Ray of Light - Madonna (CD 1998)

Here comes trouble. Just as Like A Prayer through Bedtime Stories showed us that Madonna was capable of balancing her dance sensibilities with more serious topics, Ray of Light represents the moment where she not only overstepped the line, but went ten thousand miles over it.

Completely severing the remaining ties with the exuberant, loveable loudmouth of her first three albums, Madonna now wants to be taken completely seriously. It s the stonefaced factor of Love Don t Live Here Anymore times a hundred, and for me, it is not good. I feel that the critics who praised this effort really should have known better it shows none of the lyrical thoughtfulness of the last three albums, instead beating us over the head with basic sentiments on how fame isn t worth it and the odd excursion into embarrassing mysticism .

To be honest, I think that, if anyone other than Madonna had come up with songs like the dreary Shanti/Ashtangi and To Have Not To Hold pretentious Swim (which tries to sound adult with lines like students rape their teachers while the churches burn their preachers , but ends up flat and false) and Candy Perfume Girl (a limp word salad that just sounds ugly), they d have been panned as would have been deserved.

Likewise, self-centred pat on the backs like Nothing Really Matters or Sky Fits Heaven do absolutely nothing for me in terms of music or philosophy. If these basic rudimentary sentiments (the latter taking its text from a GAP ad, of all places) are enlightenment, I ll happily stay in ignorance. There is some worth in Mer Girl , but this now-typical ode to Madonna s mother doesn t say anything that Promise To Try , Rain and Inside Of Me didn t do ten times better and those songs actually had melodies!

I don't mind records based on atmosphere (I love "Erotica"), but there's just not enough interesting stuff here to make it work. Madonna sings every song in a bloated pseudo-English voice that decimates the intuitive skill she used to possess. There s pretty much only one melody on the entire album, Madge singing in a sorrowful, gradually ascending tone on almost every song while ignoring hooks and doing some heavy recycling (hope you liked the mmm-hmm hook on Secret , cause she pulls it out again on both overblown ballad Frozen and Swim ).

The music isn t even interesting, weak techno beats and plenty of gaudy, tacky bleepy effects that compulsively appear at random on just about every song, as producer William Orbit doesn t seem have enough tricks to fill a whole album.

However, Drowned World/Substitute For Love is passable as an examination of fame, while The Power of Goodbye is a perfectly good slice of radio pop balladry (the strings are lovely). But the only song that reaches classic Madonna level is Ray of Light , where she stretches her vocals to the limit over a frenetic background. The song is a pumping, joyous adrenaline rush and shows that Madonna could have made this CD work.

But for me, she didn t, leaving a pompous, overblown mess devoid of any real substance but with plenty of empty Oprah-approved spiritual posturing. The seriousness didn t hit its nadir until American Life , but as far as I m concerned, Ray of Light was the red warning light to Madonna s musical career. Get "The Immaculate Collection" instead.

Other Madonna Album Reviews:

Madonna
Like A Virgin
True Blue
Like A Prayer
Erotica
Bedtime Stories
Music
American Life
Confessions On A Dance Floor