Ray of Light is the seventh studio album by American singer and songwriter Madonna. It was released on February 22, 1998, by Maverick Records. A major stylistic and aesthetic departure from her previous works, Ray of Light reflected Madonna's embrace of Kabbalah, study of Hinduism and Buddhism, and daily practice of Ashtanga yoga.
Madonna began developing Ray of Light with producers Babyface and Patrick Leonard following the birth of her first child, Lourdes Leon. After those sessions failed to produce the direction she wanted, Madonna adopted a new musical approach with English producer William Orbit. Its recording process was the longest of Madonna's career and was frequently delayed by problems with Orbit's hardware setup, which repeatedly broke down and required repairs. Ray of Light electronica, trip hop, techno-pop, and new-age production features instrumentation such as dense analog synthesizers and electric guitars. Its introspective themes include fame, spirituality, motherhood, and enlightenment.
Six singles supported the album, with "Frozen" topping the charts of nine countries worldwide, "Ray of Light" becoming Madonna's highest-debuting song on the US Billboard Hot 100, and "The Power of Good-Bye" achieving top-ten chart success throughout Europe. Ray of Light topped the charts in 17 countries and received multi-platinum certifications across the Americas, Europe, and the Asia–Pacific region. Debuting at number two on the US Billboard 200, it yielded the highest first-week sales for a woman at the time. It was further promoted with the Drowned World Tour, her first tour in eight years and the highest-grossing solo tour of 2001. Ray of Light has sold over 16million copies worldwide.
On release, Ray of Light received universal acclaim from music critics, who praised Madonna's musical reinvention, introspective songwriting, and mature vocal performances, as well as Orbit's innovative and cohesive production. The album won four of its six nominations at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Album. Retrospectively, the album has been recognized for popularizing electronica in popular music and reaffirming Madonna's relevance at 39 years old, at a time when the industry was largely dominated by major teen-focused artists. Regarded as a pop music classic, Ray of Light is often called Madonna's magnum opus and is considered one of the greatest albums of all time.
Background Madonna released her sixth studio album, Bedtime Stories, in late 1994. The album adopted a softer musical style and image in an effort to regain public favor following the overwhelmingly negative reactions to the sexually explicit Erotica (1992)—her fifth studio album. Bedtime Stories debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and produced two top-three US singles: "Secret" and "Take a Bow". The latter spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, becoming her longest-running number-one hit. A year after releasing Bedtime Stories, Madonna issued Something to Remember, a compilation album of ballads that sold ten million copies worldwide.
After being cast as Argentine political leader Eva Perón in the musical film Evita in 1996, Madonna began undertaking vocal training and studied Argentina's history and Perón's life. That same year, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Lourdes Leon. In 1997, Madonna began developing an interest in Eastern mysticism, Hinduism, and Kabbalah, introduced to her by close friend and actress Sandra Bernhard. Madonna stated that it "was a big catalyst for [her]" and that it "took [her] on a search for answers to questions [she'd] never asked herself before".
Writing and recording Madonna began recording Ray of Light in June 1997 with producer Babyface, with whom she had previously collaborated on Bedtime Stories. After writing several songs together, she concluded that the material was not aligned with the musical direction she envisioned for the album. According to Babyface, the songs were similar in style to the pop ballad "Take a Bow", and Madonna "didn't want, or need, to repeat herself". After abandoning the songs she had written with Babyface, Madonna collaborated with musician Rick Nowels, who had previously co-written songs for Stevie Nicks and Celine Dion. According to Nowels, early in the process, Madonna appeared to aim for a more commercially-oriented pop sound. She would improvise melodies and record lyrical ideas, while Nowels would compose the accompanying chords. Together, they wrote nine songs in ten days, although the material did not reflect the album's eventual electronic direction. Three of those songs—"The Power of Good-Bye", "To Have and Not to Hold", and "Little Star"—were included on the album.
Madonna next reunited with Patrick Leonard, who had co-written and produced many of her songs in the late 1980s. Unlike their previous collaborations, however, their songwriting involved little studio production, as Madonna felt Leonard's approach would give the material "more of a Peter Gabriel vibe", a sound she did not want for the album. Other people she considered for collaboration included Robert Miles, Trent Reznor, and Nellee Hooper. Maverick Records chairman Guy Oseary then contacted British electronic musician William Orbit, who had previously remixed Madonna's songs "Justify My Love" (1990) and "Erotica" (1992); Oseary asked for the producer to send some songs to Madonna. Orbit responded with a digital audio tape that contained thirteen tracks. She also praised the remixes Orbit had produced for her and was interested in combining "a kind of futuristic sound" with "lots of Indian and Moroccan influences and things like that", wanting to create a record that sounded "old and new at the same time".
Orbit met Madonna at her home in New York City, where she played him the material she had recorded with other producers. The two then booked studio time at the Hit Factory in New York, where they worked on Madonna's vocals. Orbit then returned to England to collect his production equipment. They completed the latter part of the project at Larrabee Studio in North Hollywood, where they worked in what he described as "a more conventional way". Orbit would frequently present Madonna with a tape of musical ideas he had been developing, consisting mainly of eight- or sixteen-bar phrases and stripped-down versions of tracks that would later appear on the album. Madonna listened to Orbit's musical sketches until they inspired lyrics and melodies. Once she had developed a song's direction, she returned to Orbit, and together they expanded the original compositions. The only exception was "Mer Girl", which Madonna recorded largely as presented, completing the vocal in a single take. She also reworked the songs she had written with Leonard alongside Orbit.
The recording of Ray of Light spanned four and a half months, the longest of Madonna's career to that point. For most of it, only three other people were in the studio with her: Orbit, engineer Pat McCarthy, and his assistant engineer, Matt Silva. Orbit recalled that he and Madonna did not follow a "strict method of working", instead changing their approach throughout the sessions, which he believed contributed to the album's "quite varied" sound. The sessions were initially hindered by technical issues, as Orbit preferred using samples and synthesizer sounds instead of live musicians. Frequent computer malfunctions caused delays, with recording having to be postponed until the equipment was repaired. Orbit brought much of his own equipment to the sessions and performed nearly all of the instrumentation himself, including guitar. He later recalled playing for such extended periods in the studio that his fingers bled.
After errors were identified in her pronunciation of the Sanskrit shloka "Yoga Taravali" used in "Shanti/Ashtangi", the BBC arranged for Madonna to receive telephone lessons from Sanskrit scholar Vagish Shastri. She then re-recorded the affected vocals with the corrected pronunciation for the album. Additionally, Orbit revealed that the song "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" retained what was originally intended as a rough demo mix because he and Madonna felt following changes diminished the recording. Aside from the vocals, the songs' overall soundscapes were generated from his Akai S3200 and processed through a tube-based audio compressor. Following the album's release, Orbit mentioned that there was a "whole album's worth" of outtake tracks. He explained that listening to those songs would offer a different perspective on the album as a whole.
Composition Music
Ray of Light marked a departure from the contemporary R&B and pop sound of Bedtime Stories (1994). It embraced an electronica, trip hop, techno-pop, and new-age sound that incorporated elements of house, ambient, drum and bass, rock, new wave, eastern and classical music. Despite these descriptions, Madonna rejected suggestions that Ray of Light was primarily a techno or electronic album, insisting that it was fundamentally a pop record. The album's sound bears similarities to Orbit's background in ambient-oriented mood music. He and Madonna produced the album using live percussion, electric guitars, and analog synthesizers. Critics described the resulting production as "futuristic", "avant-garde", "experimental", and "innovative".
Throughout Ray of Light, electronic elements complement, rather than dominate, the arrangements, as observed by Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone. The title track, "Ray of Light", is the only song that adopts a more overt, high-tempo techno style. Electronic rhythms combined with orchestral textures characterize "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" and "Frozen"; "Skin" and "Nothing Really Matters" feature hardstep beats and an ambient production. "Swim" includes glitch-like textural effects, and "Frozen" employs fluid synthesizer arpeggios. Elements of Latin music are exhibited on "To Have and Not to Hold", while "Shanti/Ashtangi", "Sky Fits Heaven", and "Nothing Really Matters" reflect Madonna's study of Buddhism and Hinduism. Ray of Light first three tracks—"Drowned World/Substitute for Love", "Swim" and "Ray of Light"—share a similar midtempo rhythm, with rock guitar elements reminiscent of Oasis and dense layers of synthesizers.
Compared to her previous albums, Madonna's vocals on Ray of Light display greater range, as well as a fuller timbre. Writing for PopMatters, Peter Piatkowski observed that Madonna sings in a higher register on "Frozen", incorporating subtle Eastern influences into her vocal delivery. Joe Lynch of Billboard wrote that her vocals on the album were more "nuanced and full-bodied", while Stuart Maconie stated in Q that she pitched her vocals "half an octave lower" and sang in a faintly English-inflected accent. Madonna studied with a vocal coach during the filming of Evita and discovered what she described to Spin as "a whole piece of [her] voice [she] wasn't using". She said the voice training "opened [her] up immeasurably" and allowed her to do "things with [her] voice that [she] never thought were possible". She also attributed her year-long yoga practice to helping her voice and influencing her singing.
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