Madonna may have crossed over into AARP territory, and her lyrics haven’t evolved much since the days of Holiday, but she still puts 9 out of 10 dance music divas to shame, as she demonstrates with her latest track, Celebration.

Adam Goldstein, aka DJ AM, was found dead today at his apartment at age 36. A drug overdose is suspected, because drug paraphernalia was found at the scene.

Goldstein is probably best known to many because of his relationship with Nicole Richie, but his scratching can be heard on tracks by Madonna, Will Smith and others.

The video, above, catches DJ AM performing with Travis Barker. Just a year ago, Goldstein and Barker were the only survivors of a plane crash which killed four other passengers.

His last statement, via Twitter, was this:

“New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain’t always what it seems.”

Open Labs caught up with Madonna keyboardist Ric’key Pageot in Houston, Texas during Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet Tour.”

Ric’key is using a custom-painted, purple sparkle MiKo as the center of his live rig for the world tour with Madonna. Ric’key was previously the Cirque du Soleil band leader before his job with Madonna, check out more on Ric’key Pageot and Open Labs at www.openlabs.com/rickey-pageot.

The video’s clearly a Open Labs promo, but it’s also a decent interview with Pageot and offers some insight into the world of a top gigging keyboardist. 

This is a little off topic – but Phil RetroSpector’s mashup of Amy Winehouse, Madonna & Betty Page, Back to Virginity, is a lot more fun than watching a Guy Ritchie movie.

It is the biggest coup yet for Blackburn-based independent record label All Around the World, who say they are catering for a thriving suburban club scene.

Peering down from the summit of the album chart last week, Madonna probably did not think she had any reason to fear a trio peddling steroid-enhanced dance beats, pumped-up cover versions and high-octane trance melodies.

Scooter’s new material has had next to no radio airplay, and the album was not reviewed in the national press. Yet it has sold 33,500 copies in its first week – 4,000 more than Madonna’s Hard Candy.”Basically, there’s a lot of people like them,” according to All Around the World director Matt Cadman. “Scooter have been a massive band in Europe for a long time.”

This looks like another sign that the old world of music is breaking down.

Radio no longer determines what’s a hit. People are finding their new music on YouTube, blogs and social music sites, and groups like Scooter and NIN are figuring out how to work the new system.

What will be really interesting to see is whether new artists can make the system work for them as well as established artists.

On Music, Madonna gets production of Ray of Light’s William Orbit, and also from French DJ Mirwais Ahmadzi. Though Orbit and Madonna made Ray of Light a great, trend-setting album, Mirwais makes more of an impression on Music. He brings the unique sound of French electro-pop to the CD, without overwhelming Madonna.

The CD is full of great tracks. It starts with three hot dance cuts, “Music”, “Impressive Instant” and “Runaway Lover”. While the thump of “Music” was inescapable when it was released, it sounds as original and out of left field today as when it was released. Madonna and Mirwais strip the music down to its bare essence, often leaving just thudding kick drums, synth bass, and vocals.

“Runaway Lover” is an Orbit collaboration, and has more of a trance feel. Fans of Ray of Light will love this cut – it sounds like it would have been right at home on her previous album.

On “Deserve it”, Madonna and Mirwais create an almost folk-sounding electro-pop. Her lyrics are personal and direct, and the music exposes her voice, making the song all the more effective.

“This guy was meant for me
And I was meant for him
This guy was dreamt for me
And I was dreamt for him

This guy has danced for me
And I have danced for him
This guy has cried for me
And I have cried for him

Chorus:

Many miles, many roads I have traveled
Fallen down on the way
Many hearts, many years have unraveled
Leading up to today”

“Amazing” is another Orbit-produced cut, and is tasty enough to inspire hopes for more collaborations. This song is pure pop, sounds great, and is “amazingly” catchy.

Madonna occasionally trips up on her slow songs, because her lyrics don’t always rise to her subject matter. On “Nobody’s Perfect”, the production is interesting, and the acoustic guitar adds an interesting element, and there’s some interesting vocoder work. Unfortunately, the track is let down by the song itself.

The next track, “Don’t Tell Me”, covers similar territory, but works great. Her lyrics are better, and the production is innovative without being intrusive:

“Don’t tell me to stop
Tell the rain not to drop
Tell the wind not to blow
’cause you said so, mmm

Tell the sun not to shine
Not to get up this time, no, no
Let it fall by the way
But don’t leave me where I lay down

Chorus:

Tell me love isn’t true
It’s just something that we do
Tell me everything I’m not
(first time:) but please don’t tell me to stop”

The track starts with acoustic guitar that sounds like it has been sliced and diced and then looped. It cuts in and out, but stays in rhythm. Mirwais adds kicks and hi-hat and synthesizer blurps and bleeps to give the track a funky dance vibe, and strings to add a sense of timelessness.

“What it feels like for a girl” is one of Madonna’s strongest cuts, lyrically:

“Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
’cause it’s ok to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
’cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you’d love to know what it’s like
Wouldn’t you
What it feels like for a girl

Silky smooth
Lips as sweet as candy, baby
Tight blue jeans
Skin that shows in patches

Strong inside but you don’t know it
Good little girls they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak
Could you be a little weak “

The song is Madonna at her best. She asks you to questions sex roles and gender identity, all while asking the listener to imagine the sensual experience of being female. Lines like “When you open up your mouth to speak,
Could you be a little weak” cut deeper and ring truer than most of her work, and capture ideas and emotions that you’re unlikely to hear any of the other pop divas take on.

Madonna continues at a more downtempo beat with “Paradise (Not for Me)”. This cut uses strings very effectively, and has a French pop feel. Madonna’s lyrics seem to touch on loss of innocence or love, and are delivered in English and French. Mirwais treats Madonna’s voice with filters or vocoders, which adds some interest to the track.

The last track, “Gone”, sounds less like Madonna than almost anything she’s ever done. It combines a folk feel with lyrics that sound semi-religious:

“Dream away your life
Someone else’s dream
Nothing equals nothing

Turn to stone
Lose my faith
I’ll be gone
Before it happens”

The track is produced with subtle electronic flourishes that don’t intrude on the track, which ultimately emphasizes the vocals. Madonna harmonizes with herself, which adds to the folk flavor. It ends the CD on a quiet reflective note.

Music is one of Madonna’s best CDs, and shows her at the peak of her form. Madonna takes you on a trip from the dance floor, where she gets everybody on the floor, to the after-hours bar, where she spills her guts. Sexy, independent, uncompromising, and innovative, Madonna’s Music shows that other dance divas will have to work a lot harder if they ever want to match Madonna at her peak.

Madonna is one of the few pop artists that regularly crank out albums – completely thought out listening experiences, instead of just a collection of tracks. This 1998 release is no exception.

On Ray of Light, Madonna works electronica artist William Orbit, and the result is one of the best combinations of the electronica and pop worlds ever put to CD. Orbit brings legitimate electronica chops to the coupling, while Madonna adds that special sauce that gives it mainstream appeal. She also takes Orbit’s music to higher levels by giving the electronica some pop sensibility.

The CD starts out with “Drowned World/Substitute for Love”. From the very first notes, you can hear Orbit’s influence. The sounds he brings to the album are similar to those on his Strange Cargo releases. This track builds to a slow dance groove, while the lyrics reflect on how easy it is to find everything but love. The song has great builds and drop-outs, builds to an exciting climax, and is a great taste of what’s to come.

The title track, “Ray of Light”, put trance into the pop. The track is upbeat trance, but with an added pop twist. Madonna creates a verse-chorus structure that adds some motion to the music, and also makes it very accessible, without compromising the dance/trance aesthetic. The lyrics take off from the trippy music:

“Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder
Do my tears of mourning sink beneath the sun
She’s got herself a universe gone quickly
For the call of thunder threatens everyone

And I feel like I just got home
And I feel
And I feel like I just got home
And I feel”

“Skin” is another trip to the trance world. This has a darker sound than “Ray of Light”, but continues her pop twist of electronica. “Nothing Really Matters” is one of the weaker cuts – there’s much less of an electronica influence. This cut has trite lyrcs “Nothing really matters…love is all you need”. If the music were better on this track, the words might have sounded profound, but over music that rehashes her 80’s hits, it sounds fairly insipid.

Fortunately, the next track “Sky Fits Heaven”, jump back into trance territory. This track is interesting in the way that the versus sound very much trance/dance, but the choruses sound very pop. It’s almost like Madonna and Orbit traded off writing the music for the verses and the chorus.

“Shanti/Ashtangi” is one of the trippiest cuts on the track. Orbit lays down some distorted beats, and throwns in an “Indian” through the use of samples and tabla percussion. Madonna’s lyrics are daring for a mainstream dance artists – they’re religious, and aren’t even in English:

“Vunde gurunam caranaravinde
Sandarsita svatma sukhavabodhe
Nihsreyase jangalikayamane
Sansara halahala moha santyai
Hala hala
Ahahu purusakaram sankha cakrasi
Ahahu purusakaram sankha cakrasi
Dharinam dharinam sahasra sirasam
Dharinam dharinam sahasra sirasam
Vande

(Translation:
I worship the gurus’ lotus feet
Awakening the happiness of the self revealed
Beyond comparison, working like the jungle physician
To pacify loss of consciousness from the poison of existence
In the form of a man up to the shoulders
Holding a conch, discus and sword
Thousand headed, white
I bow respectfully
Peace”

“Shanti/Ashtangi” manages to be trippy, danceworthy, and spiritual at the same time.

The pace lags a little towards the end of the album. A couple of weaker tracks, “The Power of Goodbye”, and “To Have and Not to Hold”, never really take off. Madonna closes off Ray of Light with “Mer Girl”, a slow, abstract tune that really shows Orbit’s influence. This cut is daring and makes no accomodations to pop.

If there’s a real criticism to be made of this CD, it’s the lyrics. Madonna’s strongest at songs that are straightforward lyrically, or at the sex-charged dance tunes that she’s best known for. Songs like “Candy Perfume Girl” sound interesting, but may lead to a little head-scratching if you think about them too much.

Madonna’s singing on Ray of Light is strong. The CD comes after her work on Evita, and the voice training she did for that movie seems to have paid off. Her vocals are strong and expressive, throughout. Orbit seems to have been inspired to do some of his best work, and definitely left his mark. Together, they made Ray of Light one of the strongest pop electronica albums yet.