Madonna
Bedtime Stories

THE REVIEW

“So to her you’re nothing new, she’s cold as ice but you still thinks she’s hot, she’s got everything it takes to take everything you’ve got” – Loretta Lynn

Why? Why revisit these parts proposing trash of the worst kind like this? Intellectual curiosity mixed with a pinch of masochism, partly boredom, perhaps, but this is mostly a challenge with myself and a provocation. Here I say it and I won't deny it: I have always been “curious”, let's say, to listen to a product by M. in its entirety, trying to set aside the deep disgust, on various levels, that the character inspires in me. It is, therefore, mostly out of an investigative spirit that I allowed myself the “pleasure” of listening to “Bedtime Stories”, to see a little clearer, trying to understand if the “phenomenon” is indeed based on somewhat worthy foundations of analysis and perhaps even of interest. The answer is, of course, NO, NO, and again NO.

Why “Bedtime Stories”? It's not one of her most advertised albums and generally enjoys a good reputation, it's generally considered a refined product, with alternative ambitions. Yes, the usual, insipid, pretentious, disgustingly empty “Al-Theeer-Na-Thiiiv” ambitions. Had I found something significantly appreciable in the product in question, I would have kept it to myself for image reasons, I have no problem admitting it, but it wasn't so, and I am much calmer, and besides, no one will be able to say that I didn't at least try.

What is “Bedtime Stories?” Nothing. What does it represent? Nothing. Suitable adjectives to describe it? Boring, insipid, absolutely irrelevant in itself.

The voice is pathetic, truly pathetic: flat, tragically ill-suited to communicate anything, good just for vomiting some regurgitated slogan. This contributes decisively to creating the peculiar sensation of tedium, coldness, and slight irritation that accompanies the listener on the agonizing journey through the eleven SONGS that make up the product.

A product that is nothing more than a very banal mid-'90s R'n'B album with some electronic influences. It all sounds watered down, vacuous, completely devoid of any real character: there is nothing real, nothing interesting, it's all a colossal setup. Removing all the “corollary”, only the usual slogans remain, “Human Nature”, passable, “Survival”, sordidly insipid. “Take A Bow” is cute, there you go, I admit that, with a performer worthy of such a name it would even be beautiful. Listening to “Sanctuary” or “Bedtime Story” (with that picturesque and totally unexpected and unpredictable simulated sigh at the start) one wonders who or what our dear M. tried to impress. On who was actually impressed, I would prefer not to comment, for reasons of politeness. Everything else lazily oscillates between sickly-sweet and dead-and-gone, absolutely nothing worth mentioning and examining more closely. Zzzz… zzzz…. Wake me up when the record ends … You know what? “X” by Kylie is slightly more interesting than this thing.

My dear M, now I know you a bit better, and I'm not impressed, neither positively nor negatively. They call you the queen of pop, but you are not, you never have been, and you never will be: you have no charm, you have no charisma, you have no depth, your “mystique” is nothing more than well-oiled propaganda. You are not a queen nor even vaguely noble; a nouveau riche, enormously enriched, yes, but still a nouveau riche, and you can feel it, oh, can you feel it! Another thing, M, you are nobody and represent nobody, you don't have the weight, you don’t have the credibility to speak for anyone. I hated you so much, dear M, now no longer: listening to you made me realize it's not worth it, the hope is that one day you may be forgotten, relegated to the irrelevance to which you belong. Goodbye, I leave you here, frozen in your clownish pose as an out-of-time Marylin with a transgressive piercing.

Sincerely (never) yours,

Daniel T. Kid