Collectibles #1: Madonna Music (2000)

There are 2 special editions of the album - the initial release fabric cover edition and the 2-CD special edition released to promote Madonna's Drowned World Tour.

The fabric cover edition:




The 2-CD special edition:



The initial release US version of Madonna's Music album comes in a limited edition, fabric digipack packaging. There are 4 colours available: Pink, Gray, Light Blue and Black. I only have the pink and the gray versions. Apparently, the black version is the rarest.

As it is the US version, it only has 10 tracks and does not include American Pie, which was a bonus track on the European and Asian editions. It's alright, I don't find American Pie a particularly outstanding track anyway.

The first single off the album was the title track, and I remember listening to it for the first time on Perfect 10 on the way to VJC one morning. My first reaction was that it was horrible and I hated it.

Madonna had already given us a hint of her new musical direction with her previous album, Ray Of Light, on which she paired up with producer William Orbit. On Music, she worked with Orbit again and roped in French DJ and producer Mirwais. The album delved even deeper into the dance/electronica territory that she established on Ray Of Light and broke new ground once again.

The single, Music, reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, displacing Janet Jackson's Doesn't Really Matter from the summit. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 too. The other hit singles from the album are Don't Tell Me and What It Feels Like For A Girl.

To promote the Drowned World Tour, a special 2-CD edition of the album was released. The bonus CD contained 7 tracks - remixes of Music, Don't Tell Me, What It Feels Like For A Girl plus a Spanish version of that song, and the music video for the letter track.

The music video for What It Feels Like For A Girl drew a considerable amount of controversy because of its supposed violence. It was directed by hubby Guy Ritchie and features Madonna blowing up a gas station and crashing her car at full speed into a pole, among other things. It was banned by MTV and VH1 and several channels.

I think the violence in there is mild compared to what we see on TV nowadays anyway, so I think it's over-rated. At the end of the day, all publicity is good publicity, and I think Maddy got what she wanted to achieve with the video - create hype and attention for the album and the tour.