Maybe it’s just my age, and the fact that I was in prime ‘coming of age’ territory during the summer of 2000, but it feels like every chart-topper at the moment has a line, or a moment, that resonates to this day.
Music, by Madonna (her 10th of thirteen #1s)
1 week, from 27th August – 3rd September 2000
We’ve had Craig David’s seven days of wooing. Robbie’s ‘Rock DJ’. Will the real Slim Shady please stand up and If it ain’t love, Then why does it feel so good… To the list we can add Madonna’s command: Hey Mr DJ, Put a record on, I wanna dance with my baby…
When I claimed that her version of ‘American Pie’ wasn’t as bad as people said, but that it was also a bit too safe, I was looking ahead to this record. Imagine if she had bent and twisted that hallowed classic of rock ‘n’ roll using the grinding, whirring, blurping production that she employs on ‘Music’. It may have turned out terrible, but it would have been every bit as fun and provocative as her other most controversial moments.
As it is, we are left with ‘Music’, and for a woman in her forties, almost two decades into her chart career, it is a remarkably modern record. The video and the lyrics may reference disco balls and boogying, but musically this is forward-facing electro-funk. Again, Madonna shows herself to be bang on-trend, as this sounds both like Daft Punk circa 1997, and Hot Chip circa 2006. It also leaves room for a bit of cheese amongst the cool, in the heavily distorted Do you like to boogie-woogie refrain.
Lyrically this is standard sort of ‘music brings the world together’ stuff. Although she does try to reach for a higher plane of thought with the line: Music, Mix the bourgeoisie, And the rebel… Apparently Madonna was inspired to write this at a Sting concert, noting the euphoric reaction of the crowd when he started to play the old Police hits. The video isn’t one of her most thought-provoking either, featuring Sacha Baron-Cohen in character as Ali G (how very Y2K) driving her around in a pimped-out limo.
No, here Madonna isn’t trying to outrage or annoy, she just wants us up on our feet. And I, for one, will always head to the dancefloor when this one comes on. This record took her into double-figures in the total number ones count, the first woman in British chart history to manage it. She joined Elvis, The Beatles, and Cliff Richard in managing ten or more chart-toppers. Meanwhile ‘Music’ itself made history by becoming the first song ever to be played on an iPod.
I may have overstated it in the intro, or allowed nostalgia’s rose-tinted specs to influence my take. Perhaps the chart-topping lyrics of the day were no more memorable than any other era’s. Perhaps I was just of an age to remember them. But I do think the #1s of the summer of 2000 were an integral part of turn-of-the-century popular culture, one of those periods when the charts reflected more than just musical taste. And that’s something, in this fragmented, online age, that I don’t think we’ll ever see again.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
I remember originally commenting on this blog a long time ago that I disliked Madonna’s music barring a few songs. Complete reversal now. I’ve listened to all her albums and soundtracks and I pretty much adore her music and only dislike a few songs. This is a great song. Really like the electro-funk and nu disco sound mixed in with the dance-pop.
And I really like the album it’s one too – lots of different styles and genres she incorporates into its overall dance-pop and electronica vibe, taking influences from funk, house, rock, country and folk. This is also the era where she’s starting to sound like Shirley Manson from Garbage.
This and the next two albums are unfournately the last times where Madonna was forging her own path instead of following trends to try to desperately (and failing) to try to stay relevant (once Lady Gaga emerged, pop music didn’t need Madonna anymore), though I do enjoy her late-2000s and 2010s/2020s material a good bit actually.
This was her twelfth and final No. 1 in the US. She might get another one, but not as the lead artist.
I think Madonna’s one of those artists with such a long and varied career that you genuinely cannot just write her off and say ‘I don’t like her music’. You might find her a bit off as a person (I don’t) but there’s so much of her stuff out there, and as you say it’s only in the last 10-15 years or so that she seems to have started to doubt herself, following trends rather than setting them.
The one Madonna era that I’m not such a huge fan of is the mid-90s Bedtime Stories/Evita sountrack period. It’s all a bit dull. Other than that, there’s something to love in every album, though she is really a singles artist (to paraphrase a cliche, the best Madonna album is ‘The Best of Madonna’).
This is definitely one of her better late career songs. The beat is very fun! Heard it on the radio the other day for the first time in ages and i was impressed by it. I think it all went downhill when she released ‘Die Another Day’ (not sure if that made it to number one. Probably not!)
~ Alasdair
Sadly ‘Die Another Day’ wasn’t a number one. But ‘Hung Up’ was, which was probably her last great single.
Out of respect to you…she was a great business woman!
He says through clenched teeth…
lol only halfway…I won’t ever begrudge that about her. She knew exactly how to market herself.
Madonna is iconic and game-changing in the music Biz. She was still being unexpected in new albums and material (I bought this album in the USA on holiday) and Music the single still sounded ahead of the game in dance music terms. It’s not you being nostalgic, some great pop tracks were topping the charts, still sounding great to me. I look back at charts of the 2000’s and a lot of stuff has been long forgotten by me, partly because of the huge turnover and fanbase hits, but the genuine pop biggies still stand out to me. I wouldnt call this peak Madonna from my own taste point of view, I preferred the follow-up Don’t Tell Me and the Confessions album was her final essential hurrah as an artist still to come, but Her Madgeness spans my own personal chart number ones for 4 consecutive decades, it’s only this decade where she’s lost the plot entirely for me so far. She needs a Padam Padam moment….
Has she even released any music in the 2020s…? She did have that feature with the Weeknd, which gave her a first top 10 in a while. Can’t remember much about the song, though, tbh.
a couple of singles, remixes, guests and features for the most part in the 2020’s. Medellin was 2019 and that was her last good single. That said Like A Prayer hit again thanks to Deadpool & Wolverine, so there’s still that massive back catalogue to live off!