Just finished the second listen to Madonna's new Album, "American Life." It has been three years since Music, the last album, but still I had very low expectations for this disk for some reason. Maybe it is all the weird and bad press that she has been getting, or her damn fake-ass british accent. But what ever the reason I was set up for a lack-luster outing from the unrivaled pop-goddess. And the reviews only seemed to confirm my fear: Tom Moon of the Philly Inquirer wrote, "'American Life' ... is not only the the most wretchedly empty thing she's ever done, it's also one of those big-budget projects that make sense only as megastar indulgence, a cloying mess of beats and noise and meaningless wounded-childhood outpourings,"

Now, it certainly isn't THAT bad, though I haven't spent enough time with it to know if my initial impressions will hold out over the long run. For now I am happy with the disk, and there are some stand out cuts. The album shares a lot of its sound with Music (it also shares the Producer and co-writer in Mirwals) and, like Music, uses beats and hooks borrowed from diverse influences. ...But borrowed mostly from electronica and dance (specifically the Euro-stylings of those particular genres.) Madonna albums are always lavish studio affairs, and while American Life is no different , it's beat, bleaps, and electro-warbles are more understated and toned down than the past couple of releases. This isn't to say the disk is Ambient though; Mirwals drops some phat beats and mean hooks that will make for super remix-fodder, and the disk feels almost like a trip-hop crossover.

Madonna has the odd "rapping" moment or two on the album, which feel out of place now, but I feel will seem more fitting after a few more spins. There is also a few labored tracks, mostly in the lyric department. Madonna is preachy, that is great, but in the past she preached about the joys of the flesh where now it is more the joys of "spirituality" (or at least soy-lattes and pilates) which seems hypocritical at best and high-brow and irrelevant at worse. She may have been going for ironic and criticizing but we got self-indulgent and inorganic. Overall I think that American Life is a fitting piece of Madonna's catalog that has a few really catchy and well crafted(produced same thing) tracks, but that may fail to engage the fans that she is seemingly less and less concerned about keeping.