Madonna American Life (Warner) 'Celebrity is bull****. And who knows better than me?' claimed Madge in a recent interview. With such apparently excremental material the font of inspiration for much of this, you can begin to draw conclusions as to what it sounds like. A new Madonna album is always met with salivating anticipation: hers is an extraordinary career where every moment of genius has been met with a moment of inexplicable pap. For every Vogue there's a Hanky Panky, for every Like A Prayer there's an American Pie. Her recent form, especially after the excellent Ray Of Light (1998) and Music (2000), had more people than ever taking her seriously for once. True to form, she's set to reverse the trend with this. The title track squirts and farts with Mirwais Ahmadzai's over-familiar robo-jittering as she expresses her 'extreme point of view'. Which basically boils down to her realisation that money isn't everything (once she's listed everyone on her payroll from her lawyers to her nannies to her gardener) and that, as Hollywood explains, pursuit of fame does not lead to happiness. One fawning lunatic described Mother And Father as 'the most touchingly powerful track on American Life', but with a lyric ('There was a time I had a mother / It was nice') sung like a toddler, it's hard to stomach. There is, however, the odd bright moment. Out of the three songs for husband Guy Ritchie, Love Profusion is as strong as anything she has written. And on an album as profoundly empty as the sense of celebrity it vilifies, that stands out like a pointed bra.