From Sean Cooper Sent Wed, Mar 4th 1998, 00:00
From Sean Cooper Sent Wed, Mar 4th 1998, 00:00
ok so i'm listening to the new madonna record right now. the technical editor here at work (irony to follow) went down to the virgin megastore for the big midnight hoohaa lassnite and so here it is. it was produced by william orbit, for those of you who've been wondering where she's been. first (and only...think i'm gonna go through this again?) impressions are of a bit of portishead, a bit of nirvana, and a bit of orbital. the track playing as i write this sounds vaguely like manna. the vocals are, of course, absolutely attrocious, as are most of the tracks by the standards that would be applied by 90 percent of the people on this list. but when you're talking sales on the scale of madonna you're no longer just talking about music. i guess the most interesting aspect of it is the response of the aforementioned technical editor, who posted a review of it on his intranet site explaining his normal aversion for overly repetitive techno and praising this album's achievement of a pop version of it, albeit one that's "pretty weird." it's in this last bit, his allowance of admittedly weird (and some of it is pretty weird!) music into his conception of good pop, that gives me cause for optimism. like it or not, the absorption of envelope-pushing music styles often has the reciprocal effect of conceptually reorienting and creatively reinvigorating the experimentalism of the underground, keeping the music moving and keeping it interesting. in terms of a gauge of that process, this is a far more indicative release than bjork or portishead or the prodigy or whatever. sc p.s. i almost vomited when the refrain of "nothing really matters/love is all we need" kicked in, so it's a good idea to read ahead on first listen...