Ray of Light

For a long time, I considered Madonna to be the most overrated pop artist on the scene. A thoroughly mediocre singer producing hyper-commercial music, usually with extremely daft lyrics, all tied up in a massive image and marketing campaign. Much like David Bowie, Madonna has created so many personas that it’s impossible to say which one is the ‘authentic’ Madonna. Presumably, there is no such thing as ‘authentic’ music. Madonna – and this is something I’ve learnt to ackowledge in recent years – has long set trends and, in doing so, pushed pop music in ever-changing directions, always striving to be ‘new’ and, in some way, ‘sensational’. The Madonna phenomenon has always had a strong visual and psychological element, and for a long time her personas also reflected the prevailing zeitgeist.

In the late 1990s, trip-hop and electronic music were all the rage. Acts such as Portishead, Massive Attack, Björk and Radiohead dominated pop music with a surprisingly uncommercial sound. William Orbit was a leading producer of the era who epitomised this new sound. And it was precisely this Orbit who, as producer and co-writer alongside Madonna, crafted the sound of *Ray of Light*. Musically, this was a quantum leap for Madonna, who had previously tended to operate in shallow, crowd-pleasing territory. Suddenly she sounded mature, rhythmically structured and excitingly modernist (lyrically, however, Madonna largely stuck to her mediocre pop lyrics or grand ambiguity). “Ray of Light” is by far Madonna’s best album, perhaps because it doesn’t sound like Madonna at all, but rather like an album by a sort of ‘US-American Björk’ If you ignore the thin lyrics about heartbreak and the joys of motherhood, “Ray of Light” is still a pretty good album that’s worth listening to every now and then. Not truly avant-garde, but a very successful contribution to a fascinating phase in pop music (which was soon to be superseded by boy bands and girl groups).

Drowned World - Substitute For Love - 67
Swim - 61
Ray Of Light - 64
Candy Perfume Girl - 51
Skin - 48
Nothing Really Matters - 54
Sky Fits Heaven - 55
Shanti / Ashtangi - 31
Frozen - 50
The Power Of Good-Bye - 47
To Have And Not To Hold - 52
Little Star - 42
Mer Girl - 49

Ray Of Light - 47

I'm surprised Madonna put out an album that leant so much into the electronic genre, with down-tempo and trip-hop elements. I guess that speaks to her ability to stay relevant and appeal to audiences across multiple decades, and that should be applauded.

I did enjoy this, but I can't say I was really massively taken with it. I like the songs in general, appreciate the production and approach, and had a perfectly nice time listening to it overall. It didn't really achieve much more than that for me though.

A solid 3/5.

Jedinica iz principa. // Bila bi jedva dvica jer produkcija grmi a ostalo je katastrofa, niti muzikalno niti zanimljivo niti išta drugo pozitivno.

I can see why this was once revolutionary. The problem with being a top-notch pioneer in the 90's means what you've done then is now overdone.

I so admire Madonna for the roads she paved, and "Ray of Light" is one of her most significant contributions to pop.

The star of the album (other than the Queen of Pop herself) is the complex production and experimental choices made by Madonna and William Orbit. Just listen to “Drowned World / Substitute for Love” and notice the lush, intricate orchestration with Madonna’s lovely vocal performance nestled delicately within the mix. She sounds great throughout the album, and the songs are enhanced by all the imaginative choices they've made.

#2 from Madonna for me, the other was that god awful dance pop album she released right after this one. That one is one of the worst albums I've ever heard. This one? It's better, I guess? It's not great. I would imagine that Like A Virgin or Like a Prayer (or both) have to be on this list, right? I don't know, I feel like once Madonna got out of the 80s or early 90s she kind of just started to blend in with everyone else rather than stand out. She does have a great voice, great presence, but this album is just so mediocre. I feel like her creativity just sort of plateaued after the early 90s and she didn't really know what to do anymore to stay relevant. I remember when this came out the title track was everywhere and I even thought it was pretty trash back then. I would totally feel let down if I had grown up hearing her name but had never heard a Madonna album before and then listened to this. 2.5/5 and rounding down.

Madomma

shanti is a banger

Classic Madonna cultural appropriation. Love. It.
Holy fuck I forgot about Frozen. What a gem.

Pretty nice stuff.

Low 4/5.

I am now the age Madonna was when she made this, and that feels kinda wild. I still remember when the "Ray Of Light" and "Frozen" music videos were crushing on TRL, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Based on "Ray Of Light", I went into this expecting a very upbeat and dancey record and was surprised by how much it isn't really that. It's much more ambient and downtempo than I would have guessed so, in hindsight, "Frozen" was probably the more accurate indicator of what this album would be like. Whoops.

This list has given me a sampling of where electronic music was in the 90s, but prior to that I might not have considered how much this really was a crossover record in 1998. I know she wasn't the first woman to sing over electronic music (by 1998 we had Massive Attack, Portishead, and plenty others) but this wasn't a new act trying to break-through, it was Madonna - the icon - testing the fences from the inside. They didn't hold.

I love that the album whose title evokes images of sunshine ends with:

"I ran to the forest, I ran to the trees
I ran and I ran, I was looking for me
I ran to the lakes, and up to the hill
I ran and I ran, I'm looking there still

And I smelled her burning flesh
Her rotting bones
Her decay
I ran and I ran
I'm still running away"

Wasn't for me.

eh. neosporno lijepa pjeva i sve to, a album je čak stislki dosta rasnovrstan. ali sve u svemu bezveze i predugo; vjerujem da madona ima utjecajnijih stvari pa ne razumijem zašto je ovo na popisu

This album is at it's best when it's at it's most trip-hop, such as on Swim and Nothing Really Matters (Basically, when the album has a decent pulse).
A lot of this is though is pretty boring, repetitive EDM that, while solid, isn't doing much for me. Especially on tracks like The Power of Good-Bye.

And then you have a few stinkers like Shanti-Ashtangi that just sound corny coming from Madonna. But I can definitely hear the influence this album has, particularly on artists like Utada Hikaru, although Utada, in my opinion, did it better. Definitely has bangers on her albums whereas there's nothing particularly standing out as a heavy hitting, catchy song on Ray of Light.

Album could have used some paring down as well. At over an hour long, it overstays it's welcome, especially with the repetitive music.

This album is a little too obvious in its efforts to capture the zeitgeist of the late nineties, but mostly this is a highly diverse and well-performed album, spanning everything from trip-hop, to pop, to even some hard-rock riffing. Also, Madonna's voice sounds fantastic here. Unfortunately, there are a string of very poor, slow-moving, hackneyed, melodramatic songs tacked on at the end (the final five tracks starting with Frozen). Not coincidently, the album is just about the combined length of these songs too long. Without them you have a snappy, 8 song, 40 minute album that easily gets five stars. Still, the overall experience was enjoyable.

3.0/5.0: Good

there were some really good tracks on here but unfortunately there was also some really awful tracks as well. there is actually a decent bit of variation on here but not enough to warrant the runtime.

Absolute banger of the music TV era

This is a pretty good electropop album though nowhere near the fantastic joy of her 80s records. “Frozen” is a jam though.

Of all of the albums released in 1998 this one sounds the most like 1998.