Twenty years ago today, Madonna released ‘Ray of Light’ – the greatest album of her career (thus far) in the United States. (World-wide it went out on February 22, which is why the past week has been a happy celebration of all things ‘Ray of Light.’) I distinctly remember the midnight moment of its release, and the line of fans that snaked through the old Tower Records at the end of Newbury Street in 1998. Pulsing throughout the store, the title track thumped its way into my heart, warming the cold, late winter night, and setting the sonic landscape on fire as only Madonna, at her finest, could do.
It was after 1 AM when I finally got back to the condo. Despite having to work the next morning, I turned on all the lights and put the album on louder than was fair to anyone else in the building. The wooden floors were hard against my back as my body spread out and the music flowed over me. Madonna’s voice called out from a space of despondence, despair, hope and awe. I wanted her wisdom. I needed her guidance. I hungered for her secrets. For the next 67 minutes I listened, and learned, and loved.
Two decades later, the music sounds just as fresh, just as compelling, and just as miraculous as it did on that first night. In honor of that epic album, here’s a track-by-track run-down of each musical moment that made this the crown jewel of Madonna’s impressively-extensive catalog:
- Drowned World: Substitute for Love ~ The opening track of the ‘Ray of Light’ album is also my favorite Madonna song of all-time. I’m mostly alone in that assessment, but this is one brilliant beginning, and sets the tone and mood of the introspective proceedings. William Orbit’s ambient and lush electronic orchestrations usher in a new era for Madonna and pop music in general, but it is Madonna’s impassioned delivery, and those ‘Evita’-emboldened vocals, that reveals a depth and artistic clarity that moved her eons beyond the bubblegum pop of her youth. This was a woman looking out at the world with an informed and almost-weary eye, but she was still willing to believe and hope and seek out deeper truths.
- Swim ~ Guitars played a big part of Orbit’s music for the ‘Ray of Light’ album, as heard in this slow rocker. This song also introduces a recurring motif of water imagery that permeates the proceedings, both in the gurgling and churning undertow of this song, as in its overt message of swimming to the ocean floor and crashing upon the shore. A lament on the state of the world, and a desire to swim to somewhere better, and somewhat blindly.
- Ray of Light ~ Her most glorious title track since 1989’s ‘Like A Prayer’ this spiritual dance anthem was her most buoyant and joyous outing in years, and remains one of her happiest songs. A throbbing bass and tons of driving guitars give a 70’s folk song a vital jolt of instant import and Madonna’s treatise on a world gone quickly. The accompanying video drives home its fast-paced race against time.
- Candy Perfume Girl ~ Lustful word games and potent descriptors see Madonna inviting an object of desire to devour her, and the carnal flower that results is as delectable as it is deadly. A pretty poison pill of grungy wanton behavior eventually ends up in a bitter but entrancing crash of guitar-raging boy versus girl versus boy tension.
- Skin ~ One of the few tracks that hasn’t received a Madonna Timeline treatment yet, I’ll save the personal sexual salvos that informed this trance-like doozy for a later time. For now, it’s enough to simply be mesmerized by the racing wizardry of the music as it builds into the gloriously-insane Middle Eastern snake-charmer bits that bleed out at the end.
- Nothing Really Matters ~ A classic track that bridges the more-traditional pop roots of Madonna’s past with her newfound interest in more worldly lyrical notions, this for me was one of the album’s weaker moments upon first listen. A stunning bridge (“Nothing takes the past away like the future, nothing makes the darkness go like the light. You’re a shelter from the storm, give me comfort in your arms…”) and one of the most magnificent videos of her career (channeling her then-obsession ‘Memoirs of a Geisha‘) eventually won me over.
- Sky Fits Heaven ~ With its soaring piano chords and heavenly chorus that saw Madonna “traveling down this road, watching the signs as I go” this was a highlight of the album. That glorious chorus comes after a few jarring and clanging verses, but once it finds release the sky opens up and it’s a beautiful thing. Adding to this is the earnest quest of her spiritual journey: “I think I’ll follow my heart, it’s a very good place to start.” At the halfway point of ‘Ray of Light’ this then-new Madonna was different than any that had come before, and the result was magical.
- Shanti/Ashtangi ~ Nowhere was the change in her more apparent than when she broke into an all-sanskrit chant backed my Orbit’s own Eastern-inspired aural mysticism. I read the liner notes over and over until I could sing along with this. Sahasra-hasra-sirasam!
- Frozen ~ The lead single, with its desert-scaped video and Moroccan flourishes, was an exercise in salvation and reinvention from the undisputed Queen. Lush but frigid strings drive the heartbreaking narrative of an inaccessible heart, while Madonna’s impassioned pleading brings the melancholy beauty into icy relief. A master class in sweeping, orchestral, cinematic brilliance. The emotional centerpiece around which the entire album swirls, ‘Frozen’ is one of Madonna’s most powerful ballads, and in a history spanning ‘Crazy For You‘ and ‘Live to Tell’, that is pretty astounding.
- The Power of Good-bye ~ And speaking of magnificent ballads, ‘The Power of Goodbye’ is a shimmering and exquisite piece of sadness and loss given gorgeous musical form. A break-up song with the power to process and heal, it’s the beaten-down and resigned emotional flip-side to ‘Express Yourself‘ and ‘Survival‘ – a rare moment of defiant vulnerability.
- To Have and Not To Hold ~ A slowly-churning gem that sounds almost submerged, but such sonics aid in putting across the claustrophobic hold one person’s desire can have on their life, and the way such an obsession so often stems from something within. A fascinating and oddly-soothing examination of how we are beholden to our own hearts.
- Little Star ~ Dedicated to her daughter, whose birth informed the entire ‘Ray of Light’ album and phase of her life, this is a delicate electronic lullaby, absolutely melting the cool production with heartfelt adages and motherly prayers: “May the angels protect you and sadness forget you”. The genius of this one song reflects the genius of the entire album: the cold production juxtaposed with the warmth of the lyrics, and the masterful manner in which Madonna binds the two.
- Mer Girl ~ Haunting and moody, this dark atonal poem closes out the album, the final few lines delivered a cappella directly from Madonna’s lonely childhood. A damp graveyard scene reverberates with a rain-soaked background, a final vision of water imagery that melds healing with the devastating power to break stone. Her last words, “I’m still running away…” leave things exquisitely unresolved, because when you’re 40 years old life isn’t always a holiday. But there was, and remains, a great deal of beauty here.
