#367 - Madonna - Ray of Light (1998)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released on February 22nd 1998 on Maverick and Warner Brothers Records and produced by Madonna, William Orbit, Patrick Leonard, and Marius de Vries this is the seventh studio album by the inarguable Queen of Pop.
Madonna Louise Ciccone grew up in Pontiac, Michigan in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The third of six children in a devout Catholic family and the first girl she utilized her femininity to get her way and learned to carry the weight of being the middle child.
While her mother was pregnant with her youngest sister she was diagnosed with breast cancer and due to the delayed treatment she deteriorated quickly and died when Madonna was only 5.
Only a few years later her father married their housekeeper and her stepmother‘s strict rules and insistence that she take care of her younger siblings combined with her resentment at her father for moving on saw her rebelling from them and her childhood Catholic faith.
That included dressing provocatively and frequenting underground, gay, dance, clubs.
She was also a high-achieving perfectionist, straight-A student, cheerleader, and aspiring professional dancer.
After graduating high school a semester early she received a full scholarship to the University of Michigan dance program and was soon studying with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City.
After a short time in Paris as a member of a disco revue she was back in New York performing with different rock bands as a vocalist, percussionist, and drummer.
After combining her love of singing and performing she went solo and got signed to Sire Records where she started having almost immediate dance club success.
By 1983 she’d become a phenomenon, style icon, and idol to millions of adoring young fans along with her contemporaries including Prince and Michael Jackson.
She also became a lightning rod of controversy and boundary-pushing mostly due to her freedom and joy of sexual expression.
Over the next decade she diversified into film, photography, and literature and remained one of the biggest and most famous Pop stars in the world in large part due to her constant reinvention of her image and early adoption of soon-to-be-popular trends often inspired by gay culture.
After the success of her 1994 album “Bedtime Stories” her life changed immeasurably.
In 1996 she had her first child, daughter Lourdes Leon and starred in the long-anticipated musical film “Evita.”
With these achievements and her enthusiastic studying of East Asian disciplines like Hinduism and yoga, and the ancient Jewish mysticism of the Kabbalah she gained a new perspective of a world outside of herself.
These newfound passions would influence her final album of the millennium.
Although she started to make the record with Babyface who had done the last album she decided she wanted yet another reinvention.
She explained, “I wanted it to sound old and new at the same time.”
She was introduced to experimental British producer William Orbit and they merged his modern sonic capabilities with her Pop sensibilities and newly strengthened and confident vocals.
She co-wrote four songs with her successful “True Blue” and “Like a Prayer”-era collaborator Patrick Leonard and added three with hitmaker Rick Nowels.
The album took four months to make but it was well worth it.
Along with being credited with bring the nascent Electronica sound to the masses it went to #1 in many countries, gave Madonna her first debuting #1 single in the U.K., and sold more than 16 million copies.
It went on to win four of its six Grammy nominations including Best Pop Album and Best Dance Recording and earned six more wins at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
With almost four decades of success and incalculable influence on popular culture and sales of over 300 million records worldwide, Madonna is certified as the best-selling female recording artist of all time by Guinness World Records.