Happy 25th Birthday Ray of Light!

The only song of hers that I ever really liked.

At the time it was such a shift for her, and such a great album.

Amazingly, all of William Orbit’s music is complete garbage when compared.

Skin is my favorite song on the album, and is a great example of an increased lyrical maturity. Was this the last album with Patrick Leonard was involved in the songwriting?

Do I know you from somewhere?

Why do you leave me wanting more

Why do all the things I say sound like the stupid things I've said before?

Ew. Yuck.

It is a masterpiece but I've been reading how much of the ideas and music was ripped off from other artists.

The last interesting Madonna record before she lost the plot entirely.

Even though the title track was a hit, does anybody really enjoy it?

I do, and so does R1, R6. And R1 is a notorious bitch who hates everything.

R6 I would say Music and Confessions were good albums if you like that sort of music

She should have stopped after ROL. It would have secured her legacy and gave the impression she was actually into making interesting music rather than the reductive crap she did afterwards. The Music album gets a pass.

I've always wondered why Vadge acts so special needs in all her interviews? Seriously, watch any of her interviews and she talks slowly and precisely like she doesn't wanna fuck up her English. I think it is because she is so short and tiny that in person she has no power or authority. I loved the interview where Courtney Love throws her compact at Vadge and then invades her interview. It was awesome.

Where is GapPlayListGuy??? Summer of 1998, Gap soundtrack definitely had Sky Fits Heaven and maybe Ray of Light. Those were fun times. Everyone was playing this over the summer and I had a gorgeous, hung boyfriend.

R10 The best part was when Madonna destroyed Court with her bitchiness.

im nawt familyur w gaplystguy. Let me gues, a trol that wood poste a gfap list for any randumb yeer. LOLOL sounz teediouws.

r10 Kurt Loder! Guuurl!

The late 90's was truly a moment. Sigh....

Family Guy "humor" is like a million times more horrible than the fucking Golden Girls. You're a real winner there, dude.

True, #16. Most things seem like pale imitation since then.

Did 9/11 destroy everything?

R17, we can't all be the Algonquin Round Table of brilliant thought that you are with your use of "vadge" and saying she sounds "special needs"

This was her last good moment as an artist:

R19 My point stands. Only knuckle dragging fucking morons think Family Guy or Beavis and Butthead are funny. You fucks are a million times worse than the Golden Girls worshiping fairies.

I much prefer Erotica and Bedtime Stories. They felt more authentic. I was disappointed to learn on the 20th anniversary of ROL that many of the songs had already been written and demoed before Madonna recorded them. So the songs are not as personal as Madonna made them seem to be at the time.

R22 Awww you poor sad fairy. Did you need expensive therapy to get over that, didja?

Madonna was beautiful and her body was in good shape when this album came out.

R24 Wrong. Vadge has always known how to cover up the ugly with every trick known to man.

I didn't care for it then, I don't care for it now. The Power of Goodbye is the best song on that album, Substitute for Love is ok, Candy Perfume Girl is fine, but that's about it. Then again, the 90s wasn't really a decade of great music in my opinion...

R17 dude

Ray of Light was/is a fun song

The Ray of Light demos/B-sides are superior to what ended up on the album.. They are far less over-produced. Just listen to Nothing Really Matters. The album cut is just loud, generic house song. The demo is actually moving.

This song is great.

The demo of Skin as "Flirtation Dance" has a sense of dread.

Everything was prewritten and demo’d. Madonna is a fun pop star but a bullshit “artist.” She is not an artist. Perpetuating lies like that are the mark of her scary sociopathy.

R31, that demo makes me feel physically uncomfortable. It's fine until Madonna's vocals start, which seem to be either a different time signature than the music, or just off the beat.

I experience the same thing with Big Stripey Lie by Kate Bush. I can't put my finger on exactly why with BSL, but the closest that I can get is that it seems like Kate, and each musician were in separate rooms, and someone said start, and they all started playing in isolation, so things just didn't quite like up.

I can feel it in my spine and my stomach, a horrible crawling, frozen sensation.

This is the last album of hers I loved.

Music was also pretty solid, but she sadly got lost and/or picked her material poorly after this.

R33, I think that's why I enjoy the song. It feels genuinely experimental just like the Nothing Really Matters demo. They sound less overproduced to me so I think that's why I like them.

r10

Why do so many DLers only listen to a handful of female artists? So limited…

Kurt Loder tried to fuck me and I wasn’t having it.

Great song and Madonna looks luminescent

Also, her outfit in this video remains the only acceptable denim-on-denim ensemble

[quote]This was her last good moment as an artist: ["Beautiful Stranger"]

Agreed, R20. And she never looked as lovely as she was during that era.

"Beautiful Stranger" and "Borderline" are easily my favorite Madonna songs.

Sad what's happened to her. But I don't feel sorry for her at all.

I’m still convinced Zoe of “Sunshine on a Rain Day” was her style muse.

"Missy Elliott" coming out of a port-a-potty spraying air freshener killed me R40

Mad TV's parody of Frozen

I love this album but I’ve become obsessed with the demos. I absolutely love this version.

"Deeper and Deeper" was her last decent single. Possibly "Jump" from "Confessions" but everything after "Erotica" has been a downhill slide.

Time to block the cuntscab @ r17, r21.

[quote]She should have stopped after ROL.

Except for this.

I like the early work. She shot her best shot on the first album. So many artists of the era did that. She rarely equaled the throb. Madonna in fact has a vast range in did well in many genres. But this was the best, and it was FRESH.

Everyone raves about how great she looked at this time but I always thought she looked haggard. Droopy fried hair couples with anorexia and obsessive exercise.

Also, her stomach in the Ray of Light video looked lumpy and gross.

Ray of Light 1998 is my personal favorite era of Madonna. Second favorite is the Vogue era of 1990.

Why does she look like Felony Felicity Huffman in the Don't Tell Me video?

She's OLD, you know.

Fairly fabulous recent remix of the early banger.

R53, completely agreed. She looked horrible. She looked far better during the 10s until Rebel Heart was releaesd. That's the time she started messing with her face. And that's a shame because she looked softer and more feminine than she had looked since the Evita era.

I don't know R29, I don't think it works. I love the track and was excited to listen. There is too much going on instrumentally. The album cut is cleaner.

The face lift and butt lift before madame x were the end.

I like Ray of Light, but I hated the whole "I'm so spiritual because I went to India/I study Kabbalah" thing of the late 90s.

[quote]The face lift and butt lift before madame x were the end.

Madame X is when fans started getting annoyed.

She really lost it between Rebel Heart and Madame X. By the end of the Rebel Heart tour she was really starting to go off the deep end. That stupid clown show where she was riding around in a bicycle. She looked ridiculous.

1998 was a great year for music.

We opened the year with a Madonna renaissance and closed it with a Cher one.

Music was kind of fun and going country-ish was an interesting take. She was just in the early stages of her marriage with Guy Ritchie and they both looked so good together back then. Maybe her music is better when she is in a stable relationship. Her well has been dry since MDMA, at least.

This album was a fucking bore. Most of the videos had that Ozark blue filter on it. Depressing as hell.

I think she stole the idea for her video from the incomparable Leoncie

At least she didn't copy from Marilyn. Again.

R50 worships Family Guy and Beavis and Butthead. She is literally too stupid to fucking live. Block away, pustule.

It was the soundtrack of my early childhood.

R39 Where was that stated? Share some female artists you'd like discussed.

M A D O N N A

R65, Guy Ritchie looks totally fuckable in that photo and I don’t even like blondes!

I hated this album - not because of Madonna but because of Orbit. With his strange cargo stuff, beth orton , his work as Torch Song & many club remixes - it was overkill. Maybe a decade ago I gave it a spin & really liked it. Frozen is still bullshit but loved Skin.

R74 Thanks for sharing, Janbot. Isn't there a WhisperCoo thread you need to be filling w your toxicity.

!! this:

This was a very sexy album to fuck to. There are some great mixes. I can remember coming home with my boyfriend still high on ecstasy and we would just make out for hours to these deep mixes (while maybe doing just a dash of K).

She still looks amazing 25 years later.

Beautiful B-side. I love the vintage 60s hippie vibe. Wouldn't it have been something if she'd gone more and more into these cooler more artsy directions, instead of losing her fucking mind and spending the rest of her life trying to get attention and reminding Guy Ritche what he was "missing"?

That song is pretty cool, R79. It certainly sets a mood.

Outstanding! One of the best albums of all time if not the best. Ray Of Light, Frozen, Power Of Goodbye, Nothing Really Matters, Drowned World / Substitute for Love and Sky Fits Heaven are all time classics.

^ William Orbit

None of those songs are classics. And best album of all time?!

[quote] Then again, the 90s wasn't really a decade of great music in my opinion...

You have shitty taste in music then.

[quote] Maybe her music is better when she is in a stable relationship.

Her best music was when she was either single or married to Sean Penn, ie, unstable. Her British years were the worst.

1998 was indeed a great year for music and a great year for female albums:

Ray of Light - Madonna Velvet Rope - Janet Jackson Miseducation of Lauryn Hill- Lauryn Hill Wide Open Spaces - The Chicks

If I'm not mistaken, ROL netted Madonna her first Grammy win in her then 16 year career.

1998 - the year electronic music went mainstream. ROL had a big part in that.

r41 Tell us more!

[...]

r79 - yes! I love 'Has To Be' -- beautiful song that should have made the album. It was a Japanese bonus track or b-side or something, right?

Good grief. What's the matter with the woman in OP?

R83 Yeah, cuz grunge, Lilith fair bullshit and Britney Spears is great music. Dummy....

Isn't it also the 25th anniversary of her speaking fake British as a second language?

R79, I think that would have made a better closing track than Mer Girl. If she ended with Has to Be, it would have been perfect. As long as she reduced some of the more dated synthesizer elements at the beginning of the song.

R89 Yeah, the Japanese version! So, so good.

R44 right? The ‘Beautiful Stranger’ video made her look and seem so sexy

How was Madge so in shape and attractive for this album and tour? Just Pilates and clean eating? She looked amazing from her hair & skin to her abs to her legs, albeit too skinny (but that was the fashion then). .

R92 the streets never forgot

R91 Brit was always good enough for Madge.

[quote] I did like Don't Tell Me as a teenager. It helped me stay strong in combating homophobia

🙄

I have no idea what "Don't Tell Me" has to do with homophobia.

R75 i’m a janbot because i didn’t like an album? Odd. A little too obsessed about an album from the 90’s ? Anyway - i stand by my post- liked it years later, after the orbit era was over & Skin is still one of my fav Madonna tracks

r100 -- were you in a coma for three months? Why did you suddenly bump this thread to respond to a comment from March?

It was the beginning of the end for her