American Life Pictures Un-Retouched + Making of Shoot with Craig McDean and Jonas Åkerlund

Fantastic.

American Life remains one of my top 5 Madonna albums, not only for the superb sounds she achieved with Mirwais but the accompanying promotion and imagery, as well. 2003 was an interesting time to be a Madonna fan especially for one that had followed her flourishing career since 1983. She was getting the shyt kicked out of her (made Erotica seem tame - this was a different kind of beating) and that always affects an album's aftertaste but the fact remains that American Life stands as a splendidly progressive album - her most alternative till date. The sound is still being copied today in every genre.

Maybe Madonna needed her first truly un-POP-ular album, 20 years after her debut? It's hard to say because no other musician in pop music has sustained as successful a career for as long as Madonna and the themes on American Life are throwing a big middle finger up at what all pop stands for. Let's not forget that the word relevant became part of the pop culture lexicon because Madonna had lasted prosperously in pop music for so long where her predecessors and contemporaries had failed. There's nobody to compare her to.

What are/were your thoughts on the American Life album and period?

Madonna - mixmag - March 2000

The only photographs that Dah Len took of Madonna that I like appeared in mixmag. Plus this is a great interview and article.

Madonna and Mirwais - Don't Tell Me - Canal+

Marvelous live performance of Don't Tell Me with Mirwais at Canal+ in France.

GROUND ZERO - KCRW - Madonna and the Making of 'Music' - Sat Oct 07, 2000

Here is a fabulous interview that aired on KCRW in October of 2000 to promote Music. I remember hearing and taping it off the radio on cassette the day it aired! Chris Douridas talks Music with Guy Sigsworth, Mirwais, Joe Henry, and a pregnant Madonna for a good 40 minutes.

The brilliant KCRW and NPR News is having a pledge drive as we speak - make a donation to public, commercial free radio - HERE.

But in the Process I Forgot

On April 22, 2003, Madonna gave an extraordinary performance of X-static Process from her brilliant American Life album on MTV, although this performance was left off the proper broadcast. I believe they showed it later on M2.

American Life is either very loved or very disliked by fans and critics alike but I tend to believe that this is the most experimental progressive album that Madonna has ever produced. I find it as personal and introspective as Like a Prayer or Ray of Light, if not more. I name those albums because they have the all around reputation of being pioneering and confessional. In my opinion, Madonna, more often than not, writes with the honesty of her moment, therefore I find most of her songs introspective.

As for the modern, radical, wicked sound of this record, Mirwais is up there as my favorite Madonna co-producer/writer along with Stephen Bray and Pharrell Williams. Mirwais' avant garde production tendencies match the innate funk of the aforementioned. Interesting that the track X-static Process was co-written by Stuart Price, not really his style. It's in songs like this that I sense Madonna's proficiency as a powerfully skillful lyricist and record producer. Credit she rarely receives.

I believe that American Life will have the respect it deserves one day. Sometimes great work is better left out of the mainstream. This was released at the height of the hideous Boy Bands and Teen Queens phase, which inevitably lead to MTV's deterioration. She was way too ahead with this piece for common mortals.