Music (Madonna Album) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Music garnered universal acclaim from music critics, holding a score of 80/100 on Metacritic based on 16 professional reviews. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic praised the album's layered music, giving it four out of five stars, and described Madonna's collaboration with Mirwais as the reason why the album "comes alive with spark and style". Slant Magazine praised songs such as "Music," but criticised Madonna's collaborations with William Orbit, who had worked with her on Ray of Light, calling them repetitive and uninteresting despite being catchy. Dimitri Ehrlich from Vibe described the album as "a masterpiece of brilliantly arranged keyboards, futuristic drums, and electronica dressings. With folky acoustic guitars and a vaguely spiritual bent to her lyrics (like those on Ray of Light), it's a weird and fresh-sounding album." Andrew Lynch of Entertainment.ie, who gave the album three out of five stars, claimed that it contains "brilliant futuristic dance music", yet, claimed that the lyrics were "trite". Robert Christgau gave the album an A rating, describing the tracks as "good, all chintzy". Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a A rating, writing that "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." David Browne from the same magazine claimed that it "doesn't close the book on Madonna, but it pulls only a few new tomes off the shelf." Spin said that the album "is a much-nedded breath of fresh VapoRub."

Rolling Stone stated that the album was a rough and improvised version of Ray of Light, but lauded that Madonna had chosen to make a more "instinctive" record than her previous endeavours. Mojo magazine said that "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." NME said that Music is "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." Music earned a total of five Grammy nominations at the 43rd Grammy Awards . In 2001, the album won "Best Recording Package" and was nominated for "Best Pop Vocal Album", while the title track was nominated for "Record of the Year" and "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance". In 2002, Madonna received one more nomination for "Don't Tell Me" in the "Best Short Form Music Video" category. The album is listed at number 452 on the Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It is Madonna's fourth album on the list, the most among female artists. Music is also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.