Coming off the artistic - if not the commercial - high of Erotica , Bedtime Stories is a real mixed bag. It's straight up '90s R&B for the most part, all hip-hop, Dallas Austin inflected product . There's art here, but it's screaming to get out from underneath the oppressive packaging. Speaking of packaging, they curiously opted for the upside-down image of Madonna...but didn't adjust the font color for the titles, making them impossible to read. Nice teal CD tray, tho... Now, if you like '90s R&B then you're probably going to enjoy the product, because this is a really good example of it in my opinion. Madonna it must be said delivers some of her best vocals yet on tracks like "Secret" and the title cut, and some of the melodies here are really good (again "Secret" and especially "Take A Bow" - a surprise monster hit that essentially reestablished her superstardom). The singles are an interesting
Off the cuff observations and insights on music, culture, technology, politics or whatever writing itch needs to be scratched at the moment.