Maverick
Pop, 2000

Gosh, it is albums like this that make me feel old. I actually thumped my CD player halfway through the otherwise excellent Runaway Lover, convinced that the wobbly fizzy sounds I heard were a result of my player malfunctioning. I must be more out of touch with modern music than I thought.

Music is more of Mirwais Ahmadzaï’s showcase than Madonna’s. Madonna is never her own musician if you ask me. Her sound changes with different producers, so much that I sometimes wonder what exactly she does to merit co-producer role in her albums. Is there ever a “distinctive” Madonna sound?

This album is a showcase of thumping electronica beats relentlessly throbbing non-stop. Tunes are secondary to wheezy sounds, and I’m still not sure if I like that. The title track boasts a spectacular backing track, the low throbbing bass line sounding absolutely orgasmic, but the song lacks a hook, or even a tune.

I cling to the slower tunes like I Deserve It and Gone like a lifeline – music, music, here is music! Gone has a melancholic feel to it, which is nice. And there’s always American Pie, which is done in a nice irreverence (it’s now a fag hag anthem instead of the overly grandiose requiem Don McLean intended it to be, heh heh) and it shows that Rupert Everett is a nice baritone.

All in all, if taken in small doses at a time, Music is tolerable. But I can’t help feeling this is an album better off listened in an acid or rave party – spending money to listen to it at home sounds silly a notion if you ask me.