Songoftheday 5/24/22 - Hey Mister DJ put a record on I wanna dance with my baby....

"Music" - Madonna

from the album Music (2000)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (four weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 22

Today's song is from Madonna, who after reviving her career with her "comeback" album Ray Of Light in 1998, spent the close of the millennium with contributions to movies, including Austin Powers with the trippy goodness of "Beautiful Stranger", and for The Next Big Thing with the trippy horridness of her cover of "American Pie", both of which made the pop top-40 in America. In the fall of 2000 Madonna returned with her eighth studio release Music, produced by the icon with a bevy of up and coming dance music producers. The lead single from the set was the title track "Music", written and produced by Madonna with Mirwais Ahmadzi, a Swiss-born artist with Afghani heritage. It was his unique sound that drives "Music", with Madonna singing how music brings people of all types and genders and sexualities together, and the looseness of the electro-funk behind it was unlike anything she's released before. Coupled with a shady American cowboy fashion pastiche and a music video with her and her friend Debi Mazur and Niki Haris in a limo driven by a pre-Borat Sacha Baron Cohen (in his "Ali G" persona), which got MTV on board despite the totally wackadoo animated midsection, the song continued her reinvigorated success...

"Music" became Madonna's twelfth, and so far last, #1 pop hit in September of 2000. The song rose to #16 on the older-skewing Adult Top-40 radio chart, and got to #9 on the dance-oriented Rhythmic airplay format. The remixes of the track, done by Victor Calderone, Hex Hector and Mac Quayle, and Groove Armada among others, helped it spent five weeks at #1 on Billboard magazine's Dance Club Play chart, tying her biggest stay with "Holiday/Lucky Star" from 1983. Internationally, the single topped the singles charts in Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, Norwary, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK. It also made the top ten in Germany (#2), Sweden (#2), Denmark (#2), Finland (#2), the Netherlands (#4), Belgium (#4W/#6F), Austria (#5), Ireland (#7), France (#8). The Music album, released in September of that year, spent over a year on the Billboard 200 sales tally, with a week at #1, going on to sell over three million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2001, "Music" was nominated for Record of the Year, losing to U2 for their "Beautiful Day", as well as Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, which Macy Gray took home for "I Try". The Music album was also up for Best Pop Vocal Album, which was (ahem stolen) by Steely Dan's Two Against Nature that year. Both Madonna and the Music album will be back to the series. As for Mirwais, he released his Production album later in 2000, and his single "Naive Song" spent a week at #2 on Billboard's Dance Club Play chart.

(9/10)

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Here's an edit of the club remix from Hex Hector and Mac Quayle (as HQ2) that helped the song reign on the dance chart for five weeks...

Next up, Madonna performed "Music" first at the MTV European Music Awards in Sweden, introduced by Cohen/"Ali G", and wearing a Kylie Minogue t-shirt #iconic...