MADONNA - 'AMERICAN LIFE' (Album Reaction)
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- Опубліковано 2 чер 2024
- Many more Madonna reactions at patreon.com/bridgethegapreactions
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I am posting one full length Madonna album or concert reaction / review per month + three Madonna single song reactions on Patreon. All picks will be chosen via polls and I will go where you lead me!
Currently posted:
AMERICAN LIFE
DROWNED WORLD TOUR
MUSIC
DEMO ASSEMBLY
RAY OF LIGHT
THE GIRLIE SHOW - full concert reaction
BLOND AMBITION TOUR - JAPAN - Full Concert Reaction
BLOND AMBITION TOUR - NICE - Full Concert Reaction
I'M BREATHLESS Full Album Reaction
LIKE A PRAYER Full Album Reaction
YOU CAN DANCE Full Album Reaction
WHOS THAT GIRL TOUR PARTS 1 & 2
WHOS THAT GIRL - 28 Min Album tracks and music video reaction
TRUE BLUE - Full Album Reaction
THE VIRGIN TOUR
LIKE A VIRGIN (full album reaction)
MADONNA 1983 debut album reaction
BEDTIME STORIES (full album)
CONFESSIONS TOUR PT 1 + 2
CONFESSIONS ON A DANCEFLOOR (full album)
EROTICA (full album)
Plus: Has To Be, Love Tried To Welcome Me, Falling Free, Impressive Instant, Intervention, Sanctuary / Bedtime Story, Vogue (MTV VMAs), Bad Girl (David Fincher music video), Bedtime Story BRITS 95, Bedtime Story Official Video, Express Yourself (MTV VMAs), Rain, I'll Remember, 2016 Woman Of The Year Speech and many more!
"he became the shadow of the father i was dreaming of" heartbreaking lyrics 😭 Madonna is always at her best when she is vulnerable. This album is insanely good.
i love this album easy ride is a pearl
My favorite M album. Ever.
Yes!
Same
Nothing Fails, Intervention, and X-Static Process are my three favorite songs of hers.
This album was so underrated! One of her best! 😎🔥❤️
Agree! What an artistic gem....and isn't it the most undersold? 🤔
@@MrKlm820 yes it is 😢
5:08 “I got YOU under my skin!” 🔥🤯🎧
*Love Profusion* is truly divine.
Listen again - I got JEW under my skin…
Same with ‘American LIE… ‘. There’s no ‘f’ in there.
American Life is such a masterpiece. It is my most favorite Madonna album so far.
This is an absolute master piece. I’ve never tired of it. It still sounds so fresh. Sonically, lyrically, vocally it’s just flawless. Love that you vibed to it and had the same reactions I do.
The opening of the Reinvention Tour with Vogue and it goes right into Nobody Knows me is one of the best things you'll ever watch
Correct.
Agreed! And the live version of NKM is incredible.
Spoilers! I'm looking forward to that tour so much - it seems to get mentioned more than most in comments I've seen over the last couple of years
Great album!!! Nothing Fails is so so beautiful. Nice reaction!! 👌🏼👌🏼
I’m so sorry to hear about your Dad 🤍 Love your Madonna reactions 🙌🏼
My favorite album behind Ray of Light. Listening to the AOL snippets of this album back in 2003 was pure bliss. Sonically and lyrically this album is a masterpiece, including the title track, one of my favorites. Mirwais and Madonna did magic together. 🖤❤️
Her most underrated album 🙁 ❤
I’m surprised she hadn’t combined Like a Prayer and Nothing Fails in one of her subsequent concerts. Nothing Fails is and underrated gem.
She did during the promotion for the album.
Loved Nothing Fails when I first heard it when I brought the album. Straight away I thought it would have made a great single, especially around the Christmas period. It did come out but as a double A side with Love Profusion here in the UK. That only made No.11. I even had a video for Nothing Fails in my head lol. When Madonna collaborates with choirs it really works.
Nothing Fails is one of Madonna’s very best songs. It never gets the attention it deserves.
It is my fav Madonna album! No skipping tracks!
Yep, all killer no filler - not a wasted second!
Hollywood is my ringtone since 2003.
Brilliant productions. The guitars, the beats. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Mine ringtone is Dress You Up 😂
how you get custom song ringtones on iPhone? haha
Became a hard core fan during this era. I was in sophomore year in high school. Total game changer knew then as a teenager finding my own way.
@Bridge I adore your reactions, looking forward to more, your reflection about your dad's passing during Nothing Fails was so moving
Nothing fails had the same effect on me. MASTERPIECE!!!!!!!! Mother and father, Intervention and Love profusion are also beyond amazing!!! I can't wait for your reaction to Rebel heart❤
Oh, yeah!
I could (and will) write an essay about how incredible this album is but can I take a moment first to point out how you’ve really upped your edit game with this video, Jonny? 👏 Appreciate your effort.
Thanks! It took well over an hour to edit down the full album reaction to what you see here, but I think it plays well!
My favorite Madonna album! It’s creepy and haunting and spiritual and sobering.
Yes!
Loved it then. Love it even more now. Back then I was like why is no-one hearing what I am and slating it. I'm So in tune with what she does. Great review
I have always loved this album...one of my favorites!
One of my favorite album of Madonna ! I loved it right away when it was released. American life (the single) was so (and still is) brilliant ! I was in shock when I first heard it on the radio ! After Music (the single) which was an even bigger shock in terms of music, she managed to surprise us once again ! And the rap part ! I wasn't prepared !! 😄 The music video was quite a shock too. One of the best ones from Madonna !
The songs that particularly got my attention were I'm so stupid (for it's beginning), Nothing fails (for its gospel final), Mother and father (for everything) and my favorite was (and still is) Easy ride ! I thought she couldn't write anything better than Paradise (not for me), and bang : this phenomenal track came to finish the album !! What a masterpiece !
Mother and father is a must watch from her re-invention tour ! And believe me, if you watch this tour, after seeing Nobody knows me, you will not take a moving walkway the same again ! 😄 In fact, the re-invention is one of her best tour ever in my opinion. I had the chance to see it four times and it was a total blast every single time !! Hope to see you react to it one day !
Thank you for this! I remember her live promos here in the US, she sang live, raw and sounded and looked beautiful.
I was in graduate school and listened to this album daily. So glad you reminded me what a masterpiece this is and will give it another go.
Definitely one of her best and most personal albums. Up there with Ray of Light and Like a prayer. Unfortunatelly this album is hugely underrated amongst critics. The sounds on this album are quite unique. I even love the rap on American life. Love that song! Way too many people took that rap too seriously while Madonna in fact was trying to be ironic. The production on Easy ride is so beautifully done. Reminds me a bit of Paradise (not for me). And another interesting fact: Madonna's voice has never sounded so warm and genuine as on this album. Love her!
So glad that this album is finally getting its just due. Other reactors have recently discovered it as well. I was always at a loss as to why this album was panned initially --- I loved it upon first listen in 2003. It has always been in my top 3 favorite Madonna albums - along with Erotica and Madame X. True Blue at 4th. American Life was ahead of its time - as was Erotica and Madame X (yet to be fully appreciated). True Blue was celebrated upon its release. So glad you loved it.
American Life and Madame X are my top 2! Erotica is 6. Definitely agree that they were underrated at the time of release but thankfully Erotica had some late love, as did AL. Just waiting a few years for MX to be seen as the masterpiece. For me it's her Magnum Opus.
This and Music are my favorite albums. I love her more experimental choices vs her more standart pop hits but I appreciate it all. As big as she has been I still feel she will always be completely underrated and underappreciated for the actual artistry she brings to the table with every project she has released.
❤❤❤I love this album, one of my favorites of Madonna's career
I was 16 when this album came out. Bought my copy with saved up pocket money 😁 Can't believe it's been 21 years already. "American Life" definitely stood the test of time. Such a special record in Madonna's discography 🙂
Thank you for this brilliant reaction video ; this album is A masterpiece.. theres nothing like this sonically out there it’s a world on its own. It’s beautiful and painful and futuristic and poignant and so cleverly done.
It makes me cry at times.
My mind was blown when this album came out!
Love Profusion should have been the album's lead single.
I loved this album straight away and it's still my favourite Madonna album now. The lyrics are so inspiring. Best tracks for me are intervention, mother and father and easy ride. Her work with mirwais is definitely my favourite. It separates the fans with taste from the Fairweather fans
Absolutely loved your insight! What struck me the first time I heard AL, was the consistent sound/production throughout the album, courtesy of Mirwais. I feel it's terribly underappreciated. Fave track is "Love Profusion".
Well you have made me want to listen to the album again, from start to finish later today. M is so legendary and underrated
The production of this album is insanely impressive! A masterpiece! ♥️🎶
The réal masterpiece of Madonna
This album was released 2 weeks after my mother passed from cancer. It destroyed me, then gave me the strength I needed to keep going. This record made me travel through time, my childhood until adulthood, and the spirituality thats tested through it all. Some how you come out with praying hands, and hope.
I didn't quite appreciate the album when it first came out, but in my later adult years after having more life experience, I started to really relate to this album and it's now one of my favourites. The production and layering of sounds are so disconcerting and visceral as well, love it!
Warners UK just gave up on the album. The fact that Nothing Fails never got a UK release or a music video is one of the biggest crimes of her career.
The fact that she plays so many AL songs on her Tears of a clown shows, shows how much she loves this album. ❤❤
Oh wow, I had never heard of those shows- just looked up a setlist and it looks brilliant!
Tears of a clown sounded great, very raw and emotional M was upset as her son Rocco was going through stuff and their relationship was strained from what was reported at the time.
Without a doubt, this is a very special album within her discography. Nothing Fails is my favorite song, I was excited the first time I heard it and years later every time I listen to it, it continues to have that effect on me. Greetings from Spain
I love AL, so weird, unique, well thinking
love to watch people's reactions when the choir comes in Nothing Fails
I really love this Album is very smart, brave, critical, modern and cool! The music is good and the words mean something! One of my favourites to sing!
Mother and father blew me away especially the ending.
Ray of Light, Music & American Life, the Holy Trinity, Amén
Pd: "Easy Ride" is one of her best songs ever! So moving! And "Nothing Fails" is a masterpiece.
I'd include confessions in there
Replace AL with Bedtime Stories and you'd be right in terms of one-three punch
Sorry guys, in my list the Holy Trinity are ROL, M & AL.
Totally agréé 100%
To me the Holy Trinity are Like a prayer, Erotica and ROL - and AL is the bonus fourth
My fave Madonna album!!!
Yes!
@@bridgethegapreactions I bought this album when it was first released because I’m a huge Madonna fan. Wasn’t into it. It literally became my favourite album 3 months ago.
Top 3 Madonna album for me
Such an underrated gem of an album ❤
Great reaction as always. This is my favorite Madonna album by far.. pity it was so grossly misunderstood & underrated.
❤❤❤
This definitely one my favorites, actually my 2nd fave after Ray of Light, AL is art and rock and roll attitude
My favorite Madonna album ever (next to Erotica and Rebel Heart)
This LP is so underrated. So many interesting sound bites at unexpected places. ROL on steroids. 😅
Composed by the french Mirwais 😁
American life and die another day are my favorite ❤
Definitely you are my favorite!! Your insights are just… touching! 👏👏👏👏👏 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Besides Erotica, American Life is my next favorite Madonna album! Favorite songs: Love Profusion, Nothing Fails, Intervention, X-Static Process, Mother and Father, Die, Another Day, and Easy Ride... 🙌
There's also a video for love profusion
Great album, great reaction sorry for you father may he rest in peace and God shall protect you, and your beatiful family from other pains, my, our prayers are with you all. By the way finishing your album reaction with the song I love the most from this album "Love Profusion" was brilliant. Take care.
Thank you x
@@bridgethegapreactions your welcome by the way if x is related to me it's Sinan actually, your reactions are very, very very good big bro I am following your channel.
It was an 'x' like a kiss 💋 But by all means call yourself X!
@@bridgethegapreactions OK all righty perfectly got it :) from me sending to you also, thank you, you are one of a kind with best wishes and best regards 🙏❤️
I respect this album more than I like it. It has very bold production choices and personal songwriting, a lot of times it sounds messy though. Still I think it’s a great addition to her catalogue and is as creative and daring as the albums that came before.
When America life was released the critics slated it now it's classed as one of her best the same will happen with Madamex in 10 years
At the time it was released, this album got a ton of blowback from both critics and fans, but recent critical reassessments have been far kinder. I never understood that, because right out of the box I thought it was absolutely brilliant. You're right, it is a masterpiece and its in my M. top 3 albums!
And a video for love profusion
This was really ‘out there’ upon release and def not popular! I love the majority of it, with stand outs being ‘Die another Day’ and ‘ Easy Ride’. So interesting sonically and like no-one else. It’s standing the test of time I would say and possibly appreciated much more now in retrospect.
Loved it then. Love it now. Its a real abum that is both messy and cohesive. Testament to her that this isnt even in my top 5 M albums. The production of im so stupid and die another day in particular still fascinate me.
This period was another kind of backlash that she last experienced with Erotica
I think listening today it’s hit me how rich and fresh these tracks sound and not dated !!!!! She was next to be underrated with the masterpiece which was Rebel Heart ( the demos being far superior that Madonna ditched after the tapes were leaked )
Yeah, definitely doesn't sound dated! I don't listen to a lot of recent music, but this sounds better than most of it
If I could only listen to one album, let alone a Madonna album, I'd pick American Life. Easy Ride is probably my top 1 or 2 Madonna songs ever. This album was of its time, with Electroclash getting so popular, I was also a huge fan of Fischerspooner, who was out a couple years before this.
Ahh I remember them! What was their big song.. Emerge maybe? That was a banger.
By far & away her most underrated and misunderstood album. It totally stands up 20 years later. My trio of favourites are X static process, intervention and love profusion with American Life and Nothing Fails a close 4th & 5th! It's stands up today, people just associated it with her opposition to the illegal Iraq war, which essentially ended her chart career in USA. A masterpiece in my opinion. I listen to it every week :)
Also your reaction to this is fantastic. I've seen a few reactions to this recently and they are all positive...what a difference the passage of time makes (well apart from the critics and media criticising her, that is expected still)
There is a music video to Hollywood, not sure if you have reacted to it.
Stupidly , this is WIDELY considered her worst album by both critics and fans. When in reality this is a pure artistic masterpiece that, once again, was ahead of its time!!!!!!!
* in the us
@@zaasfromparis yes.
I never understand why people say this is her worst album. It's my favourite of hers. I know music is subjective but this is no way as bad as people make out. Nothing Fails, a missed opportunity to be promoted as a single proper. I played this to death at the time. Hollywood should have been huge in the states. And as for the lead single: brilliant. Make a statement and get people to sit up when releasing the first single. The rap is not great but its not horrible either. I've heard worst.
I swear that I can hear American LIE instead of life in some parts…. What do you think?
As a Madonna fan since 1983, I never play this album it just never jelled with me.
Couldn’t agree with you more-it’s one of her masterpiece albums-in my book together with Like A Prayer, Ray of Life and Music. Nothing Fails always gives me that same spiritual, uplifting vibe specially when that gospel choir chimes in as in Like A Prayer. This 2003 album has an anti-war message (George W Bush’s Iraq War) that decries society’s seeming apathy to the horrors of war. The harsh rightwing backlash that it elicited distracted the pop music world from appreciating the beauty and impact of this album. Over time many are now giving this album the recognition and acclaim it deserved for its courage, clarity of vision and brilliant music.
You really get her lyrics and her intentions, which are usually overshadowed by the Madonna scandals and gossips. A huge thank you from your number one Belgian fan… can’t wait for your next reaction…
Thank you so much!
The lyrics are wrong she say “ American Lie. “. This album has Amazing Sounds from left to right 🔊🔉🔈 it’s too hard to say which is my favorite cuz I love them all.
politics at the txanan Life vidaime were weird after9/11. Madonna was forced by the US Presidant to channce her American Life Video to show
I think this was quite a bleak, serious, angry album and people didn’t really want that at the time of its release. I won’t go so far as to call it a ‘perfect’ album, but lyrically it’s among her best and there are definitely songs I’ve come around to. Madonna’s career has been so long, vast and varied that you can go back and reassess songs you maybe weren’t all that into at the time. She challenges herself and her fans with different sounds and lyrical content and it doesn’t always work or it isn’t always understood… but I admire her for taking risks and growing as an artist. She deserves a lot more credit than what she gets
It's amazing how underrated she is. Here's an example that makes that point: have you heard of the UA-cam channel Drumeo? It's brilliant. I'm not a drummer, but I love watching them. They have famous drummers playing along to songs they don't know, covering other songs or playing ones they are famous for. Jonathan Moffett is on there doing loads of Michael Jackson songs - his video of Smooth Criminal has 59 million views (and it's incredible)! They've never once asked him to do a Madonna song. He was all over those 80s tours right around the same time he was touring with Michael Jackson. He was even on her albums! They interviewed him once on there and he mentioned Madonna a few times, so the disrespect isn't coming from him. Sorry for the rant - it annoys me every time I think about it!
Johnny please react to Hollywood video 🙏 ❤
react to "2023 em uma música"
The American Life album is top tier Madonna for me, but yes, it had to grow on me. It's difficult to pick a favourite track, they've all wormed their little dark ways into my soul. But if I HAD to pick just one, (and this is likely to change depending on the day/mood) then Nobody Knows Me might millimeter ahead of the others into the top slot. Even as I'm typing this I'm thinking, no wait it's Mother and Father, no wait it's Love Profusion, no wait it's Nothing Fails, no wait it's Hollywood, no wait it's....
hahaha so much greatness on this album! I'm so very glad that you enjoyed it right off the bat xx
I think it helps being 20 years removed from its release and all the negativity and nonsense that must have surrounded it. It's also the kind of dark, weird little album that I like!
Loved it the moment it came out. I love Madonna best when she makes experimental concept albums. All songs are amazing but funnily enough all 4 singles(video’s) are my least favourite songs on the album, but I think it’s because I’ve heard them so often. Holywood has always been my least favourite song. The best somg changes daily. Thanks for your reaction, looking forward to the next one❤
Thanks! I've listened to it a lot in the past week and I still can't really settle on a favourite song (not that I have to!). Hard to top Easy Ride, but Nothing Fails and Intervention are up there too.
More Kylie Minogue album reviews please bro! Cheers from New Zealand 🇳🇿 the Body Language album would be great 👑💯💎👌🙏
I wasn’t a fan of “American Life” (AL) when it came out and I really wanted to like it. With this album she did something that hadn’t done, to that point in her career, and that is repeat herself. AL is the companion to Music and Mirwais’s fingerprints are all over it. Her voice is too affected, even when it sounds like it’s not (it is) and the key to Madonna’s success is her vulnerability (or “imperfection” if you like), which is a shame because as compositions, the songs on AL are better constructed than those on “Music”, but she should have chosen a different producer and it would have been a much better album for it. She also repeated many of the themes and devices of her previous work, which had already been done and aren’t improved upon here. We’ve had the choir in “Like A Prayer” and “Mother and Father” doesn’t improve on “Promise to Try” and “Oh Father”. The rap in “Vogue” worked, but all the rapping and vocal distortion in “Hollywood” (again, done in “Drowned World/ Substitute for Love”) doesn’t add anything, which is a shame because “Hollywood” is a really good song. Same with the stuttered production on “Love Profusion”, used to better effect on “Don’t Tell Me”, which is a better song.
Now, listening to AL again, I do like the composition of the tracks, which I probably didn’t appreciate at the time, even though I remember some of the personal appearances and smaller shows she did with this album, but the production just seems lazy for Madonna. She was living primarily in London and Rocco was really young so maybe she just couldn’t be bothered, IDK. “Easy Ride” is good, but it’s not “Gone” and I just can’t get into the title track, no matter how much I try. On the plus side, “Die Another Day” found a home and actually belongs, unlike “Vogue” and “American Pie” which were tagged on to albums where they really didn’t belong.
I saw her at Re-Invention (pretty close up) and this was the start of the heavy backing track and overreliance on pre-recorded vocals. A lot of that tour wasn’t sung live and even where it was, her voice was blended with backing tracks. The opening track was mimed and she was out of time with the “vogues” (but then she was upside down at the time and you can’t really sing in that position). She didn't look like she was having a good time on that tour. It was very rehearsed, to the point of being mechanical.
She recovered with the Confessions album, which was a huge success, in terms of sales and also just less controversial (remember, she was still promoting AL when they did the Britney/ Christina/ Missy Elliott “Like a Virgin”/ “Hollywood” tribute at the 2003 VMAs, along with the “kiss” and that’s all everyone could talk about. That, and how she didn’t sound “great” when singing “Hollywood”, which she didn’t). She and Stuart Price got Confessions completely right. In fact, she could have done Confessions instead of AL because AL doesn’t add anything to Madonna’s musical evolution. As a piece of work, it’s her most cohesive production since “Erotica” but I can’t decide whether that’s a good or a bad thing.
Assim como "Erotica", "American Life" foi prejudicado pelas polemicas que a Madonna quis causar.
As her albums go, I literally can’t listen to this album, maybe two ok songs, but this and MadamX are just not my thing.
It's great that she has so many styles because that means there's a Madonna album for everyone. Personally, American Life and Madame X are my top 2.
@@zanyzander -Yeah, not every album is going to hit with every fan,for sure.
Not my favorite from her
Oh my ...
I had tears rolling down my face right there with you ❣️
Yes, the album reaches spots of "brilliance" as so much of her work often does, BUT not quite the level of a Masterpiece most hardcore and/or defensive fans would like it portrayed as.
It falls sharply short of that while absurdly also managing to maintain a consistent emotional impact on some listeners - Go Figure.
It doesn't take anything away from your all-encompassing and heartfelt review! Much love and respect to you for that. You really picked up on all the intricacies, the details in the production, the emotional content and, most importantly, the INTENTION behind the messaging which was however only somewhat successfully conveyed.
So... Che Guevara homage as the album cover but is there ANY actual rebellion or revolutionary energy inside? 🤔
Nope, not really.
Q: What did we think about it when it came out?
Well, most people who followed her work for years or were/are "fans" were hugely (and rightfully so) disappointed:
If you're going for an introspective "pearls of wisdom" combined with the societal shifting-paradigm statements, you either go full throttle or not at all - it's like slapping someone and then saying you're sorry - it displays no backbone whatsoever.
Your "move" therefore APPEARS fake and a bluff with vague grandiose implications when it's anything but.
Unlike Erotica, the other magnificently envisioned project, the elements were all set for an amazing win with American Life BUT the production, the marketing and the delivery were all completely off the mark.
Reasons for this range from her, at the time, newfound "English Lady of the Manor" BS virtue signaling to the lack of courage to push through with the Political Commentary AND the Artistic Vision to lots of other issues in-between: kids, marriage, lifestyle, having plenty to lose, too many superfluous "projects" on the side - all of which accumulated to give an underwhelming and blurry statement. Ironically, a "fuzzy dream" if you will.
The other, in my opinion far more important, reason for its commercial/"public-opinion" abject failure WAS the actual music:
Without taking away anything from the extraordinary abilities of Mirwais, there's a reason why two of her most "underrated" albums are predominantly co-produced by him. None of her previous highly "controversial endeavours" suffered nearly as much because there was undeniable QUALITY of the music to fall back on. The songs fought their own way through to status regardless of the controversy. Not in this case.
Young & Fresh French-Underground Blood only truly worked on the Music album and even then - only to a certain extent.
With a killer single like Music, anything that followed was bound to fall short anyway, so combining genres and having it mesh well is a one-off shot in the dark, successful though it was.
That same recipe failed miserably on American Lie™.
Instead of going full-on rock/blues/evergreen on this record, (which would have suited the songwriting and, if you followed her musical evolution from the early days all the way through, was a logical progression heavily implied but not overtly utilised) while employing the best in the business as always to achieve that - she opted for a sound that was already tired and passé on the Music album.
(Guesses remain as to precisely WHY but over the years it became clear she simply enjoyed the working process with Mirwais. It was sadly about conformity and the path of least resistance - a horrible stance to involve yourself in creative work with ANYbody, ergo the downfall, subsequent misses and don't even get me started on the absolutely despicable "convolution of concoctions" that is Madame X.)
The Electro-Minimal direction forcibly combined with guitar-based songwriting (with a few ornaments artificially sprinkled on top) is what killed this album. Sonically it's cold, sparse, disjointed, incoherent, too clean yet distorted, lacking in flourishes yet menacing without proper grounding/backing, too "in your face" while weakly analogical AND too raw while simultaneously over-produced.
Mirwais only managed to deliver a few remaining twists and turns from HIS depleted bag of production tricks, some interesting sequencing and a whole lot of empty space in most of the tracks.
The mixing process must have been a nightmare for the engineers - don't even want to contemplate the difficulties of Mastering it all into a cohesive unit.
In terms of sound design, instead of experimental brilliance - most tracks sound as the Music album leftovers galore.
It was the first certain sign of STAGNATION in Madonna's ever-evolving musical trajectory.
It was heartbreaking for anyone in Music Production & Engineering who intimately knew the inner workings of the pedestal she was rightfully sitting on as a producer/songwriter, myself included.
Combine all that with the lyrics, which as some music critic at the time said - seemed to be lifted from a 6th grade schoolgirl's diary, and you'll end up with a pompeusly titled selection of songs which fail to deliver in it's actual lyrical content - proud of the lack there of that is. Marvelous packaging and substantial framing to disguise the actual lack of substance and little meat on the bones. Guess that's what happens when you collaborate on tracks in English with someone who can barely understand you, let alone speak the language.
Little outside input, even less correction through constructive criticism and you'll end up with a lot of banal wording, blasé phrasing, cliche rhyming and constant self-plagiarising all of which American Lie is infested with.
I was personally livid and embarrassed for her. American Lie is the first time I found Madonna's music to be unintentionally cringe-inducing (yes, the rapping among other instances). She inadvertently gave credence to all the naysayers who called her talentless trash over the years. Such a shame. And unlike Erotica, I don't think she ever recovered from THAT backlash - she finally hit her boundaries. But hey, nobody's perfect right? And more importantly - nobody's candle burns at its brightest forever.
A: to sum it up with the simplest answer - it's a resounding NO.
Even 20+ years and countless discussions/debates later, this remains her weakest album since Like A Virgin. It stands as material that can "grow on you" over time, that for stated linguistic reasons appeals to mainly non-native English speakers, that draws in folks with a taste in eclectic electronic soundscapes and that truly does possess "a unique vibe" that at moments is sheer brilliance. That vibe and her protruding vocals are shockingly enough to cause immense emotional response from some listeners in spite of all the faults.
American Lie nevertheless marked the beginning of the downfall which was in full swing with Hard Candy and had its final nail in the coffin with MDNA. That is when most sensible people simply stopped paying any attention to Madonna, not because of her age or her looks or anything along those lines, but because she consciously surrendered to the demanded quantity sacrificing the quality and thus took a shit on her legacy. She started selling cheapness. Simple as that.
Few throwback pearls on Rebel Heart excluded from that assessment are too little/too late to recover the magic.
While she bounced back with Confessions On A Dance Floor, rightfully ranked among her best with Ray Of Light and Like A Prayer, American Lie will remain the lost opportunity and the beginning of a downfall to one of the most prolific singer/songwriter/producer legends of the modern era.
Once a brave anti-establishment freedom fighter who was always in front of the curve and pushing the envelope turning into a bootlicking cock to power was disheartening.
I guess one could say - turns out she's not an alien but only a fallible human like the rest of us.
Sorry for all the poetic crap, just started writing and couldn't stop 🤷
Keep up the great work, can't wait for the COADF reaction 🖖
P.S. edited several typos 😖