Released: 03/03/1998

Personnel: Madonna (vocals); William Orbit (guitar, electronics); Mark Moreau (guitar); Pablo Cook (flute); Marius De Vries (keyboards, programming); Fergus Gerrand (drums, percussion); Steve Sidelnyk (programming); Donna DeLory, Niki Harris (background vocals).

Producers: Madonna, William Orbit, Patrick Leonard, Marius De Vries.

Engineers include: Pat McCarthy, David Reitzas, Jon Englesby.

Recorded at Larrabee Studios North, Universal City, California.

Photographs: Mario Testino

Art Direction: Kevin Reagan

Design: Kevin Reagan & Kerosene Halo

Tracks:
	01. Drowned World / Substitute For Love
	02. Swim
	03. Ray Of Light
	04. Candy Perfume Girl
	05. Skin
	06. Nothing Really Matters
	07. Sky Fits Heaven
	08. Shanti / Ashtangi
	09. Frozen
	10. The Power Of Good-Bye
	11. To Have And Not To Hold
	12. Little Star
	13. Mer Girl
	14. Has To Be (Japanese Edition)

Album Info:

RAY OF LIGHT won the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Pop Album and for Best Recording Package, and was nominated for Album Of The Year. "Ray Of Light" won the 1999 Grammy for Best Dance Recording and Best Short Form Music Video, and was nominated for Record Of The Year.

Relentlessly contemporary, RAY OF LIGHT pairs Madonna with producer William Orbit, an electronics wizard who has worked with major R&B acts and even such modern rockers as Blur and Depeche Mode. Reportedly, Madonna tried to snare Liam Howlett of high-strung techno-rockers the Prodigy into the project--Howlett claims to have turned her down. But the more dextrous, less in-your-face Orbit was probably a better choice anyway. He provides a dizzying array of soundscapes, incorporating everything from psychedelic-rock guitar to dub-reggae echo and cold, cutting techno beats for what critics are calling Madonna's most committed performance in years.

From the slow chill of the album's first single, "Frozen," to the disco-like title track, RAY OF LIGHT finds Madonna embracing the club beats that are her roots while still teetering on the edge of dance-club vogue. It also finds the singer, who has become a mother since her last studio album, in a long-untapped spiritual mode. When the inevitable comparisons are made to Madonna's previous standard-bearer, 1989's LIKE A PRAYER, that may well be the reason.

Source: MTV.com

Review:

:: Review 1 ::

Okay, first there was the birth of baby Lourdes. All we heard about was happy mama. And then Ms. Ciccone disappeared behind the golden gates of her mansion, to be the doting mother -- we all assumed -- away from paparazzi flashbulbs and zoomed-in hawk-eyes. But, as we expect from the artist formerly known as The Material Girl, she always comes back, a rejuvenated Phoenix rising from the last trend's ashes. To lead, to amaze, and to never, ever be altogether understood. Or appreciated. Her new album is no exception. Just weeks after Vanity Fair published exclusive photos of rosy-cheeked ex-Evita with her angelic child, her next baby, Ray of Light, hits music stores world-wide, and the hip-holy mother herself is on a whirlwind tour, from Paris to London to Toronto and all kinds of places in between, to promote its successes.

For months, the debate has been raging about what she'd put out. Would it be new, old, a retrospective? Would it break new ground, serve as the pole height for the young running women to attempt to vault? Or would it signify the end of a chaotic career, show her age, prove that once you stop, you're out of it forever? Her fans held out hope; her critics cynically expected less than nothing. Her critics will have to reevaluate. And the sound? If you guessed electronica, you were right. Sort of. If you guessed soft lullaby ballads, you were also right. Sort of. If you guessed that this would sound nothing like her earlier works, you win. This album sends her off into the galaxy as a chameleon constellation. It absolutely sparkles.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about Madonna knows that she can reinvent herself and her sound quicker and more easily than any shape-shifter. Let's face it, she's the master of recognizing the void and filling it. From ""Frozen,"" the sweet yet pulsing love song that was the first to hit the airwaves, to ""Sky Fits Heaven,"" to the soulful spirituality of ""Shanti/Ashtangi,"" Madonna has found a new voice. A new strength. And an evident inner peace. ""Little Star"" is not the only song that pays tribute to her child; the whole record encompasses life fulfillment, pure love, and an often religious devotion. Motherhood seems to suit the former Sex model/writer. And her days of voguing are over over over. This is about heaven, freedom, blessings, all the things that you can ""Have"" that are ""Not to Hold."" All the ethereal happiness that has given her a new voice, a quiet fire. As the words of ""Sky Fits Heaven"" go, Madonna is ""travelling down [her] own road."" And her lucky star has never shined brighter.

Source: Rebecca Paoletti, MTV.com, February 23, 2001

:: Review 2 ::

She gets knocked up, but she gets down again: Meet the latest brand-new Madonna, the Chemical Mother. Ray of Light is her maternity album as well as her avant-dance album, riding the electronica wave with her new collaborator, U.K. beat master William Orbit. She's not exactly subtle about it, either. In just the first song, "Drowned World/Substitute for Love," Madonna throws in trip-hop drum loops, jungle snares, string samples and pointless computer bleeps (lots of those). She shows off all these trinkets from her expensive collection of electronica gimmicks as if she's unpacking her shopping bags after a day at the outlet malls and she doesn't even care if they clash. "Drowned World" comes on loud, tacky and ridiculous, but it lets Madonna do what she does best: show off.

"Drowned World" makes a perfect introduction to Ray of Light in all its contradictions – Madonna sings about how motherhood rescued her from meaningless celebrity life, while the music garishly celebrates the vulgar excesses of fortune and fame. But more to the point, it's a great song – and Our Lady hasn't assembled this many songs worth her time since 1989's Like a Prayer. Thus far in the Nineties, Madonna has let her music grow long on concept, short on emotion. Her recent albums had their moments, but they were too abstract and chilly to sound much like the Madonna of "Angel" or "Cherish." And her Evita soundtrack – well, it recalled those late Laverne and Shirley episodes where they let Carmine Ragusa sing show tunes. It was sad to hear Madonna belt "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" on the radio she'd once ruled, coming back humbled as a shorter Celine Dion.

As an experimental dance album, Ray of Light is fairly useless. William Orbit doesn't know enough tricks to fill a whole CD, so he repeats himself something fierce; his most annoying tic is a spaceship-bleep button that he presses compulsively from song to song. But since this is a Madonna album, Orbit's rinky-dink sound effects have a definite charm; subtlety has never been her friend, and Orbit's overdressed sonics help Madonna wring gripping music out of her motherhood concept. Some fans feared that maternity would mellow her out, although those of us with Catholic moms weren't too worried. But she's positively ferocious in the first three tracks. "Drowned World," "Swim" and "Ray of Light" glide across the same sinuous midtempo groove, decorated with a surprising amount of Oasis-style rock guitar and way too many gaudy synth noises, while Madonna seethes with the disco passion she's been too cool to bother with lately. She hits similar peaks throughout the album, especially the arctic melancholy of "Frozen" and the spacey, utterly convincing lullaby for her daughter, "Little Star."

For all its erratic brilliance, Ray of Light has plenty of sluggish moments. Madonna still hasn't unlearned her Evita voice lessons, which means her diction can get painfully prissy; on "Drowned World," she enunciates the word lovers as if she's never met any. She keeps preaching about her new spiritual consciousness, and while I would gladly sit still for Madonna's investment advice, she'd rather drop true mathematics about karma and fate, where her expertise is a bit shakier. "Sky Fits Heaven" takes its text from a Gap ad, which is at least an interesting place to seek the secrets of the universe, but "Shanti/Ashtangi," where Madonna chants verse from the Yoga Taravali, sounds facile down here in the material world, especially since for all the faux Indian trappings it sounds like Devo's version of "Working in the Coal Mine." Madonna spends too much of the album slowing down the tempo in her quest for God, but God probably prefers "Into the Groove," just like the rest of us.

Ray of Light isn't quite the triumphant musical comeback her fans were praying novenas for. She hasn't regained her genius for the crass, linear pop hook, and the Eighties Madonna of high-energy beats and wiseass bravado is gone forever – that show is over, say goodbye. Instead, Ray of Light sums up the best we can expect from Madonna at this late date: overly arty, occasionally catchy, confused, secondhand, infuriating and great fun in spite of herself. She doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what she wants to say about motherhood, other than that it's the sort of intense experience that happens to a special person like Madonna. But that's all it takes to get her emotions going, and passionate peaks like "Drowned World" and "Little Star" remind you that for all the years Madonna has spent chasing art, class and fashion, the reason we still care about her eccentricities is the emotion in her music; all her desperately chic decor can't hide her rock & roll heart. We've all already forgotten the Sex book, the nose ring, the gold tooth. But we'll always swoon for the lovesick Italian girl who sang "Crazy for You." You can hear that voice on Ray of Light.

Source: Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield, May 1998