Madonna is one of the very few artists that could get away with titling her album Music, perhaps because during the course of her career she has embraced a wide variety of musical styles and genres. With a somewhat vague title like Music, one couldn't know what to expect.

Judging from the leadoff single, which is the first track on the album, titled "Music," it would not be hard to expect this album to be in the same dance/techno vein that Madonna has been working within in recent years, most noticeably 1998's Ray of Light. The next two songs, "Impressive Instant" and "Runaway Lover," are straight-up dance songs, and the former skirts pure pop candy, which is quite ironic when one sees the country- western motif running through the album's liner notes. Then there are tracks like "I Deserve It," "Don't Tell Me," and "Gone" which combine both dance beats and acoustic instrumentation. Of course there are ballads, such as the affirming "Nobody's Perfect" and the stand-out track "What It Feels Like For A Girl."

Madonna always seems to have religious overtones to her work (even her name carries religious connotation), and the songs on this album aren't any different. For example, "I Deserve It," in which she sings "the sky was meant for me/and I was meant for him/the sky was dreamt for me/and I was dreamt for him/the sky has danced for me/and I have danced for him," seems to invoke a deity of some sort and even hints at a sexual union with such a being, which again is not surprising coming from Madonna ("Like a Prayer" anyone?). Another such song carrying spiritual and religious meaning is "Paradise (Not For Me)," in which the singer expresses her unworthiness in the face of God ("your paradise/not for me").

Madonna hasn't turned totally soft on us though. She chastises womanizers on "Runaway Lover" and asserts herself in "Nobody's Perfect," in which she laments all that she has done wrong in the relationship and then concludes "but nobody's perfect." "Impressive Instant," in which Madonna's voice takes on a childlike tone, is dance pop fest, replete with funky space age sounds and weird vocal distortion effects that seem to be capturing a moment of euphoric feeling. The title track celebrates the universality of music, and the soaring and wrenching "What It Feels Like For a Girl" asks us to consider what it's like to walk a mile in their shoes. "Amazing," with its retro, 60's style sound, is both musically and lyrically a distant cousin to last summer's "Beautiful Stranger."