According
to Madonna, the “American Life” of materialism and soy lattes isn’t for her,
even though her “Material Girl” days that made her a star say otherwise. Still,
she has abandoned the US for the UK hoping to seek a life not focused on wars,
celebrities, and insignificant things. So, what is “American Life” in the end?
Is it an album meant for social commentary, or is it just one part in Madonna’s
quest for musical and spiritual enlightenment? After two albums into her Kabbalah
conquest, it would seem that she’s trying to accomplish both at once. She opens
the album with the title track that poses the question “Do I have to change my
name? Will it get me far?”, and then she goes right into “Hollywood”, a staid
acoustic track that features an odd voice alteration towards its ending that exclaims
“push the button, don’t push the button, trip the station, change the channel!”
With these awkward tracks setting up the album, it doesn’t get much more
interesting from there, as a tooth drilling opening to “I’m So Stupid” and a
gospel choir in the middle of “Nothing Fails” only pile things on and make the
first half of the record seem tiring. Even though it contains “Love Profusion”,
another acoustic driven ballad that undeniably works, its surrounding material
clutters the mind with too many different messages of the American ways, the
obsession of Hollywood, and direct confessional love songs to Guy Ritchie. The stretch
from “Nothing Fails” to the wonderful “X-Static Process” can actually be quite
compelling, but it can be quite hard to get there after listening to Madonna at
once recycle her old material, and then reject the new material she herself
wanted to use. And perhaps her stabs at politics would have worked if she was
fully committed to them, but what ultimately becomes this album’s undoing is
the undercurrent of dissatisfaction. It’s almost as if “American Life” was a
project that Madonna felt forced to
do, and this is her airing her dirty laundry because of it. There’s nothing
wrong with self-expression, Madonna doesn’t benefit from her over-use of
producer Mirwais Ahmadzai, and instead of making a serious statement she
undermines her own cause with calculated rapping and exhausting hip-hop beats, resulting
in sounding whiny instead of serious. And that’s a rare thing in a Madonna
album, where she cannot even fulfill her own ambition. As the album closes with
its nadir, the James Bond theme “Die Another Day” and the slow, boring “Easy
Ride”, it seems to put the final nail in the coffin Madonna has built for
herself. It’s obvious to tell she’s no longer interested in the modern day
American dream, but coming from a pop mastermind with now twenty years in the
business, she was capable of so much more than this. Although it would have
been hypocritical to do so, she very well could have made a stellar track
bashing the America of today if she had fully invested herself, and she also
would have benefitted from deciding on a certain direction. She tries dance,
hip-hop, string driven ballads and most often intimate guitar pieces, but ends
up not doing complete justice to any sound. All in all, that makes “American
Life” to be a frustrating mix of mediocre and sensational, and proves that
while the ideas were definitely viable, in 2003 they are out of place, and “American
Life” is a better thought than an album.
Recommended
Tracks in Bold:
1. American Life 2. Hollywood 3.
I’m So Stupid
4. Love Profusion 5. Nobody Knows Me 6.
Nothing Fails
7. Intervention 8. X-Static Process 9.
Mother and Father
10. Die
Another Day 11. Easy Ride
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