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The title track begins the album. Already notorious in the papers regarding her decisions on how to market it, the song is a perfect start for the record, asserting the agenda of her latest project. Full of buzzing synths, syncopation changes, meandering melodies, and a cut-and-paste chorus, Madonna rails against the fallacy of the "American Dream". The composition sounds jarring and disjointed, but that's its purpose. Included is a satirical rap role-call of some of her employess and possessions. The fade-out features her voice manipulated into a macabre creature singing the refrain repeatedly "I live the American Dream."

"American Life" segues into "Hollywood", a Beatles-esque tune with an apocalyptic undercurrent. Using the famous town as a metaphor, her singing is simultaneously coy and venomous. Guitar chords augment the retro 808 beat and what sounds like (at one point), birds put through choppy filters, coming out clipped and incomplete. "Push the button, don't push the button!/Trip the station, change the channel!" Madonna challenges us as her voice drops into an unnaturally deep tone.

"I'm So Stupid" completes the first triptych of songs critiquing superficiality, glamour, and materialsim as aspirations and values. Brillantly, these songs also put to rest her "Material Girl" personae. A spunky beat, electric guitar, and a synth line created from Madonna's voice, comprise this dismayed and angry song. At times, the singer/songwriter yells and labels everyone "stupid" for "looking for something" - presumably, the wrong thing. She even assumes an adolescent tone calling herself "stupider than stupid".

"Nobody Knows Me" reveals Madonna's fear of a "social disease". What sounds like a dentist drill makes it way through this electro-funk dance song complete with a fierce beat, rubbery bass line, and memorable refrain: "I don't want no lies/I don't watch T.V./I don't waste my time/Reading magazines". Filtered through a vocoder, she finds solace in an understanding person in a world where "people trap your mind".

The centerpiece of the album, "Nothing Fails" is an affecting love song to her husband. Her feelings are best described in the fantastic climax, featuring a trio of gospel choir, a choir of Madonna, and the lead vocals: "I'm not religious/But I feel so moved/Makes we want to pray". Attesting to the transformative power of love, Madonna's sincerity is apparent more so than on any other song prior to this album.

The album ends with "Easy Ride", a Kabbalist song praising hard work, but ultimately leaving more questions than answers. Madonna has been quoted to saying that this album signifies the beginning, not the end that many percieve for her. "Easy Ride" further drives home that sentiment.

I recommend listening to AMERICAN LIFE while in a solitary place or state of mind. It's a frustrating, joyful, inquisitive, and intelligent, and rewarding experience.

The CD has recieved mixed reviews in the press. If there's one lesson both Madonna & the critics have taught me is to create my own opinion. A work of art is meant to be moving, candid, altruistic, full of emotion. If so, then personally, AMERICAN LIFE is a work of art.


American Masterpiece   April 23, 2003
 86 out of 104 found this review helpful

Don't be scared off by the critics. This is Madonna's best album. Ever. Even better than "Ray of Light." It's one of her most cohesive albums to date. Where "Music" was a hodge podge of musical styles (albeit highly entertaining) there is a deeply personal throughline here that reveals Madonna in a way that none of her other works have done.

From the opening title track "American Life" with its rap bash on the shallowness of American celebrity to the absolutely gorgeous and spiritual love song "Nothing Fails" to the pseudo 80s "therapeutic" dance track "Mother and Father" Madonna takes the listener on a sonic journey of bitterness to joy to a quiet kind of contentment. Each track serves a purpose and the album flows together beautifully.

Some tracks make take repeated listening but it's time well spent.

Madonna's still the most innovative pop music artist on the scene, twenty years strong.


MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT   May 1, 2003
 40 out of 55 found this review helpful

Although I readily admit that some of Madonna's work has taken time to grow on me, as exemplified by incredible "Erotica", which was grossly overlooked by both critics and fans mostly because it was released in junction with a provocative book and surrounded by the usual publicity blitz. However, I can say with certainty that this is Madonna's weakest effort to date and there is very little chance of this perception changing.

Why is this release so disappointment to me? Let me count the ways... Instead of an "extension" of the work started with "Ray of Light" and "Music", "American Life" feels derivative and truly without focus. Furthermore, Madonna's voice (with the exception of two cuts) has never sounded more off key and the arrangements are repetitive and lack harmony.

I give this release 2 stars, instead of 1, only because of "Die Another Day", which is surprisingly strong and at least shows a semblance of life. Also, the song "American Life" is not great, but it has a catchy chorus that does not sound like the didactic diatribe that is "American Life".

Lastly, although I generally don't bother in focusing anything but the music, could Madonna have approved such a boring and empty cover and inadequate insert? Also, the title of the album seems highly inappropriate as this is almost like a personal diary with all the right words one would use to try and impress an Enlgish high school teacher and is not a reflection of an "American Life". I know, that this is kind of irrelevant, but I really expect much more from Madonna, especially when she has it in her to do much better than this.

Instead of buying this release, which is so weak, grab ANY of her other CDs in your collection and you'll be much more happy than if you invest in this.


madonna discovered   November 9, 2003
 25 out of 32 found this review helpful

I am the last person to be a Madonna fan, remembering the Material Girl. My tastes run from reggae/ska to ballet music to Miles Davis - eclectic? A friend recommended this, and it blew me away. I am impressed with Madonna's honesty and continuing re-making of herself. I respond mainly as someone who had the early loss of a parent, as has Madonna . . . always searching for that lost self, or trying/having to create a new self. Madonna's daughter is at about the age that Madonna lost her own mother. Now that she is a parent, Madonna is revealing a whole new identity. "Mother and Father," and "Die another day,' knocked me out.
But the whole album is powerful.
She MAY shed this skin, also, and find other identities, but for now I salute where she's coming from and am enjoying this incarnation.


Ocassionally Interesting But Ultimately Boring Failure   May 13, 2003
 24 out of 50 found this review helpful

No female artist in popular music has reinvented her sound more than Madonna. More often that not this approach works--unfortunately, AMERICAN LIFE is that rare instance in which it doesn't. Working again with MUSIC collaborator Mirwais, Madonna abandons the dance floor(for the most part)in favor of being electronica's answer to Sheryl Crow. On occasion, this hybrid theory works, at least when she concentrates on the melody, as on "Hollywood" and "Nothing Fails". But when she relies on lyrical content in favor of musical content, she fails miserably--"I'm Stupid", "Easy Ride", and "X-Static Process" are simply awful songs, with lyrically challenged verses and minimalist production--for the first time ever, Madonna actually sounds BORING. And in this context, "Die Another Day"(which, as a Bond theme, is a failure, but as a straight up dance record is first-rate)seems glaringly out of place--even the title track, with an almost unforgivable rap that smacks of the worst aspects of J.Lo's equally boastful 'Jenny From the Block", doesn't jibe with her new "loathing" of all things material. All in all, though occasionally interesting, this outranks even EROTICA as Madonna's worst effort to date.