Album anniversaries bring back all sorts of memories, particularly Madonna album anniversaries. This time of year it’s all about the magnificent moodiness of the ‘Music’ album. Casual listeners may only know and remember the banging title track, but Madonna herself proclaimed the album much too moody to hear in the middle of the day. That’s my kind of music. It also brings back all sorts of happy memories, mostly because of ‘Music’ – which came out just as Andy and I were starting to date. I still remember standing near the bar at Mainestreet as a remix of ‘Music’ came on – to this day it’s a thrill when a Madonna song comes on (and it seems to be more and more rare).
Second single ‘Don’t Tell Me’ was an instant Madonna mantra – a song of defiance, a song of love – and sonically cemented the ‘Music’ album’s legacy of electro-folk fusion. It also kept things in the family with a writing credit from Madonna’s own brother-in-law Joe Henry. Keep it together, indeed. While ‘What It Feels Like For a Girl’ was the third single – with its Guy Ritchie-directed video of violence – I preferred the rush of ‘Impressive Instant’ or the hushed drama of ‘Paradise (Not For Me)’ and even the William Orbit throwback ‘Amazing.’ (Orbit also worked on ‘Runaway Lover.’)
Mirwais, who would return for the ‘American Life’ and ‘Madame X’ albums, spun his first straw into gold with ‘Music’ – his tell-tale sound is wailing on the sirens for ‘I Deserve It’ and the vocal distortions of ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ – and it was the world’s first introduction to the chemistry between M & M.
All in all, the ‘Music’ album is a mini-masterpiece, and that was no easy feat given that it was the follow-up to the majestic ‘Ray of Light’. It doesn’t quite reach the lofty heights of that one, but it takes its place proudly in the Madonna canon, probably in the mid to mid-high range – on a par with ‘Bedtime Stories’ perhaps. It came out at the very start of fall, when the days were still bright and the air crisp, when a new beginning was possible all over again, just as one summer season was ending.
