 Bedtime Stories received generally positive reviews from music critics. J. Randy Taraborrelli, author of Madonna: An Intimate Biography, praised the album for being "considerably more tame in tone and image than [Erotica's] ethereal sounding, sexually explicit" content. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album four out of five stars, claiming that it is a "warm album" and that it "offers her most humane and open music". Jim Farber from Entertainment Weekly gave the album a positive review as well, giving it a B + grade, and writing that "the new tracks work less as individual songs than as a sustained mood" and that Madonna "still has something to reveal". Barbara O'Dair of Rolling Stone also gave the album a three-and-a-half stars out of five, writing that "Madonna has come up with awfully compelling sounds". Billboard, while giving the album a positive review, commented that it "sticks to a pop recipe that yields hits galore, with little excess baggage". In 2015, Billboard ranked it as Madonna's sixth best album; "while not as hardcore as 1992's Erotica, Bedtime captured Madonna in transition, swiveling away from explicit sexuality and relying on R & B and balladry before she dove headfirst into dance music four years later. Songs like 'Human Nature', 'Secret' and 'I'd Rather Be Your Lover 'proved more compelling than most of the New Jack music being released in the mid-90s, and' Take a Bow 'added a classic slow jam to Madge's canon". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine gave Bedtime Stories a positive review and four out of five stars, writing that it is "a fluffy-pillowed concept album that unfolds like a musical fairy tale".
