In 2000 Madonna released the album Music. A bona fide commercial and critical hit, it saw Madonna abandon her earlier sexual and religious themes for throwaway lyrics and the 'party' spirit of dance, pop and techno. Music was produced partly by Orbit and partly by French techno musician Mirwais Ahmadzai. It spawned her 12th number one single 'Music', plus the hits 'Don't Tell Me' and 'What It Feels Like For A Girl'. The latter was accompanied by a striking music video directed by Madonna's then boyfriend, film director Guy Ritchie.
In it Madonna robs an Automatic Teller Machine, runs over several innocent bystanders, blows up a gas station and eventually commits suicide by driving into a lamppost. The video was meant to showcase the fact that when men in film commit violent acts it is accepted, but when women do it just as mercilessly, it is shunned. Her point was arguably confirmed when the video was banned by MTV. Music was notable for another revamping of Madonna's image, this time as a cross between a disco-loving party girl and a rustic cowgirl. It started yet another fashion trend, with pink cowboy hats adorned by tiaras cropping up on high streets and catwalks around the world.
On 22 December 2000 Madonna married director Guy Ritchie at Skibo Castle in Scotland. She released her second Greatest Hits album, GHV2, in 2001; unlike her previous greatest hits compilation, GHV2 featured a selection of her hits from the 1992–2001 period, but did not contain any new songs. Without a single to promote the album, Madonna decided to release a single and video entitled the 'Thunderpuss GHV2 Megamix'. While the medley earned relatively subdued radio coverage, the innovative video was a modest success on MTV, MTV2, and VH1. In June 2001, she appeared in Star, a short film directed for BMW by Guy Ritchie, and then began working on a remake of the classic film Swept Away, the story of a wealthy socialite who, after a shipwreck, is trapped on a deserted island with a poor male servant. The film, released in 2002, was critically panned and went on to become yet another in a string of acting flops.
Die Another Day
In 2002 Madonna continued to make music ('Die Another Day' for the James Bond film of the same name, in which she had a cameo as Verity, a fencing instructor), and to act. Incidentally, Madonna seemed to have settled into the role of an Earth Warrior/Mother (she gave birth to her second child, a son — Rocco — in the same year), spiritualist and elder 'stateswoman' of pop. Apparently content with her second marriage, her career, although only a shadow of what it was in the mid 1980s, continued to keep her in the limelight.