I LOVE Madonna (part 6 section f)

Number 2: Ray of Light - released March 2nd 1998.

By the time 1998 came around, it has been a long time since we had gotten a full-length studio album from Madonna. 1994's Bedtime Stories was her last effort plus a greatest ballads package. Since then Madonna went to vocal training to play Eva Peron in Evita, and won a Golden Globe for her efforts,
and more importantly, she gave birth to her daughter and discovered Kabbalah and yoga.
With her new found spirituality and love and care for her young child, Madonna began to shift. She began to look inward, examining not only her self, but her fame and the world around her. She had done this many times before, as early as 1986's True Blue in fact, but this was the first time she sought out to make a truly coherent album both with the lyrics, and it's musical structure.
To help her out with her song writing she enlisted the help of long term collaborator Patrick Leonard, and she paired up with William Orbit for production duties. Madonna fans will know that this was not the first time Madonna had worked with Orbit, as he had done remixing duties on 'Justify My Love', 'Erotica' and 'Bedtime Story'. This was the first time, however, that they had collaborated on original material.

Water was a huge inspiration with this new album as a metaphor for cleansing and life, eclipsing Madonna’s own spiritual re-birth. This is apparent with the first song in which we are introduced, right away, to this new sounding Madonna. ‘Drowned World/Substitute for Love’ takes it’s title from J. G. Ballard’s apocalyptic novel and lyrically ponders the price of fame “I got exactly what I asked for/Wanted it so badly/Running, rushing back for more/I suffered fools so gladly." Orbit’s ambient production reminds of an electronic stream flowing along towards rapids as the pace builds and her voice transforms from crystal clear, and light as air to full throated power as she sings “No one-night stand, no far-off land, no fire that I can spark.” A meditative opening to rival that of it's bookend.
When I was living in Bermuda one of my very favourite things to do was to swim out to the reefs and then dive down as deep as I could. Using a rock shelf to hold me down I would sit and find such comfort in the silence of the ocean and escape the noise of the surface. In ‘Swim’ Madonna explores this idea, but sings of the burden of the sins of the world and perhaps herself “I'm gonna carry this train off the track/I'm gonna swim to the ocean floor”. The electronic sound-scape inter-spliced with electric guitar aurally replicates the tumultuous ebb and flow of the ocean to great effect, however the lyrics can at times be too heavy handed and dark to truly make you think outside of the world she describes.

‘Ray of Light’ begins with a lovely melody strummed on guitar, but before you settle in for another mid tempo ballad you are launched full throttle into the light speed celebration. When she sings “Quicker than a ray of light!!” you will almost believe that you can fly. Her vocals scale the tallest building with pure elation as she sings about the speed her daughter is growing, not wanting to let go, but excited about the prospects. Not surprisingly was one of the biggest commercial hits from the album and, over eight years later, has stood the test of time. Surprisingly so has the next track. At first I was very hesitant upon the first listen, but ‘Candy Perfume Girl’ has grown to be one of my essential tracks. With it’s hard guitar and bubbling throbbing sexual beats reminiscent of Portishead, to the provocatively surreal lyrics, “Moist, warm desire/Fly to me,” the song evokes raw, dark imagery. My only complaint is that pre Evita she had a raw voice that crackled and strained with passion, a voice that would have perfectly suited this.
The next three tracks has Madonna moving more to the dance floor with a darker, more underground trance sound than her previous club friendly offerings. ‘Skin’ with its random percussion and come hither vocals would had been a massive D.J. track had it been released. The lighter, radio friendly ‘Nothing Really Matters’ sneaks up with a slow cosmic intro before cementing itself in your memory with it’s catchy chorus and foot stomping beats. The last of the big dance numbers is the stonking powerhouse ‘Sky Fits Heaven’. With its effervescent electronical rumblings of the dark hard house meats trance beats to the sing-a-long chorus (“Travelling down this road/Watching the signs as I go/I think I’ll follow the sun/Isn’t everyone?”) Madonna has rarely sounded more serious about making you dance.
Following this small dance-a-thon, the dark beats continue this time interspersed with a Eastern melody with Madonna grinding down the vibe on the sung in Sanskrit track ‘Shanti-Ashtangi”. Inspired by her yoga practice and her growing interest in Kabbalah Madonna reaches in and brings the sexiness out.

The first single released from the album was ‘Frozen’. Madonna, Leonard and Orbit crafted the comeback song to get your attention. Its lyrics are uncomplicated but its statement powerful: "You only see what your eyes want to see/How can life be what you want it to be?" The song's bewitching melody and cinematic string arrangement is pumped up with Orbit's tingling drums and pulsating electronic chirps The sweeping strings, yet mellow synths of ‘Power of Goodbye’ just sends chills down my spine.. Madonna’s voice almost sounds like she is choking as she sings the sorrow filled lyrics “Your heart is not open/So I must go.’
‘To Have And Not To Hold’ is the one place Madonna and Orbit stumble. As the album approaches this place, you begin to wonder if perhaps the magic has run out on this dynamic team. The song is so quiet and ambient that it totally gets lost. the silent subtle production does nothing to enhance the heartbreaking lyrics "My heart is in your hand/And yet you never stand/Close enough for me to have my way."
Her ode to her daughter ‘Little Star’ is a sweet sentiment with a lovely lullaby sound and sweet words of devotion over a drum and base inspired beat. One however has to wonder, with the lyrics “Never forget who you are Little Star”, if the daughter of one of the most famous and sexually provocative celebrities of recent times will spend her life trying to do just that.

Having a child can bring immeasurable joy and, to some, a deep feeling of sorrow. Madonna lost her mother early on in life, and has been candid about her struggle to find who she is as a women without that matriarchal guidance in her life, especially now that she was a mother herself. She has covered her feelings about her mothers death in song before, but never has she sung about the critical way it has effected her like she does in ‘Mer Girl’. This is probably the best Madonna song you have never heard. It begins with a simple, plodding, funeral march of a chord as she begins to sing “I ran from my house/That cannot contain me.” Lyrically this is Madonna at her most honest, introspective and moving. She famously sung this song out in one take in the studio, and you get goose bumps from the emotional quivers in her breath. Exploring the lost and confused state of a person still in morning she sings “I smelt her burning flesh/Her rotting bones/Her decay. I ran and I ran/I’m still running away.” Filled with truth and pain, this is an emotional haunting closer to one of her best creations.

What Ray of Light did was not only inspire and please her old fans, but also garnered her a whole new slew of them. This was the first time she was taken seriously as an artist by not only the public, but also the music industry. She went on to collect an armful of Grammy awards (she has never previously won or been nominated for one before) and cemented herself as an icon. All of the critical and public respect aside, this was the dawning of a more thoughtful and caring Madonna. Her new incarnation was described as 'Earth Mother' but that was not really true, she had just finally grown up.