Madonna’s album releases are always a big event: which musical style will Madonna choose this time? Is she setting new trends in clothing? With her latest album “Music” Madonna influenced mainly fashion, musically the album was revolutionary, but sometimes at the edge of good taste. On “American Life” Madonna worked with the same producer (Mirwais) again, but the result is luckyly very different! Instead of electronic escapades we find quite a lot of beautiful vocal lines and acoustic guitars on “American Life”. The definite highlight of the album is a ballade called “Nothing fails” that is gently grooving and ends with an amazing a cappella choir singing the lines “I’m not religious, but it makes me wanna pray…” – it’s just an amazing song & probably one of the best Madonna has done in years. “Intervention”, “X-static process” & “Easy ride” pick up a similar style. There are also a bunch of good uptempo-tracks: “Mother & father” features one of Madonna’s most personal lyrics & the grooving “Hollywood” should be the next single off the album. Unfortunately there are still some tracks with overused electronic effects & the current single “American Life” isn’t the best choice, since that slightly political song is actually the weakest track of the entire album.
Added: June 7th 2003
Reviewer: Neal Sky