0602577582714. Pre-Owned: Good condition. CD. Madame X is the rare album from a veteran artist that puts earlier records in a different light. Ever since the 1980s the conventional wisdom about Madonna claimed she brought trends from the musical underground for the purpose of pop hits but Madame X -- a defiantly dense album that has little to do with pop at least in the standard American sense -- emphasizes the artistic instincts behind these moves. The shift in perception stems from Madonna embracing a world outside of the United States. While she s been an international superstar since the dawn of her career Madonna relocated to Lisbon Portugal in 2017 a move that occurred two years after Rebel Heart -- an ambitious record balanced between revivals of old styles and new sounds -- failed to burn up any Billboard chart outside of Dance singles. These two developments fuel Madame X an album that treats America as a secondary concern at best. Madonna may address the political and social unrest that s swept across the globe during the latter years of the 2010s but her commentary is purposely broad. Perhaps Madonna errs on the side of being a little bit too broad -- on Killers Who Are Partying she paints herself as a martyr for every oppressed voice in the world -- yet this instinct to look outside of her experience leads her to ground Madame X in various strains of Latinx sounds trap and art-pop music that not only doesn t sound much like the American pop charts in 2019 but requires focused attention in a manner that makes the songs not especially friendly to playlisting. Madame X has its share of colorful neo-disco numbers and shimmering chill-out tracks but they re painted in dark hues and they re surrounded by songs so closely cloistered they can play like mini-suites. Case in point is Dark Ballet an ominous number that descends into a sinister robotic rendition of Tchaikovsky s Dance of the Reed Flutes section from The Nutcracker -- an allusion that recalls not the future but the dystopian horror show of A Clockwork Orange. Such darkness hangs heavy over Madame X surfacing fiercely in the clenched-mouth phrasing on God Control but present even on the bobbing reggae of Future. The murk does lift on occasion -- Come Alive gains levity from its clustered polyrhythms -- but the somber tenor when combined with fearless exploration does mean Madame X can be demanding listening. The rhythms are immediate but the songs aren t nor are the opaque productions. While this thick heady confluence of cultures and sounds may demand concentration Madame X not only amply rewards such close listening but its daring embrace of the world outside the U.S. underscores how Madonna has been an advocate and ally for left-of-mainstream sounds and ideas throughout her career. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Rovi