Bedtime Stories - Madonna (CD 1994)

When you've scandalized the world, what do you do for an encore? This is the question Madonna found herself asking in 1994. At this pooint, she was arguably the most famous person on the planet, but her ravenous sexual exploits and penchant for controversy threatened to make her more of a celebrity than a talented singer. There was the outrageous "Erotica" album, followed by the astoundingly outrageous "Sex" book. While in the 1980's, the world "slut" occasionally attached itself to Madonna's name, by 1994, it had gone beyond mere epithet and had transformed into near-reality. With her career in crisis, Madonna decided that it was time to tone it down-a little.

Whereas much of her more recent work was blatant, "Bedtime Stories" worked a more obviously coy angle, right down to the tongur-in-cheek album title. For this album, Madonna strayed away from the club-conscious dance sound she'd been favoring to return to her R&B roots. As a kid growing up in Michigan in the Sixties, Motown was obviously an integral part of her upbringing. Her first albums had an undeniable soul influence, with her even using the top R&B producers of the time, like Mtume's Reggie Lucas and Chic's Nile Rodgers. For this album, she brought in a who's who of modern R&B, bassist extraordinaire Me'shell Ndegeocello, and producers Dave Hall, Dallas Austin and Babyface. The result turned out to be one of her warmer-sounding albums from a production as well as from a vocal standpoint. "Bedtime Stories" may be overlooked in the canon of great Madonna albums, but it certainly ranks way ahead of her overtly Euro-influenced more recent work.

For a woman who was trying to distance herself from controversy, she sure as hell addressed it a lot. The album opens with the lines "I've never been an angel/I've never been a saint, that's true". "Survival" finds Madge singing gently amid a chugging new-jack beat and pillows of background vocals. Despite the silky background, this song's full of Madonna's steely resolve. A few tracks later, the bumping "Human Nature" gives a more aggressive side of the story, as Madonna cagily defends her right to do whatever she wants and not be punished for it. Over an assaultive snatch of Main source's "What You Need", she snarls "I'm not your b!tch, don't hang your sh*t on me".

Lead single "Secret" was acoustic soul before there was such a term. Producer Dallas Austin adds a thumping, insistent beat against a subtle wash of acoustic guitar. The result is a classic Madonna pop single. "I'd Rather Be Your Lover" is a swaggering funk jam featuring bass and a short rap from the aforementioned N'degeocello, just a year removed from releasing her classic debut, "Plantation Lullabies" on Madge's Maverick label.

While the uptempos are all solid, Madonna's trump card on this album is the ballads, all of which are softly insinuating. Bjork's percolating "Bedtime Story" presages Madonna's eventual descent into techno hell, but this is one of the rare songs where she actually gets it right. The haunting "Inside Of Me" is one of the few songs on which Madonna addresses the death of her mother when she was a child, an event that marked much of her life and wasn't fully come to terms with until Madonna had a child of her own. It's a strangely eerie song, almost whispered by Madonna in a little girl voice.

The two best songs on this album are the ballads "Love Tried To Welcome Me" and "Take A Bow". "Welcome" is a grandiose orchestral ballad, with miles of strings, some pretty Spanish guitar and a subtle, insistent backbeat. The only thing I can compare this moody ballad to is walking alone outside in the middle of a rainstorm. This song just feels full of emotion, while Madonna's vocal sounds like she's resigned to a life of loneliness. "Instead of spring, it's always winter," she sings. "And my heart has always been a lonely hunter". It's one of Madonna's most emotionally affecting recorded moments. "Take A Bow" is another ballad with an orchestral sweep to it. Joined on vocals by it-vocalist of the moment Babyface, this song rides a series of acting metaphors to create an excellent love song, not to mention giving Madonna her biggest hit in half a decade.

There's never been a perfect Madonna album, and there's definitely some filler here. "Sanctuary" is a hollow, herky-jerky midtempo song that sounds right within the framework of the album, but just doesn't have enough ear-candy to make it special, while the bumping "Don't Stop" features the worst lyrics of Madonna's career. It's like she tried to return to the simplicity of the "Into The Groove" days and just couldn't get it right. Rhyming "party", "body" and "la-di-da-dee" just doesn't work.

Those missteps aside, "Bedtime Stories" marked a solid comeback for Madonna-reconecting her with an R&B audience and thrusting her right into the forefront of what was a new sound for her. This style wouldn't last long on her. After taking a break and strengthening her vocal chords with her role as Eva Peron, she hopped aboard the electronica bandwagon and became Mystical Madge on "Ray Of Light", which (in my opinion) was her last good album.

Shrugging the oontroversy that surrounded her at the time and featuring songs good enough to make you forget those compromising pictures with Vanilla Ice and Big Daddy Kane, "Bedtime Stories" is a warm, well-produced album that silenced any doubts that Madonna's musical skills had eroded amid her sexual exploits. After all of the bumping and grinding, "Bedtime Stories" tucks you in softly. That's right, I said tuck. With a "t".


"Bedtime Stories" by Madonna

Rating: 3 3/4 out of 5 stars

Repeat: "Inside Of Me", "Love Tried To Welcome Me", "Human Nature", "Bedtime Story", "Take A Bow"

Skip: "Sanctuary", "Don't Stop", "Forbidden Love"

Great Music to Play While: Being very happy that Madonna decided to take the gold fronts out of her mouth after this album.