"Music" is truly a musical treat. The production team Mirwais / Orbit has really done a good job. It is similar to the sophomore "American Life", uses a lot of acoustic guitar sound and Madonna's voice is first amplified pulled through the vocoder. The result is a totally futuristic sounding album, but that still contains many country-pop elements.
The album you can clearly see the influence of the respective producer. "Amazing" sounds like a mix of the Madonna tracks "Beautiful Stranger" and "Ray of Light" and is therefore attributable to William Orbit. Sonic gimmicks such as permant emerging computer-loops represent Mirwais' mode of production. This can be seen well in "Nobody's Perfect" and "Impressive Instant". But that does not always bear fruit, in my opinion, "Impressive Instant" the weakest song on the album. But it shines "Paradise (Not for Me)" by its originality and singularity. Madonna performs at the track largely Chanting (like her "Erotica" time). The melody sounds so banal and simple that it is good again and leads to a persistent earworm. In between the nearly seven-minute piece is by incipient strings even at times very melancholic. Although the album "Music" clearly notes the fun, there is also thought-provoking songs that impress with their simplicity and their lyrics. Here the final song "Gone" is undoubtedly necessary to state that in my opinion by far the best song on "Music" is. You can hear practically only an acoustic guitar and an intense vocal presence of Madonna singing from an escape from bad times. "Gone" is definitely one of the best songs of the pop diva and alone value, the album "Music" to buy.
There is also on the album three hit singles that have to know every true music fan: "Music", "Do not Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like for a Girl". The futuristic sound fireworks branded Mirwais / Orbit should not be missed.
The booklet contains some nice images of Madonna in full cowboy regalia. I like best the image on the penultimate page, sipping on the Madonna coolly and without looking in the camera a milkshake.
"Music" is not available in the first album that no longer contains complete lyrics in the booklet. This sad trend continues in subsequent albums. Only the lyrics of "Music" is distributed as an artistic support of the images on the different pages.
The Limited Edition is encased in a simple cardboard sleeve, which adorns the album cover. The CD case is, however, to be criticized, scoring two small plastic bracket on the side of the booklet a policy. In the regular, available in Germany 1-Disc CD case that is not the case. But that's still to get over.
So what is still different from the normal music CD with only one disc? Once lacks a title on the first disc. "American Pie" forms in Europe the completion of the great Madonna album, on the Limited Edition you miss the title, however, entirely. Madonna herself was anyway disappointed in retrospect, that they took the Don McLean cover version the first release with the album. I was never bothered, I feel the track as successful and modern.
For the fifty-minute extra-CD brimming with consistently well-made remixes of "Music", "Do not Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like for a Girl". Particularly noteworthy is the modern Club "Deep Dish Dot Com Remix" of "Music" and the beautiful Spanish version of "What It Feels Like for a Girl". The worrying due to the violent scenes furore video for "What It Feels Like for a Girl" is available as a CD-ROM-part with well-designed menu boards and a comprehensive three pictures Madonna Gallery. Unfortunately, there is the video officially seen only in a rather expressionless remix version and hear.
In conclusion remains to say that the limited edition of Madonna's "Music" album is a great bonus for die-hard fans of the pop diva. Followers of the Madonna cover version of "American Pie" will be sadly disappointed. The song is there to buy only on the regular European music CD or as a single. Nevertheless, the additional purchase of the Limited Edition is worth.
