Ray of Light - Madonna (CD 1998)

(Disclaimer: Those looking for a brief description of the album will find what they re looking for in the "Review Body" section. The section titled "Track Reviews" is meant only for those who want to read detailed descriptions of the songs, and they do not constitute the essence of this review. Lastly and most importantly, this review is not necessarily written by the point of view of a Madonna fan.)

Overall Score: 2/5
Best song: Drowned World / Substitute For Love
Worst song: Mer Girl

Review Body:

For reasons unknown to me, the critics really gobbled this album up when it was released. I even remember reading about it in 1998, which was about when I started paying close attention to popular culture. Madonna teamed up with electronica artist William Orbit presumably because she wanted to develop her atmospheres more intricately than she had in the past. And it worked! There was just one problem: THE MUSIC SUCKED!!!

Orbit specializes in what sounds like beeping oscillator noises like someone s trying to tune a radio. Most of these songs seem jam packed with a number of odd sound effects with the intent of making them seem spicy. Nothing against sound-effects in general (after all I love Brian Eno albums --- he s the sound effects king!) The thing is, you can write the world s worst song and try lumping as many sound effects on it until you fulfill your heart s desire, but what you ll get in the end is a bad song with a lot of sound effects. This, in a nutshell, describes Madonna s Ray of Light.

It s a shame, because she sure seemed like she wanted to create an impressive work of art. A few of her developmental ideas were intricate. For example, she wouldn t do a normal techno song, but a song that would sort of evolve into techno and then back out of it. Nice idea, but that still doesn t change the fact that the core of the music is total rubbish. The most important thing in pop music, melodies, is especially in short supply. Madonna doesn t even bother finding too many good rhythms or good, funky bass lines. There s woefully little substance here! This is so incredibly boring to try sitting through. I m glad I did so without causing myself immediate bodily harm anywhere except to my life span, which I m pretty sure has been shortened by a few days.

The best song of the album is probably the first one, Drowned World / Substitute For Love although that s not without its fair share of problems. The melody is workable enough and Orbit s sound effects provided it with atmosphere. However, a better songwriter wouldn t have kept recycling the same melody throughout the piece; they would have changed it up a little bit! They would have introduced new themes! They would have experimented more with chord progressions!! They would have made a more interesting and fulfilling song!!! Let s skip down to Candy Perfume Girl, which features a melody that was horrible from the get-go. She continues using the Orbit sound effects, but no matter what he does to it, it s still rotten at its core. How did so many mainstream music critics like this???? Madonna s so rich, I bet she bribed them.

That s not to mention stuff like Sky Fits Heaven, which doesn t even have much to offer in the sound effects department. The melody is so toneless that it s a surprise Madonna wouldn t have at least been even a little bit self-conscious about it. As bad as that was, she saves the real stink bomb for the end. Mer Girl is effectively a string of sound effects with Madonna singing over them in an effectively a cappella fashion. This is the most artistically ambitious track of the album and it proves, once and for all, that the sort of thing was way over Madonna s head. She has no artistic sense, no musical taste and if she had known what was good for her, she would have quit recording music in 1989.

Track Reviews:

Drowned World / Substitute For Love B
Not the absolute worst that I ve come to expect from Madonna. Generally speaking, the sound-effects are very good ones (thanks to Madonna teaming up with William Orbit). The melody is marginally interesting though the sound effects keep the thing interesting regardless of the melody. Bringing in the acoustic guitars and the drum beat mid-way through the song was a good idea, but that broken beat at the three and a half minute mark wasn t a good idea. She might have also tried to write a new melody instead of always recycling the same one. Those are just thoughts. I enjoyed this song anyway.

Swim B
This is pretty good, I think. It seems like a normal Madonna song, but Orbit came in and tried adding a bunch of sound effects. I know that Orbit had a solo career, but it s clear that the guy ain t no Brian Eno! (Well, who is???) This would have worked better with more conventional rock n roll instrumentals . But it s alright as it stands.

Ray of Light C+
She s trying my patience now! This seems more like a half-hearted attempt at techno (I m sure she thought she was trying to turn techno into an art-form or something). The problem is that the melody isn t catchy and the groove isn t infectious. A part of me enjoys listening to it for Orbit s goofy sound effects going in and out of the speakers even though some of them are frankly rather ear-piercing. This song is only half-stale.

Candy Perfume Girl C-
Madonna should go to songwriting school!!! This is a very dull song that s without even a hint of an interesting melody. The sound effects do nothing here, either, other than create a sort of sludge for the whole thing to wallow around in. The song development is terribly awkward, too that bit where she stops it and does a sort of twinkly bit was awful. I will say one thing about it: It ends well.

Skin D
This starts out with a number of surreal sound effects that makes me miss how well Kate Bush did these sort of things. I like that world-beat that starts to pop up, but then Madonna slaughters that and turns it into an average techno song that drags on for more than six minutes and doesn t do anything too interesting. The melody has its nice bits, but the arrangements seem more inept than anything It seems like they were concentrating too much on the sound effects instead of the music. Music is the most important thing about music!

Nothing Really Matters C-
This seems like Madonna was trying to re-do Like a Prayer except she couldn t come up with a catchy melody for it. What results is a very dull song whose only redemption is the instrumentation, which unlike the previous song is generally constructive to the experience.

Sky Fits Heaven F
OK, I politely tolerated the other tracks, but this is really testing my nerves. Luckily, I ve been mellowing out in recent years and not so much prone to going into screaming fits in print. BUT THIS IS SERIOUSLY AWFUL!!!! The melody is as bland and toneless as it gets, and Orbit s sound effects didn t do much to keep the interest going. I can t think of any excuses for it: It s a bad song, simply put.

Shanti / Ashtangi C+
The good news is this is significantly better than the last track. The bad news is that 95 percent of songs are better than that (and I m including songs penned by goofy little kids plucking rubber bands on that). Madonna s trying the whole world music scene here to tolerable results. It still suffers from its general tonelessness, but I like the beat and Orbit s style of sound effects seem especially useful here.

Frozen C-
This is almost a good song! She brings in a string arrangement as if she was scoring a cinematic soundtrack, which ended up being a little nicer than I would have expected. The problem is that she still felt the need to bring in the techno drums This marriage, the way she presented it, didn t turn out well at all. It s overall very clunky, misguided and waaaaaay too long, but it does have its compelling moments. (The length issue forced me to demote it from a would-be C+.)

The Power of Goodbye C
This is a good song in that it doesn t try to do anything other than being just a usual song. The beat is quiet, and the sound effects are kept to a relative minimum. In fact, all the elements are just about right here . Except the melody is about as interesting as dirt.

To Have and Not to Hold D
This is similar to the previous song except the melody is even less interesting. There was a nice attempt here to bring a South American vibe to her music, but someone forgot to tell her that even South Americans know what a melody sounds like. (Somebody also forgot to tell her that there were Catholics in South America that one time.)

Little Star D+
Geez, Madonna sure doesn t have too many musical ideas, which is a shame since she keeps on releasing full-length albums. This five minute song had enough ideas for about thirty seconds worth of material and then a regular artist would have thought of a different melody to sing. Not Madonna after she writes one weak hook, she has to keep on repeating it for five minutes.

Mer Girl F
Just for good measure, Madonna ends the album with the most dull and pretentious one ever. This goes on for five minutes while she sings a completely toneless melody and the world s most boring sound effects come in and out of my speakers with the expressed purpose of trying to torture me with boredom. There s no bass or drums, even Madonna thinks she s good enough to do a song that has the effect of being a cappella. That s it Madonna; I wash my hands of you.

Concluding Remarks:

A critical smash upon release; part of Madonna s budget must ve been bribing everyone. Well, that doesn t include me, by golly!