The one thing that may be difficult to consider coming into “Ray of Light” is that it’s been four whole years since Madonna released an original studio album. This isn’t to say that she hasn't been busy, but her career has taken a significant shift since “Bedtime Stories.” She has released a compilation full of ballads (“Something to Remember”) as well as lead the Oscar-winning film Evita (1996), including the new Broadway standard “You Must Love Me.” To say the least, she’s ending the decade as more of a prestigious artist, capable of so much more than where she started the decade at.
In 1998, she was approaching the new millennium with one of the greatest career resurgences in pop history. Not since “Like a Prayer” in 1989 had she released an album that was an equal part successful as it was shifting the public perception in a positive way. Not only that, but this was the first time in her storied career where she personally would win a Grammy for Best Pop Album. Everything was shaping up for pop dominance once again with another decade reaching its end, so what exactly made “Ray of Light” such a special moment in her career?
There were a lot of factors that had to do with radical shifts in her life. Besides not releasing a proper studio album in four years, she hadn’t been touring and vocal coaching for Evita gave her confidence that she had a wider register to pull from. She also had become a mother, giving birth to Lourdes in 1996. So much of her perspective on life changed as she began to question her own mortality. She studied various Eastern religions including Buddhism and Hinduism, adopting these cultures for her personal life. She even was doing yoga daily. Not bad for someone who started the decade with albums like “Erotica.”
As one can guess by this point, Madonna is always looking forward in terms of her career. Every new project brings a chance of reinvention. This was so much the case that when she began initial recording with Babyface (who worked with her on “Bedtime Stories”), she chose to find new producers when the results sounded too much like “Take a Bow.” She wanted to push her sound into something that mixed spirituality with techno music, in the process making an album that could both be described as mature and fun to dance to.
Enter Rick Nowels, who proved to be a worthwhile presence. For starters, Madonna was a fan of the remixes he did of her previous work. As he played her 13 audio tracks, she became inspired to wrap her lyrics around the melody. With that said, his computer kept crashing so it took over four months to record. The sound mixed electronic bleeps with different styles ranging from African to house to small slices of grunge. Every piece fit into her tapestry, and in the process sought to make pop music a place where Madonna could grow old and still feel as vital.
In a lot of respects, “Ray of Light” was an album that seemed overdue from her career. Despite vague similarities to “Bedtime Stories,” it went even further and bolder in its sound. The average song tracked in at five minutes, and the opening number (“Drowned World/Substitute of Love”) was a risk in itself with how it started quietly, fading in before building to a dance melody. The sound was ambitious, managing to find her using the musicality as cleverly as her vocal performance, which has been considered one of her fullest in her entire career. Rarely had every note felt so meaningful in its dexterity.
This is especially interesting to place alongside the career of contemporary artists of the time. While Madonna still was revered in the pop world, she needed an album to remind audiences of her potential. She had a younger class entering the game with The Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC, and Britney Spears fighting for chart dominance. If anything argued her irrelevance, it was the way that the media fawned over them and their newer and shinier sound. What did Madonna have to say that held as much weight as them?
Much like Cher with her album “Believe,” one of the oddest things about 1998 was that the biggest hits were by the old guard. Madonna, now 40, would release one of the best-produced albums of the year, going down as a high point in her career. This especially came through in her second single, which mixed acoustic guitars, electronic bleeps, and her voice towering throughout one of her best choruses. “Ray of Light” as a song has gone down as one of her most acclaimed, becoming an immediate hit on the radio and in dance clubs, reminding people that she was capable of so much more. Even as her voice rumbled during the verses, she sounded more confident in every choice that she made. You can feel the anticipation as the chorus comes back in so that by the time it’s there, you’re ready to throw your hands in the air and cheer.
Madonna was someone who could bring the trend to America with such ease. In her music video for “Nothing Really Matters,” she dressed as a geisha. Even if she wasn’t the first artist to do this, she is responsible for the modern wave of people embracing Eastern music influences, including moments where she wore famous iconography and used the teachings to inform her music decisions. The song “Shanti/Ashtangi” is her first song sung entirely in Sanskrit and finds her quoting prayers while set to a dance melody. She’s improved vastly at creating an atmosphere, and there’s this meditative quality to that song as well as various other points on the album. Songs like “The Power of Good-Bye” and “Skin” feel richer, in large part because their messages are some of her deepest and most meaningful since “Like a Prayer.”
Among the fun production stories is the story of how “Mer Girl” was recorded. Given that it deals with her mother’s passing with vivid details about burning flesh, rotting bones, and decay, it already was a morbid song given a beautiful context in Madonna coming to terms with her mortality. The story goes that upon completing the recording of it, she exited the booth to find everyone stunned by how beautiful it was. It’s also said that she recorded “Swim” on the day that her friend Gianni Versace was murdered in Miami, FL. She even dedicates songs like “Little Star” to her daughter as words of encouragement.
It’s impossible to compare the careers of the younger pop stars to Madonna because it was clear that she was evolving. She was fully in her artistic period and had depth behind every one of her songs. Her lyrics were tenderer, reflective of her own emotional needs. The fact that it worked in conjunction with a pop album that dominated dance clubs was astounding. It was arguably the clearest sign of how to age gracefully, even while incorporating ideas from various other cultures and creating a world that was distinctly her own.
Where “Bedtime Stories” set out to make Madonna more of a respectable figure, “Ray of Light” was the end result. Despite being a pop record that pushed boundaries, it managed to make her more accessible and iconic. Everyone wanted to dance to her new music, and that resulted in over 16 million sold internationally. Sure some could say that she was appropriating cultures, but her reverence for it in some ways outshined the potential exploitation. To her, it was symbolic of spiritual growth, this idea that she was only getting teed up for her more mature phase, where songs about motherhood and quoting scripture could be used not as titillation, but as a subtext to her own life. After all, it earned her her first Grammy Awards after decades of missing out.
Some things should be considered at this phase of her career. Even as she was experiencing a significant resurgence, her Drowned World Tour (named after the J.G. Ballard novel) was still a few years off. It technically took place during the release of her next album, “Music,” which continued her winning streak. It was also postponed due to pregnancy with her second child, her first with filmmaker Guy Ritchie. Even as she continued to have wild concerts that found her at awards shows and collaborating with artists like Elton John and Billy Joel, she wasn’t going to commit to tours until her life had settled down again.
Whether or not Madonna was responsible for influencing a new age of spiritualism, it was clear that she was ending her second decade once again atop the charts. What’s amazing is looking at how the decade started compared to where she wound up. Where she started with being considered a shock artist who constantly flaunted her sexuality, she ended it somehow respected and every better. She may have been restrained by this point, but her calculated decisions helped to make her sound more confident and engaging with audiences. It still continued to promote subgenres to the mainstream and, most of all, it helped to change her image from this stubborn perfectionist to someone more open and happy.
Not only that, but her versatility once again resulted in a heavy influence on pop music for the next few decades. Among those who reference this album is Adele who claimed that it inspired “25.” The Western-Eastern culture fusion has continued to be prominent in pop culture and arguably has inspired more of a culturally diverse class of pop stars in the years since. Again, this isn’t entirely Madonna’s responsibility, but much like meditation and yoga, she definitely helped to promote it in not-not significant ways.
If I’m being honest, this era of Madonna is one that I can appreciate but it’s not necessarily my favorite. While I am enthused by her ability to grow from her early 80s, I do think her more atmospheric work tends to be hit and miss. I love how well-crafted they are, but “Bedtime Stories” and “Ray of Light” are, but the former feels safe and the latter feels overlong. It’s still a fun time when it does hit and I like how fully formed it is, but I don’t think she’s taking as many interesting risks as she did with “Erotica.” I understand that she’s moving away from sexually explicit lyrics, but save for minces of trip-hop and electronic bleeps, “Ray of Light” is a jubilant song that I think is more lyrically rich than musically ambitious.
Then again, I am thankful for this era of Madonna because it’s helped me to respect her more than I was at the start of this project. While I’m now too aware of how much her music is a chameleon unto itself, her choices are often bold and enjoyable. I love seeing her lose her edge and still manage to be popular. Given that the 21st century has some of the music I’m most skeptical about exploring, I am glad to know that her first 20 years are at the very least interesting. I can only hope that the road ahead is good. If anything, “Music” gives me a chance to bring Ali G into the conversation, and that alone may be worth something.
Comments
Post a Comment