Music
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Music

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 23 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Warner Bros.
Release Date: 19 September 2000
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Pop, Rock
Summary
The follow-up to Madonna's hit 'Ray of Light' was produced by 'Light's producer William Orbit and French electronica artist Mirwais.
Also By This Artist: American Life Confessions On A Dance Floor Hard Candy
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Dot Music
Generally an upbeat dancey album which finds Madonna still ahead of the game sixteen years into her career, 'Music' takes an occasional breather with some more grown-up, reflective balladry.
Read Full Review >Wall of Sound
[Co-producer Mirwais Ahmadzai's] deft touch for crafting disarmingly warm songs out of synthetic tools gives Music a rich, human quality that nicely underscores Madonna's quietly personal -- if purposefully vague -- lyrics.... it's the music that ultimately sucks us into Music.
Read Full Review >Select
'Music'... sees Madonna cast as a nu disco diva taking a taxi ride through a world which is definitely hers. Much of it sounds like Daft Punk. It's fun. (Oct 2000, p.100)
Rolling Stone
Unlike Ray of Light's pristine inner-ear landscapes, Music is dirty, casually urgent, as if Madonna walked into the studio, got on the mike and let the machines bump.
Read Full Review >Spin Cycle
The real standouts here, though, are the ballads. With "I Deserve It" and "Gone," the legacy of the corporeal and spiritual Madonna lays down amid the simplicity of basic percussive beats and acoustic guitar.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
Filled with vocoders, stylish neo-electro beats, dalliances with trip-hop, and, occasionally, eerie synthesized atmospherics, Music blows by in a kaleidoscopic rush of color, technique, style, and substance.... an appealing, addictive record.
Read Full Review >Mojo
Music is fitful and its charms aren't all immediate, but Madonna is still doing what she does best--giving a lick of pop genius to the unlikely genre of experimental dance music.
Read Full Review >New Musical Express
Vocodered, stretched, distorted, warped, deliberately upstaged by beats so showy they belong in a strip joint - quite simply, she's almost managed to make herself disappear. That bluntly explicit title isn't just pointless irony. This record is about the music, not Madonna; about the sounds, not the image.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
It's her most patchwork record since the Sean Penn years.... In the way it tiptoes around sundry moods and beats, ''Music'' is frustratingly inconsistent, as if Madonna herself weren't sure where to venture next. At times, it feels like a collection of sounds -- clever, intriguing ones, to be sure -- that seek to compensate for ordinary melodies and Madonna's stoic delivery.
Read Full Review >Spin
The first Madonna record in years that feels as effortless as the dance-pop of her Ciccone youth. [Oct 2000, p.173]
Village Voice
Music breaks down neatly into three discrete sections, on which I'll hang the very technical names the dance part, the good part, and the dirge part. The good part, so named because it's really good, accounts for half of Music's 10 songs, conveniently nestled into tracks four through eight inclusive, so you can play that section over and over again without interruption.
Read Full Review >Sonicnet
Folkish acoustic guitar and lumbering trip-hop rhythms grind the second half into one bland, undifferentiated musical mass. Because she's an icon, she probably doesn't feel comfortable releasing a formal coup of an album where she toys with French disco-house the entire time.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine
Mostly, as on Ray of Light, sophisticated production masks Madonna's shortcomings as a songwriter.... Often Mirwais is the real star here... It's his music that makes Music matter. [Sep 25, 2000]
Read Full Review >CDNow
Music is a weaker record than its predecessor, with only a few tracks possessing the strength, pop sensibility, and hooks that made Ray of Light such a success.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jens O gave it an8:
I have to say I loved the album when it came out, and I still love some tracks on it, but almost ten years on I'm less impressed by it now.
Victor C gave it a10:
Not exactly AS good as "Ray of Light," but it still is extremely good. It contains great tracks, such as "I Deserve It," "Amazing," and "Impressive Instant." Madonna also shows off some other types of music with the tracks "What It Feels Like For a Girl" and "Paradise (Not For Me)."
Josh P gave it a10:
My favourite madonna album,Music is empowering and blessed with fantastic producers, lyrics and shows madonna at the top of her game-along with Like A Prayer and Confessions this is madonna's greatest album ever.
Zane S gave it a9:
I personally think this is her best album since the late 80s, and still hasn't made a record of equal or better value. "Confessions," "Hard Candy" and "American Life" were all mediocre, while "Music," "Ray Of Light" and "Like A Prayer" were all absolutely amazing. Stand-out tracks are the title track, "Impressive Instant," "What It Feels Like For A Girl" and "Don't Tell Me."
Einar1 J gave it a5:
Merely okay, and in my eyes, disturbingly overrated. 'Ameircan Life' was excessively better, and to think 'Music' could 'par' against 'Ray Of Light', one of those rare masterpieces, is horrifying. 'What It Feels Like For A Girl' remains charming and very clever.
Ruan H gave it a9:
Excellent follow up to Ray Of Light, moving into new musical directions and sounds. "Music" is easily one of her best singles of all time.
Aldo M gave it a10:
fantastic!!!! the best!!!!
