Ray of Light is Madonna's seventh studio album that was released on February 22, 1998 by Maverick Records.
Tracklisting
- Drowned World/Substitute For Love 5:09
- Swim 5:00
- Ray Of Light 5:21
- Candy Perfume Girl 4:34
- Skin 6:22
- Nothing Really Matters 4:27
- Sky Fits Heaven 4:48
- Shanti/Ashtangi 4:29
- Frozen 6:12
- The Power Of Good-Bye 4:10
- To Have And Not To Hold 5:23
- Little Star 5:18
- Mer Girl 5:32
Album Background
Following the release of her compliation album, "Something to Remember" in 1995, Madonna began taking vocal lessons to prepare for her role in the 1996 film "Evita." During 1996, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Lourdes. These events inspired a period of introspection.
According to Madonna in Q Magazine in 2002: "That was a big catalyst for me. It took me on a search for answers to questions I'd never asked myself before."
During the same period, she embraced Kabbalah and started studying Hinduism and yoga, all of which helped her "step outside [myself] and see the world from a different perspective."
Madonna felt that there was a "whole piece" of her voice left unused, which she decided to utilize for the album.
By May of 1997, Madonna had started writing songs for the album. She began collaborating with Babyface, who had first worked with her on her previous album "Bedtime Stories." They wrote a couple of songs together before Madonna decided the collaborations were not going in the musical direction she wanted for the album.
According to Babyface, the songs "had a 'Take a Bow-ish' kind of vibe, and Madonna didn't want, or need, to repeat herself."
After abandoning the songs she had written with Babyface, Madonna turned to musician Rick Nowels, who had previously co-written songs with Stevie Nicks and Celine Dion.
The collaboration produced seven songs in 9 days, but those songs also did not display the album's future electronic musical direction. Three of the songs: "The Power of Good-Bye", "To Have and Not to Hold" and "Little Star" appear on the album.
Madonna then began writing songs with Leonard (who had produced many songs for her in the late '80s).
Unlike her previous albums, Leonard's songwriting collaborations were accompanied by very little studio input. Madonna believed that Leonard's production "would have lent the songs more of a Peter Gabriel vibe", a sound that she did not want for the album.
Guy Oseary (the chairman of Maverick Records) then phoned British electronic musician William Orbit, and suggested that he send some songs to Madonna.
Orbit sent a 13-track digital audio tape to Madonna.
Madonna said: "I was a huge fan of William's earlier records, Strange Cargo 1 and 2 and all that. I also loved all the remixes he did for me and I was interested in fusing a kind of futuristic sound but also using lots of Indian and Moroccan influences and things like that, and I wanted it to sound old and new at the same time."
Recording
Composition
Album Title & Artwork
Chart Performance
In the United States, "Ray of Light" debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 with 370,000 copies sold, setting the record for the biggest first-week sales by a female artist in Nielsen SoundScan era.
During the second week, the album sold 225,000 copies and was still kept off the top spot by the soundtrack.
On March 16, 2000, "Ray Of Light" was certified four times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipments of four million units of the album. Madonna became the first female artist to have seven multi-platinum studio albums by RIAA.
As of December 2016, the album had sold 3.891 million copies in the United States and over 16 million copies worldwide.
Critical Reception
"Ray of Light" received widespread acclaim from music critics.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic called it Madonna's "most adventurous record" and her "most mature and restrained album." In his review, he gave the album four and a half out of five stars.
Paul Verna from Billboard commented: "Easily her most mature and personal work to date, Ray of Light finds Madonna weaving lyrics with the painstaking intimacy of diary entries and wrapping them in hymn-like melodies and instrumentation swathed in lush, melancholy ambience—with forays into classic house, trance, and even guitar pop. Of course, she balances the set's serious tone with chewy pop nuggets that allow her to flex her immeasurably widened vocal range to fine effect."
He finished the review by calling the album "a deliciously adventurous, ultimately victorious effort from one of pop music's most compelling performers."
Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine described the album as "one of the great pop masterpieces of the '90s" and stated that: "Its lyrics are uncomplicated but its statement is grand" and "Madonna hasn't been this emotionally candid since Like a Prayer".
Sheffield's review for Rolling Stone called the album "brilliant", but was critical of Orbit's production, saying that he doesn't know enough tricks to produce a whole album, and so becomes repetitive.
David Browne of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "For all her grapplings with self-enlightenment, Madonna seems more relaxed and less contrived than she's been in years, from her new Italian earth-mother makeover to, especially, her music. Ray of Light is truly like a prayer, and you know she'll take you there."
Roni Sarig, in a review for City Pages, was most impressed by Madonna's vocal range, depth, and clarity and called it "her richest, most accomplished record yet."
Music critic Robert Hilburn from Los Angeles Times wrote, "One reason why her new Ray of Light is the most satisfying album of her career is that it reflects the soul-searching of a woman who is at a point in her life where she can look at herself with surprising candor and perspective."
Writing for Melody Maker in February 1998, Mark Roland drew comparisons with the music of St Etienne and Björk's Homogenic album, highlighting the album lack of cynicism as its most positive aspect: "It's not an album turned on the lathe of cynical pop manipulation, rather it's been squished out of a lump of clay on a foot-powered wheel. Lovingly teased into life, Ray of Light is like the ugly mug that doesn't match but is all the more special because of it."
Joan Anderman from The Boston Globe said that "Ray of Light" is a remarkable album. He described it as a deeply spiritual dance record, ecstatically textured, a serious cycle of songs that goes a long way toward liberating Madonna from a career built on scavenged images and cultivated identities.
Robert Christgau was less impressed in Playboy, deeming Ray of Light a "great-sounding," but average record because of enlightenment themes that always yield awkward results for pop entertainers, although he praised sensual songs such as "Skin" and "Candy Perfume Girl."