"Music" is the first single by American singer-songwriter
Madonna from her 8th studio album
Musicand was released on August 21, 2000, by Maverick
Records. It was also released on DVD single, a debut in this
format by Madonna. It earned two Grammy Award nominations in
2001, for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal
Performance. In 2006, The song was remixed using "Disco
Inferno" by the Trammps and was re-named "Music Inferno" for
the 2006 Confessions Tour. This version appears on the 2007
live album
The Confessions Tour.
On May 27, 2000, an unauthorized copy of the song leaked
onto the Internet. In several days it spread all over
cyberspace through forums and Napster. Madonna's spokeswoman
Liz Rosenberg reacted with the comment that the material was a
"work-in-progress which was stolen". To counter the trend of
music piracy, Madonna actively campaigned against Napster with
fellow performers from other genres, including hip-hop artist
Dr. Dre and Lars Ulrich, drummer of heavy metal band Metallica.
Madonna later performed this song and several others on a
promotional tour; her concert at Brixton Academy in London was
a live webcast on her website and was watched by a record 10
million people around the world.
The opening line of the song ("Hey Mr. DJ, put a record on,
I want to dance with my baby") features a male-sounding voice.
The voice is actually Madonna's voice, heavily transformed.
"Music" earned two Grammy Award nominations in 2001, for
Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
The song shot to the top of the charts very quickly. It went
to number one in the USA, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia,
Italy, South Africa and Argentina, to name but a few countries.
It was Madonna's twelfth number one single in the USA. By
reaching number one, it made Madonna the second artist to
achieve number one hits in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s in the
USA. The first was Janet Jackson, who had done the same
achievement with "Doesn't Really Matter", which preceded
"Music" as the Hot 100's number-one single. "Music" also being
the longest running number-one spot at
BillboardHot Dance Club Play, with spent a longevity
five weeks at number one at the 2000s decade. Eventually
"Music" went platinum, selling over a million copies, proving
to be one of her biggest-selling singles. The song was her
first number-one hit in the USA since "Take a Bow" went to
number-one in 1995. it was also reported to be the best selling
single of 2000. Music was the 24th best selling single of 2000
in the UK.
In 2003, Madonna fans were asked to vote for their top 20
Madonna singles of all time by
Qmagazine. "Music" was allocated the #2 spot.
In 2004, Canadian tech-metal band Out of Your Mouth released
a cover version, which reached the Top 40 in Canada.
The music video was shot in April 2000 at A&M Stage and
a nightclub in downtown Los Angeles by Swedish director Jonas
Åkerlund. The video stars Madonna and her longtime backup
singer Niki Haris and actress Debi Mazar as well as comedian
Sacha Baron Cohen as his famous character Ali G. The video
starts with Madonna along with her friends boarding Ali G's
limousine. The song starts and Ali G is directed to take them
to a club, and later to a strip-club, where he is denied
entrance. An animated section follows where, Madonna attacks
various neon signs with the names of many of her songs,
including "Rain", "Borderline", "Lucky Star", "Bad Girl",
"Vogue", "Fever", "La Isla Bonita", "Express Yourself" and
"Material Girl". In the extended version, at the end of the
animated section, Ali G. briefly interrupts the song to
demonstrate his rap skills to persuade Madonna to include him
on her next single. An annoyed Madonna asks him to stop and to
turn the song back on. Madonna was heavily pregnant with her
second child, Rocco, during the shooting and the animated
section of the video was added as a result. The video ends with
Madonna and her friends travelling in the limousine with many
of the strippers and Ali G engaging in a rendezvous with
them.
The video won several awards, including
Best Pop Clip Of The Yearat the Billboard Video Awards
in 2000 and
Best Dance Videoat the International Dance Music Awards
in 2000.
The music video was parodied on MADtv. The parody was called
Movies, and featured Mo Collins as Madonna. The video
poked fun at Madonna's filmography, with an animated 'Madonna'
attacking signs that had the names of her movies.
The video to the single was released on DVD only and
contains two versions of the music video: a standard version
and an extended. It also includes a weblink to an official
Madonna "Music" website, but the site is no longer active. The
extended version includes the sequence during which Ali G
interrupts the song to demonstrate his rap skills.
The first live performance of "Music" was at the 2001 Grammy
Awards. Since then,
"Music"has appeared in all four of Madonna's tours since
it was released: Drowned World, Re-Invention, Confessions and
Sticky & Sweet.
For the Drowned World Tour, it was used as the final encore;
Madonna wore tight black jeans and a customised Dolce &
Gabbana halter top that proclaims "Mother" in the front and
"F*cker" in the back. She sang the song surrounded by her
dancers, while imagery of her all-time music videos were
displayed on backdrop screens.
"Music" was later added to the Re-Invention Tour as the
fourth song of the Scottish segment; this mix of the song was
slower, Hip-Hop-based. The same version was used at the 2005
Live 8 benefit concert
In the 2006 Confessions Tour, the song was mixed with The
Trammps'
"Disco Inferno", thus creating the hedonistic
Music Inferno. It was preceded by the short video
introduction "The Duke Mixes The Hits", and it sampled the
chorus from "Where's The Party", a song from her 1986 album
"True Blue". Madonna and her two female back-up dancers
appeared onstage wearing
Saturday Night Fever-inspired John Travolta outfits and
started to sing "Music" together.
"Music"was part of the Hard Candy Promo Tour, in support
of the
Hard Candyalbum; this version sampled Fedde le Grand's
"Put Your Hands Up for Detroit", getting a Dance-version
of the song. It was the last song performed during the 2nd act
of her Sticky & Sweet Tour, the
Old Schooltribute, where Madonna used the version of the
promotional tour, with a sample of Indeep's
"Last Night A DJ Saved My Life"at the beginning of the
song.