The first studio album for Madonna after the Immaculate Collection greatest hits album wrapped up her first era was Erotica in 1992. For this album, Madonna worked with Shep Pettibone on a set of songs that was released at the same time as her infamous Sex book. The title track was the first single released. More explicit than past recordings, the club beat and catchy chorus took the song to #3 in the US. For “Deeper and Deeper”, a disco house vibe is worked into her sound with a couple of lines from her song “Vogue”. The song has references to Mommy and Daddy with a story of a deeper sexual awakening. The memorable 70s inspired video helped push the track into the top 10 and is one of her best tracks of the 90s.
The album is front loaded with singles. Her remake of the Peggy Lee classic “Fever” fails to ignite while “Bye Bye Baby” has a slight Everly Brothers feel to the chorus on a single released outside of the US. “Bad girl drunk by six/kissing someone else’s lips” on “Bad Girl” sees the protagonist torpedoing yet another relationship. Other tracks feel like rehashes of what has come before. “Where Life Begins” is filled with terrible sexual double entendres and covers similar territory as “Erotica” but not nearly as well. Worse is the studio joke song “Did You Do It” that has the beat from an earlier track with Andre Betts freestyling about whether he’s slept with Madonna. It’s atrocious.
Erotica is tailor made for the burgeoning CD era. The beats are digitally crisp and the running time comes in at 75 minutes, about 35 minutes longer than most of her previous albums. The second half of the album features the stellar ballad “Rain” that has a warmer feel than what came before it and the album closes with the minimal hip hop beats of “Secret Garden”. With the extended running time, Erotica simply does not have enough good songs to make listening all the way worthwhile. But with the digital age, also came the skip button that comes in handy when listening to Madonna’s first album of the 90s.
7.5/10
The Light Appears 