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83Aside from the thumping groove of "Nobody Knows Me" and a few other bouncy beats, much of the electro style Madonna experimented with on 2000's Music has been replaced with warmer sounds and earthy touches, like acoustic guitars and a choir that comes from nowhere on "Nothing Fails."
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80It wouldn't be wildly inappropriate to identify American Life as an early 21st-century update of Love's Forever Changes, effecting as it does a similarly eerie ambivalence with its fusion of mind-altering sonics and mellow acoustics. [Jun 2003, p.94]
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80This may be the first time Madonna hasn't pushed herself to explore new ground, but at least she's chosen a good place to rest. [June 2003, p.155]
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80Unlike recent collections Music and Ray of Light, the lyrical content of American Life relies less on spiritual introspection and more on woman-in-the-mirror confrontation.
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All perfectly good stuff, technically excellent. But 'American Life' also feels like an unnecessary sequel, a 'Men In Black II', made because hell, if it ain't broke...
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70When she turns from fathoming everyone else's existence to her own, and stops frantically waving her style icon credentials, the genius of hers and Mirwais' partnership is overwhelming.
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At its best, her new album offers blunt, questing, decisive music at a chaotic time. At its weakest, she sounds like a gal who's grown content with hubby and kids and the hard-earned privilege of hiring the help to keep herself at tip-top tautness.
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67A suite of faux-folkie electro that fuses the introspection of Ray of Light with Music's fast-food dance licks. [Jun 2003, p.99]
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60American Life is revealing and diverting -- no bad things in a record -- but in the end the brow-beating, finger-wagging and psycho-babbling take their toll. [May 2003, p.86]
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60That's both the best and the worst thing about this album: The music is much more eloquent than the lyrics. [May 2003, p.112]
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Overall, American Life is better for what it promises than what it delivers, and it's better in theory than practice.
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60It's a record about being Madonna. [Jun 2003, p.90]
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Making records, it seems, may not be her strong suit anymore.
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40This album, if it came from a newcomer, could kill a career stone dead.
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For once, Madonna has stumbled not because she reached too far, but because she didn't reach far enough.
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The title track's having-it-all exhaustion, underscored by its bipolar sonics and start-stop rhythms, will endear her to the Allison Pearson crowd; a few other tunes will reinforce her fan base among fellow whiny celebrities.
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Even modest expectations can't salvage the clunky, ponderous American Life, which fares only slightly better than "Hanky Panky" and Swept Away on her list of offenses.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 71 out of 80
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Mixed: 3 out of 80
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Negative: 6 out of 80
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