Melody A.M. is the debut studio album by Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp, released on 13 September 2001 by Wall of Sound. The album reached number one in the Norwegian Albums chart. In the UK, it reached number nine in the country's Album chart, and topped both the Dance Albums and the Independent Albums charts. As of 2005, the album had sold 750,000 copies worldwide,
Composition
Jon Setzen of the San Francisco Chronicle describes the album as "an across-the-board mix of bleepy synths, crunch beats and ambient, dreamy vocals, with even a bit disco mixed in at times". Nick DeCicco of Daily Republic also compared the record to the works of Air, Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and Moby. The album features vocals by Anneli Drecker and Erlend Øye.
The first track "So Easy", described as "eerie", The next track "She's So", a track with "mournful saxophone and arcing synths to recall the dated tones of Tangerine Dream", "places the swooning moogs and strings of Air" with an "otherworldliness" texture "reminiscent of Vangelis' soundtrack to Blade Runner." The album closes with "40 Years Back/Come", a track with an "'80s sense of artificial ethereality" and "spindly, etiolated synth lines around rasping, squelchy beats before closing with warm fretless bass."
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| rev3score = B
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| rev5score = 5/5
| rev6 = NME
| rev6score = 8/10
| rev7 = Pitchfork
| rev7score = 7.8/10
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Melody A.M. was met with universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 81, based on 21 reviews. Writing for Launch, Ken Micallef wrote that "Röyksopp spins ambient trip hop into bedazzled and beautiful winter Muzak." The album "settles into a stream of pastoral, boutique techno that’s both soothing and derivative", according to David Browne of Entertainment Weekly. It is also listed in a similar selection, called 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, in a series of books by Quintessence Editions. On 24 November 2009, Melody A.M. was named the best Norwegian album of the 2000s decade by the Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang.