Madonna

Bedtime Stories

Madonna in Hip-Hop Mode.

Review Score:

(8/10)
Every Madonna album that comes out, about half the reviews pan it as an embarrasment, while the other half gush "it's her best since her debut." The truth is probably always somewhere in the middle. First of all, let's face facts: her natural resources as a singer are a trifle scarce. Madonna herself will admit this in rare moments of modesty. Any given Madonna album is really first and foremost a production foray - a Shep Pettibone joint, or a Dallas Austin, or a William Orbit, or a Mirwais - with The Blond One contributing lyrics and vocals and personality. Her apparent musical diversity is really just the difference between the musicians with whom she collaborates. She surrounds herself with the hottest up-and-comers in whatever genre has her fancy at the moment, and fits herself to the mold as best she can.

"Bedtime Stories" is her most decidedly hip-hop album, seemingly inspired by the harder cuts on "Erotica" and the "Justify My Love" remixes. It's the "Dallas Austin featuring Madonna" album. And in my opinion, it really is her best since her 1983 debut. I like the hip-hop Madonna. Not as cotton-candy mall-rat inane as "True Blue;" not as day-spa-Qabalah pretentious as "Ray of Light;" not as sexually cheesy yet lyrically flaccid as "Erotica;" but classy and well-arranged with an edge. "Secret," although the lyrics make no sense, is the quintessential Madonna cut, with its descending bass line, soaring strings, and hard beats, and of course the accompanying video in which the glittering bleached-out overly-made-up nose-ring-wearing Marilyn doppleganger slums it up in a nightclub in Harlem. If only she hadn't graduated from this to the redundant New-Agey electronica in which she presently finds herself mired. "Human Nature" is, from a production standpoint, one of my favorite joints of all time, and philosophically an example of Madonna at her "I regret nothing" best, before having children made her vulnerable and self-effacing. "I'd Rather be Your Lover" is another stand-out for its beats if you can get past the weird gender-bending-for-gender-bending's-sake lyrics. "Forbidden Love" is lush and Sade-esque, although one has to wonder what could possibly be so "forbidden" about it at this point. The rest of the cuts are secondary in my opinion. I was never a big fan of Madonna ballads, if only because she is just not that hot of a singer. It can be almost painful to watch her sing "Take a Bow" live, but the deftly-mixed studio version is here if you want it. Also the Title track, a strange Bjork composition that is really neither here nor there and indeed totally flopped on the charts. But these are wanderings from the overall hip-hop flavor of the album that to me represents Madonna at her best.

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