a man's - quite an eye-opener from Master Mirwais! All in all, with its massive hooks, it has "massive summer hit" stamped all over it! Ironically, it will probably be snapped by TV shows whenever they are doing a feature on how glamorous Hollywood is.
The album shifts gear with I'm So Stupid, which starts out with a strong 60s rock vibe (reminscent of the Rolling Stones) with Madonna singing acapella again, then accompanied by beats only. Then her voice gets the full Mirwais/Stuart Price electronic treatment, in a similar way to the end of "Human Nature" in the "Drowned World World" ("seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex") with "IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII". The theme of superficiality not being for Madonna ("it was just greed and it won't protect me" and "everybody's looking for something, everybody's stupider than stupid") that was in the first two songs is continued, with Madonna singing how she was stupid for living in the bubble of celebrity in the past. However, the sound of the song is "stiff" (as described by Madonna herself) with rather rather hard beats accompanies purring electro-rock guitars and backed excellently with similarly hard-filtered vocals. The 60s retro theme is maintained through the song, but it is mixed with New Order and remixed to an updated post-Millennial version which is highly effective. Madonna uses her deeper register on this song, interspersing it with higher shrieks of the same kind as in "Ray Of Light" (though the songs do not sound similar). The song never really bursts into full flow, but that is part of the charm, as its laid-back growl is attractive and as a whole, it is a memorable song on the album.
Love Profusion is an altogether smoother affair, with an acoustic folk feeling, with a hint of electronica and stuttering "Mirwais-isms" to garnish it without overpowering it. Madonna quietly describes her love for husband Guy saying she's got him under her skin and that "...the world can look so sad, only you make me feel good". With talk of "love vibrations", "love direction" and "love perfusion" gives a warm glow to the song, and if I were Guy, I'd feel really special listening to this! Madonna's voice is glorious and perfectly matches the contented blissful feeling of the song. The bridge sees quiet staccato 80s-style keyboards take over with Madonna whispering "I got you under my skin" as only she can with Mirwais himself making an appearance on the backing vocals (and doing really a fantastic job too!) with non-verbal vocals ("aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"). Though this is not an "exciting" track, its warmth and beauty is such that makes it one of the album's highlights.
If you're disappointed thus far with the lack of a song to go clubbing to, you'll be delighted with Nobody Knows Me. A computerised bleeping forms the intro, and is joined a heavily auto-tuned Madonna who sounds like a "discofied" computer. Psychadelic, the banging mid-tempo groove is accompanied by similarly heady lyrics "sometimes I feel shy, I think I can fly, closer to the sky" which sometimes veer towards the very anti-critic ("I don't want no lies, I don't watch TV, I don't waste my time, won't read a magazine" and "but why should I care what the world thinks of me, won't let a stranger, give me a social disease") - which is after all, the point of the song. The chorus is a great hook, with an early Michael Jackson-eque "nobody knows me". The pulsating outro to this wonderful piece of electronica is out of this world (in more ways than one) - this chaotic structureless mess of a song (which shouldn't work but does!) makes "Impressive Instant" sound "normal" and, if treated well by the recording company people, could be a huge club hit!
Nothing Fails returns to the warmth of "Love Profusion" but has a hint of the stuttering guitars of "Don't Tell Me" (but more melodic) in the background. In a style similar to Sheryl Crow, Madonna soulfully sings that she's not religious, but the love she feels for her guy (whom she refers to affectionately as "you silly thing") moves her and makes her want to pray...a beautiful sentiment reflected by the glory of her delivery. Three-quarters of the way through the song, she is accompanied by the combined voices of the London Community Choir and violins, in a bridge that is spine-tingling with the sheer power of the effect of Madonna and the choir's voices and the arrangement. There are no words to adequately describe this sensation, it's like entering the Pearly Gates of Heaven at the end of a full life spent well. It's so good, it will make all your hair stand on end. There is a hint of an oxymoronic contradiction with the gospel choir singing "I'm not religious, but it makes me want to pray", but that just adds to the intrigue. Forget "Like A Prayer", this is completely different, this achieves its power without loud amplitude and is a masterpiece in a very strong album overall.
Madonna continues with her love theme with a pretty love song to her baby son Rocco. Intervention is therefore like "Little Star" from "Ray of Light", but much stronger and more intimate. The song starts with a playful gentle electric-guitar, which is joined by soft drumbeats and snares. Later in the chorus, the electric guitar are replaced with acoustic guitar and synths. Madonna refuses to let go of our heartstrings which she had been yanking on the previous song, but here merely plays them like the harp. OK, that's getting a little metaphysical, but what I mean to say is that she manages to weave a nostalgic warmth in this song that was missing from "Little Star", and which no doubt will make her shed a tear or two in many years when she's an old woman and looking back on this really special time in Rocco's life. While "Little Star" sounded very much like a sweet song for a little girl, this is definitely a boy's song - there is a quality about it that you can't quite put your finger that exudes the masculine bounciness of a young boy. Madonna sings of her love for her son, says that life is hard ("I know the road looks lonely, but that's just Satan's game") but that their love will keep them together and make life worth it. The end of the song fades as if Madonna's little lad is finally falling asleep after her lullaby. All together now...awwwwwwwwwww!
X-Static Process sounds like it should be a stomping dance track like "Impressive Instant" (especially given the lyrics, which have a similar theme)...but nothing could be further from the truth. I love it when artists do this, it takes all your preconceptions and throws them straight out of the window. You now have two choices; to be disappointed, or to be wowed by the unexpected move. I'm opting for the latter, because this love song to her husband is special. It creates a bubble of existance around you and Madonna that could be as immense as the whole universe or just the simple glow of a campfire around which Madonna is singing and strumming the guitar for you and only you. For the latter what it sounds like, the acoustic guitar and some minute twittering sounds are the only instrumentation to Madonna's intimate voice. Madonna's self-backing and harmonising have always been a particular strong-point of her and she proves it again here, with multi-layered vocals that are stunning. It's more than a love song to her husband, it's also a love song to herself which isn't quite as big headed as it might seem; it's a love song to the two of them: "I always wished that I could find, someone as beautiful as you, but in the process I forgot that I was special too". Madonna is quite clearly in love and feels that what she and Guy have is x-tra special and beautiful - good for her!
Mother & Father starts with an 80s-style electropop intro which bears a striking resemblence to that of Kylie Minogue's "Fever" - and the Kylie comparisons don't end here. Near the end of the song, Madonna even starts to sound like her! But that's for later - immediately, you notice that Madonna is using a very different voice in this song. Higher-pitched, the best comparison that can be made of her voice is with the supremely talented British artist Kate Bush ("Wuthering Heights", "Babooshka", "Hounds of Love" etc)...the resemblance is uncanny. It's like the voice of the little girl Madonna was (or maybe this the song the young Madonna would have sung had she necessary vocabulary of the adult woman), and indeed that was her intention as this song looks back at the little girl and how she felt at her mother's death and the reaction of her father to that. But don't expect a tear-jerker like "Promise To Try" and "Oh Father" - this baby has an 80s disco sound and an altogether more upbeat feeling. In fact, a good song of Madonna's to compare it to is "Till Death Do Us Part" in that it deals with a very serious theme in a very upbeat and uplifting manner. Again, this is the point of the song - whereas "Promise To Try" and "Oh Father" were sad and almost self-pitying, this song is about overcoming the trauma of such a loss: "I got to give it up, find someone to love me I got to let it go, find someone that I can care for". Unlike "Till Death Do Us Part", however, this song is ultimately positive. Some critics have called some of the lyrics too simple, but this is missing the point; the child that Madonna was is singing this song so phrases "there was a time, I had a mother, it was nice" and the sing-songy "My mother died when I was five, and all I did was sit and cry, I cried and cried and cried all day, until the neighbours went away" are really apt and makes me wonder whether the detractors listened to the song and got a feel for it. Whilst Madonna describes the specialness of her mother to her and the rage she felt against her father ("my father had to go to work, I used to think he was a jerk" - spoken (a startling digitally-spliced rap) with the same dry cynical voice as used in "Till Death Do Us Part" to throw into relief the earnest sung vocals) as he continued his life without his wife, she says she now realises that this was his way of dealing with the pain - this amounts to an apology to him. Towards the end of the song, Madonna jacks her voice up to new pitches and sounds like a blend of Kate Bush and Kylie Minogue (the latter especially in the backing vocals) and even purrs and coos like Betty Boo!
We all heard Die Another Day long before the release of the album, because it was of course the theme song to the 20th James Bond film of the same name. As the first song to be heard from this album, everyone was very keen to see which direction Madonna went after her smash album "Music". Madonna brought in composer Michael Colombier to lend his magic with the string orchestra, which Mirwais took and chopped up in his unimitable style and to which he added a thumping stiff beat and Madonna's autotuned vocals. Lyrically, it's not a complex song, with a theme of overcoming privations and hardship to survive to fight another day - or to die another day (instead of today!). With revolutionist lyrics like "I'm gonna shake up the system", you might be forgiven for thinking that Madonna was getting a bit too big for her boots - but oh no, she counters that sentiment with "I'm gonna destroy my ego" and invokes Sigmund Freud (no less) to "analyse this"! All very vague and confusing ("I'm gonna kiss some part of" - some part of what exactly?!), as it was no doubt meant to be. Musically, the Colombier strings add the drama and "Bondness" that Mirwais on his own could not make, whilst Mirwais and Madonna together try to "break the cycle" of overblown Bond ballads with a thumping techno beat. In fact, they shook up the system so much that the song split Bond fans right down the middle, with some (including heavyweights like David Arnold [a Bond composer] and Elton John) denouncing this as the worst ever Bond theme tune whilst others lauding it as a brave new sound for the 21st century Bond. My own feeling is that Mirwais and Madonna were nearly on to a real winner here, but managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by going overboard with the twiddly knobs. There is no musical reason for the amount of autotuning on Madonna's voice in this song. It was last used on "Impressive Instant" from the "Music" album, to great effect. But there, it was used only at certain points; here it is used throughout the song on Madonna's vocals, and instead of suddenly adding another dimension to her voice, it merely takes one away, leaving it two dimension and flat. A major criticism of this song is that Madonna sounds like a robot, and there is some truth in that. However, it could be this quality that Madonna was looking for, a robotic sense of self-hypnosis, trying to psyche oneself to defeat one's own mind and ego to overcome hardship (as evidenced by the video where captured agent Madonna is tortured by her North Korean captors). Musically, the wonderful chopped up Colombier strings feel a little underused, being only really prominent when Madonna is not singing. There was a lot of promise in this song, and perhaps not the full potential was realised. Nevertheless, it's a very capable Bond theme and a song that fits better on this album than in its own right and which would be superb, but for missing that certain je ne sais quoi. However, it's a breath of fresh air to the rather stuffy Bond franchise which suffered one after another overblown ballad and then a series of so-so "modern" songs trying to break the mould. Madonna may not have pleased everyone, but she has certainly shaken (not stirred!) up the system!!
Easy Ride starts with ultra-dramatic strings from composer Michael Colombier, which lead into the familar acoustic guitar of this album (supported by Mirwais-isms). Madonna infuses this song with nostalgia and almost-but-not-regret as she sings how she's doesn't her life to be easy but instead be really special as she's worked for it. The desires of Madonna in the lyrics veer from the endearingly idealistic ("I want to know everything, maybe someday I will") to the pleasures of the simple things ("breathe the air and feel the sun on my children's face"). The first chorus is spine-tingling with an inspiring dramatic melody, beat and handclaps and a staccato delivery. The second instance chorus is sung the same, but is supported by strings only in a superb contrast and then is repeated as before. At the end, the song gets funked up with the stuttering electronica that is Mirwais' trademark then kicks in with the same type of chopped-up strings of "Die Another Day" and this leads into the orchestral outro that ends the album. And very fittingly too; in the second half of her career, Madonna often seems to want to leave us with a song at the end of the album which makes you "work for it" (as she says on this song) and provoke some thought - she did it with "Secret Garden" (from "Erotica"), she did it with "Mer Girl" (from "Ray of Light") and she did it with "Gone" (from "Music"). This is a worthy successor to those thought-inspiring tracks from yesteryear, and moreover it puzzles me why Madonna chose to make a song like "Die Another Day" the theme tune to the James Bond film, when a song like this is infinitely better suited to it (as it works well in all the areas that "Die Another Day" does not). The grandeur of the strings, the majesty of the arrangement, the drama of the chorus and the filmic quality of the song as a whole makes it the best theme song of hers that never was. This is easily the most interesting (albeit not the most immediate or even the most captivating) song on the album and is a really glorious end to an awesome album.
RatingAs you can probably tell, I am bowled over by this album. After the dizzy groundbreaking heights scaled by the incredible "Ray of Light", I was afraid that Madonna would never reach them again, and though "Music" was capable and not sub-standard by any means, it lacked the cohesiveness and beauty of its predecessor. All these years, I've been praying for an album that would better "Ray of Light", since it would take some album to do so. So does "American Life" actually beat "Ray of Light"? It's too soon for me to judge to 100% accuracy (since I'm writing this before the album has even been released!) but I don't think it does...not quite. The title track "American Life" just spoils it that much and brings it lower than "Ray of Light", which for me didn't have a single weak song.
But you know what? I don't care - there's more to life than matching your past achievements, and in any case Madonna has quite clearly reached the same levels of artistry that she did before in many of the songs on this album. And all of this whilst moving on musically all the time. Her collaboration with Mirwais has matured and flourished in a way that was not imaginable from "Music" which, for all its great beats and rhythms, didn't have so much emotional power as its scintillating predecessor.
In this album, Madonna seems at once unsure of her position in the world and insecure and at the same time achieving closure over her mother's death and content to be in love with her husband and children and to bask in the warmth of the family feeling. We should not be surprised; Madonna has always been about such contrasts and contradictions and they add to the enigma that is Madonna, and after all life is not black and white. The good thing about this album is that Madonna still has a lot to say, rather than being a collection of pretty-sounding tunes.
Madonna has produced a stunning and mature adult album but one that still retains a hint of the sense of fun - as if the two predecessor electronica albums "Ray of Light" and "Music" had sex and gave birth to "American Life", a nearly-perfect blend of the best qualities of both. For this, and for continuing to be the most interesting and stunning pop singer, I am happy to give "American Life" an awesome 9/10.
� Josh Deb Barman 2003