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Ray of Light
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Ray of Light is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on March 3, 1998 by Maverick Records. The RIAA certified it Quadruple Platinum on March 16, 2000, recognizing four million shipments in the United States, making it her fifth best-selling recording there. In 1999, the album received three Grammy Awards, including "Best Pop Vocal Album", and "Best Dance Recording." As of 2009, Ray of Light has sold 17 million copies worldwide. The album was both critically and commercially successful for Madonna.
In 2002, Q Magazine named "Ray of Light" the 2nd Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.
working title for this album was The Drowned World, inspired by the novel by J. G. Ballard.
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Encyclopedia
Ray of Light is the seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on March 3, 1998 by Maverick Records. The RIAA certified it Quadruple Platinum on March 16, 2000, recognizing four million shipments in the United States, making it her fifth best-selling recording there. In 1999, the album received three Grammy Awards, including "Best Pop Vocal Album", and "Best Dance Recording." As of 2009, Ray of Light has sold 17 million copies worldwide. The album was both critically and commercially successful for Madonna.
In 2002, Q Magazine named "Ray of Light" the 2nd Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.
Album history
The working title for this album was The Drowned World, inspired by the novel by J. G. Ballard. It was primarily produced by Madonna, William Orbit, and Patrick Leonard. The album featured a new musical direction for Madonna, as well as personal lyrics about motherhood, fame, and spirituality. Madonna's vocal range was also stronger, because of the voice training she underwent during Evita.
Madonna began writing songs with Leonard in 1997, the first time the two had worked together since "I'll Remember", three years earlier. Unlike her previous albums, Leonard's song writing 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.
Madonna began working on Ray of Light in May 1997, meeting with Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, whom she had previously worked with on her 1994 album Bedtime Stories. The two 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 Edmonds, 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 Edmonds, Madonna turned to musician Rick Nowels, who had previously co-written songs with Stevie Nicks and Celine Dion. The collaboration produced seven songs in three days, but did not display the album's future electronic musical direction. Instead, Madonna took her collaborations with Nowels and Leonard to British electronic music musician William Orbit. Madonna had been a fan of Orbit's work, and loved the "sort of trancy, ambient quality" he gave to the songs he worked on. She began working with Orbit after he had sent her tapes of musical snippets he was working on, which were usually eight or sixteen-bar phrases and stripped down versions of tracks that would later be heard on the album. Madonna would listen to the samples over and over again until she would be inspired to write lyrics. Once she had an idea about the lyrical direction of the song, she would take her ideas back to Orbit, who would expand on his musical ideas.
The album was recorded over four and a half months in Los Angeles, California in 1997, the longest Madonna had ever worked on an album. For most of the recording process, only three other people were in the studio with Madonna: William Orbit, engineer Pat McCarthy, and his assistant engineer, Matt Silva. The recording process was initially plagued with machinery problems, as Orbit preferred to work with samples, synth sounds, and Pro Tools, and not with live musicians. The computers would break down, and recording would have to be delayed until they could be repaired. Orbit recorded the bulk of the album's instrumentation over the four-month period. Orbit recalls playing the guitar and having his fingers bleed during the long hours he spent in the studio. After some errors in her pronunciation of Sanskrit shlokas on Ray of Light, the BBC, London, arranged for her to take telephonic lessons to learn the basic correct pronunciation of Sanskrit words from eminent scholar Dr B P T Vagish Shastri. She then made the necessary pronunciation corrections on the album. When recording came to an end, producer Marius De Vries was brought into the recording process to add some finishing touches to the songs.
Madonna performed "Drowned World", "Ray of Light", "Candy Perfume Girl", "Sky Fits Heaven", "Frozen", and "Mer Girl" on her 2001 Drowned World Tour; "Frozen" on her 2004 Re-Invention World Tour; "Ray of Light" and "Drowned World" on her 2006 Confessions Tour and "Ray of Light" on her 2008 Sticky & Sweet Tour.
Critical response and awards
Upon release, the album received positive responses from international music critics. Slant Magazine described the album as "one of the great pop masterpieces of the '90s...Madonna hasn't been this emotionally candid since Like a Prayer." Roni Sarig, in a review for Amazon.com, stated that Ray of Light "is her richest, most accomplished record yet." He was most impressed by Madonna's vocal range, depth, and clarity which had become stronger since her voice lessons for the film Evita (1996). American entertainment television channel E! mocked the album's lyrical depth but ultimately praised the end result by saying, "Ray of Light is about as deep as a yoga stretch — which makes this load deeper than usual. If it took trendy spiritualism to get Madonna to make a good pop record, more (higher) power to her." E! was also impressed with producer William Orbit's "artful beeps and squawks...crunching guitars" and "dashes of Middle Eastern droning." In the review, Ray of Light was given an A-, one of the channel's highest honours for an album.
Rob Sheffield's review for Rolling Stone was mostly positive, but did point out the weak aspects of the album. Sheffield called the album "brilliant", but was critical of Orbit's production, stating that he "doesn't know enough tricks to fill a whole CD, so he repeats himself something fierce." Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Ray of Light Madonna's "most adventurous record" and her "most mature and restrained album." In his review he gave the album four out of five stars.
In 1999, Ray of Light won three Grammy Awards for "Best Dance Recording", "Best Pop Album", and "Best Recording Package", and was nominated for Record and Album of The Year. In addition, the album's title track won a Grammy for "Best Short Form Music Video." In 2002, VH1 viewers in the United Kingdom voted Ray of Light as the tenth greatest album of all time. That year Rolling Stone readers also voted the album as the twenty-ninth best recording ever. Later, the magazine ranked Ray of Light at #363 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time."
Track listing
| # | Title | Composers | Production credits | Time |
|---|
| 1. | "Drowned World/Substitute for Love" 1 | Madonna, William Orbit, Rod McKuen, Anita Kerr, David Collins | Madonna and William Orbit | 5:09 | | 2. | "Swim" | Madonna, William Orbit | Madonna and William Orbit | 5:00 | | 3. | "Ray of Light" | Madonna, William Orbit, Clive Muldoon, Dave Curtis, Christine Leach | Madonna and William Orbit | 5:20 | | 4. | "Candy Perfume Girl" | Madonna, William Orbit, Susannah Melvoin | Madonna and William Orbit | 4:39 | | 5. | "Skin" | Madonna, Patrick Leonard | Madonna, William Orbit and Marius DeVries | 6:22 | | 6. | "Nothing Really Matters" | Madonna, Patrick Leonard | Madonna, William Orbit and Marius DeVries | 4:27 | | 7. | "Sky Fits Heaven" | Madonna, Patrick Leonard | Madonna, William Orbit and Patrick Leonard | 4:48 | | 8. | "Shanti/Ashtangi" 2 | Madonna, William Orbit | Madonna and William Orbit | 4:29 | | 9. | "Frozen" | Madonna, Patrick Leonard | Madonna, William Orbit and Patrick Leonard | 6:15 | | 10. | "The Power of Good-Bye" | Madonna, Rick Nowels | Madonna, William Orbit and Patrick Leonard | 4:10 | | 11. | "To Have and Not to Hold" | Madonna, Rick Nowels | Madonna, William Orbit and Patrick Leonard | 5:23 | | 12. | "Little Star" | Madonna, Rick Nowels | Madonna and Marius DeVries | 5:19 | | 13. | "Mer Girl" 3 | Madonna, William Orbit | Madonna and William Orbit | 5:32 | | Japanese bonus track |
|---|
| 14. | "Has to Be" 4 | Madonna, William Orbit, Patrick Leonard | Madonna and William Orbit | 5:15 | |
- 1 contains a sample of "Why I Follow The Tigers" performed by the San Sebastian Strings.
- 2 adapted from text by Shankra Charya, taken from the Yoga Taravali. Additional text: Traditional, Translation by Vyass Houston and Eddie Stern.
- 3 contains an interpolation and elements from "Space" performed by Gábor Szabó.
- 4 also available as the B-side to the "Ray of Light" single.
Singles
"Frozen", the lead single from the album, became Madonna's eighth number one single on the UK Singles Chart, and reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100. Co-written by Patrick Leonard, the song featured Madonna's vocals over layers of string arrangements and synthesizers. In 2005, a Belgian court ruled that the opening four-bar theme to the song was plagiarized from the song "Ma vie fout le camp", composed by Salvatore Acquaviva. The ruling forbid the sale of the single and the entire Ray of Light album, as well as other compilations that included the track in Belgium.
The second single, "Ray of Light", based on the track "Sepheryn", written by Clive Maldoon & Dave Curtis, featured a combination of high-energy techno sounds and electric guitar riffs. It debuted at No. 2 in the UK. It reached the top 5 in the U.S., and was certified Gold in both countries. The song was also a dance hit in the U.S., remaining at number one for four weeks, and became the top Hot Dance Club Play single of 1998. The song was nominated for "Record of the Year" at the 1999 Grammy Awards, but lost to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On."
"Drowned World/Substitute for Love" became the third release outside of North America, and was a top-ten hit in the UK. The music video, directed by Walter Stern, caused controversy due to scenes that featured Madonna being chased by paparazzi on motor-bikes, a scenario similar to Princess Diana's death in 1997.
The fourth single, "The Power of Good-Bye", a ballad reflecting on a painful breakup, became a modest chart success, peaking at number six in the UK, and number eleven in the U.S. It was released in the UK with "Little Star", a song about Madonna's daughter, as an AA side.
"Nothing Really Matters", the fifth and final single release, became a top-ten hit in the UK, reaching number seven. In the U.S., however, the song became Madonna's lowest charting single on the Hot 100, although it reached number one on the Hot Dance Club Play chart. Its music video, directed by Johan Renck, was inspired by Arthur Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha, and featured Madonna dressed as a geisha.
The last three music videos were filmed with the lip-synched audio at 2x slower-2x faster than the original audio and were later edited to make the mouthing of the words the same as the original song, which would then give it the slow-motion or fast-motion effects.
Chart performance
Ray of Light debuted at number two on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 albums chart, where it sold 371,000 copies in its first week. It was kept from the top spot by the soundtrack to the popular film, Titanic (1997). On April 22, 1998, almost two months after its release, the album was certified double Platinum. Since its release, it has been certified 4x Platinum in the U.S., where after fifty-nine weeks, it descended from the top one hundred. In Canada, the album debuted at number one, and has since been certified 7x Platinum. It became Madonna's first album since Erotica to reach the top position in Canada.
In Australia, Ray of Light also debuted at number one, and became Madonna's seventh album to reach the top spot. It has since been certified 3x Platinum. In Germany, the album reached number one, and remained there for seven weeks, where it achieved 3x Platinum status. It has since become Madonna's highest selling album in Germany. Ray of Light failed to reach the top position in France, managing to reach number two, where it remained for seven weeks, and was certified 3x Platinum. In the United Kingdom, Ray of Light debuted at number one on the albums chart, remaining in the top spot for two weeks. In January 2003, the album was certified 6x Platinum.
Charts and certifications
| Charts | Peak
Position | Certification | Sales/Shipments |
|---|
| Australian ARIA Albums Chart | 1 | 3× platinum | 310,000 | | Austrian Albums Chart | 2 | 2× platinum | 100,000 | | Brazilian Albums Chart | n/a | Platinum | 250,000 | | Canadian Albums Chart | 1 | 7× platinum | 700,000 | | Danish Albums Chart | n/a | 5× platinum | 200,000 | | Dutch Albums Chart | 1 | 3× platinum | 270,000 | | European Top 100 Albums | n/a | 7× platinum | 7 million | | Finnish Albums Chart | 1 | Platinum | 50,604 | | French Albums Chart | 2 | 3× platinum | 952,500 | | German Albums Chart | 1 | 3× platinum | 1.5 million | | New Zealand RIANZ Albums Chart | 1 | Platinum | 15,000 | | 29 1 | Gold | 7,500 | | Norwegian Albums Chart | 1 | 2× platinum | 80,000 | | Polish Albums Chart | n/a | 2× platinum | 80,000 | | Russian Albums Chart | n/a | 7× platinum | 140,000 | | Spanish Albums Chart | 1 | 3× platinum | 300,000 | | Swedish Albums Chart | 2 | 3× platinum | 240,000 | | Swiss Albums Chart | 1 | 2× platinum | 100,000 | | UK Albums Chart | 1 | 6× platinum | 1.8 million | | U.S. Billboard 200 | 2 | 4× platinum | 4.25 million 2 | |
Notes:
- 1 CD Box Set: "Ray of Light" & "The Immaculate Collection."
- 2 As of 2006, the album has sold 3.8 million copies in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan, with an additional 0.45 million sold at BMG Music Clubs.
Release details
- All editions released by Maverick and Warner Bros. Records.
| Release format | Country | Cat. No. | Release date |
|---|
| Regular album | United Kingdom/Germany | 9362 26847-2 | March 2, 1998 | | Limited edition album | United Kingdom/Germany | 9 46884-2 | March 1998 | | Double-vinyl album | United Kingdom/Germany | 9362 46847-1 | March 2, 1998 | | Cassette album | United Kingdom/Germany | 9362 46847-4 | March 2, 1998 | | Mini-disc album | United Kingdom/Germany | 9362 46847-8 | March 2, 1998 | | Regular album | North America | 9 46847-2 | March 3, 1998 | | Limited edition album | North America | 9 46884-2 | March 1998 | | Japanese album | Japan | WPCR-2000 | February 22, 1998 | | Japanese double album1 | Japan | WPCR-10556/7 | February 22, 1998 | | Japanese vinyl album | Japan | WPJR-2003/4 | February 1998 | |
1 contains the regular album with a bonus disc titled "Words & Music", containing interviews.
Credits and personnel
See also
- Unreleased Madonna songs — songs written and/or recorded by Madonna during the Ray of Light sessions that remain unreleased.
External links
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