When Madonna re-teamed with “Ray of Light” director Jonas Åkerlund to create the concept behind the 2000 video for “Music,” the, as far as the music industry (and most everyone else) was concerned, “day old bread” singer (and that was fucking then, when she was just forty-two) couldn’t have possibly topped the work she did with Åkerlund on the aforementioned video. Perhaps forgetting who they were dealing with, Madonna–pregnant at the time with Rocco Ritchie no less–showed the world that she might have become a mother, but she was still (as the shirt she wore during the 2001 Drowned World Tour touted) a motherfucker. And, as such, she prefers to ride around in a flashy gold limo driven by then still unrecognizable to the masses Ali G (a.k.a. Sacha Baron Cohen).
As she hands him a gold CD (it was 2000, if you’ll remember), the now illustrious intro, “Hey Mr. DJ, put a record on. I wanna dance with my baby,” pervades the car as an unconvinced Ali G serves as an unwilling auditory audience. The triple split screens of the limo’s initial rolling through the streets set the tone for the 70s-inspired motif and according font title of *MUSIC* to make its way onto the screen before Madonna and her posse of two, longtime friend Debi Mazar and former backup singer Niki Harris, start to paint us the tale of how music makes the people come together in between taking sips of champagne and flashing over the top jewelry.
Stemware and star shaped graphics intro and outro various scenes of decadence in the car before they make their way to a club where Ali G also happens to be DJing (the man is clearly struggling financially in this video). And as the trio enjoys a few drinks there, they pick up some other revelers to join them on the journey to their next destination, at which time the camera zooms in on the mini TV in the limo where the much praised animation sequence begins–innovated for the sole purpose of Madonna’s lack of usual mobility and agility during pregnancy. And as she takes on a gaggle of thugs in an alley that think they can fuck with her and her crew, she also starts to kick over various signs featuring the titles of past songs she has likely tired of being known for (that’s Madonna, always wanting people to stay current with what she’s doing and not get caught up in the nostalgia of the past) before finally shoving an animated Ali G aside to take over the DJ booth before coming back down to earth to re-encounter the live action Madonna.
It is this version that then rolls up to the strip club where the sort of “tomfoolery” generally expected from a rambunctious group of men who have decided to go hog wild on a a business trip or bachelor party together is engaged in. As Madonna laughingly places dollar bills into G-strings, one gets the sense that she is almost mocking the accepted behavior of men by taking her own version of what they do to the nth degree–except in her case, it isn’t grotesque to observe.
And, on that note, she brings the entire barely dressed strip club back to the car, where persistent debauchery and carousal ensues. The car overflowing with flesh, she fist bumps Niki as a scantily clad woman enjoys herself between them, giving one the sense that this is precisely what the oft derogatorily used term “girls’ night” ought to entail. Because, as time has showed us again and again, anything a man can do, a woman so often does better and with more feeling. Except, of course, sexual assault and random mass shootings.
