Madonna Takes On American Life By nightwing on Jan 27, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

This is probably Madonna's poorest album, in my estimation. It is a mix of folk and techno music that comes off as unfinished and boring. A lot of the songs have lyrics that are quite personal. This is usually one of her strengths, but here it just comes off a bit self indulgent for some reason.

There are some good songs here. Love Profusion is a great song and probably should have been the first, instead of last, single released for the album. Nobody Knows Me is another winner and was a great addition to her last tour.

A lot of the ballads here (and there are a lot of them) just don't work. X-Static Process and Nothing Fails just come across as boring and even a bit whiney.

The album probably would have done a lot better if the song American Life wasn't here or wasn't associated with the war. The song and album really have nothing to do with the war, only the original video did. In all, the disc just comes across as hurried and poorly thought out. There are moments of greatness, but not as many as there should be.