Day 241: Madonna – Ray of Light
I wanted to go for a pop classic today, plus Madonna is doing a comeback and I’ve barely listened to anything more than the hits since I was a child, so it was time to listen to Ray of Light. As a pop superfan, it’s probably a bit criminal that Madonna is a leading lady of pop who I listen to probably the least, it’s time to see if that’s something I’d like to change.
Album cover courtesy of Maverick Records
Ray of Light was released in 1998 as Madonna’s comeback album after she took some time to film Evita and have her daughter Lourdes. It had been four years since her previous album Bedside Stories, which had somewhat limited success – the less sexual and more emotional album was a part of her attempt to change her image after releasing Erotica and her semi-controversial sex book, along with her infamous David Letterman appearance where she swore a record amount of time and asked him to sniff her underwear. I’m starting to think we’ve all gotten a whole lot more prudish. Imagine if Sabrina Carpenter did that, they’d burn her at the stake.
Ray of Light represented another pivot for Madonna, this time into electronic pop music with a range of inspiration and themes: much of the album consists of almost trip hop-sounding gentle electronica, along with a range of influences from genres like jungle, new age and ambient, all accompanied by her gorgeous voice. It’s also a highly spiritual album, as Madonna had discovered Kabbalah, and she said that she’d become increasingly aware of the impact that music has on society, she felt “a sense of responsibility because my consciousness has been raised and I would like it impart the wisdom I have to others without being corny or preachy.”
The album also goes deep into her personal life, containing a break up song (“The Power of Good-Bye”), a song about her mother’s death (“Mer Girl”) and a song for her daughter (“Little Star”). Aside from a select few of the cornier lines in there, there’s something masterful about how she’s managed to make an album that’s so wide-reaching, so universally appealing and yet so raw and personal. It’s definitely the sort of pop music that goes beyond what the parameters of the genre are supposed to be, surpassing it and landing somewhere else. I guess these days we’d class it as art pop.
A classic, and with good reason. I think my lukewarm reaction to Madonna came from hearing so much of her when I was watching MTV as a kid, but I was too young to appreciate it. There’s a mixture of superficiality and depth that’s unparalleled even today, and the production is so good, you can feel the songs in every limb. I am sorry Madonna, I wasn’t familiar with your game. 9.5/10.