Day 0869 - Ray of Light

Madonna “Ray of Light”

When a long-standing popular artist starts dabbling in the musical fashion of the day, it can often be an embarrassing and ineffective attempt to stay relevant.  I think that Madonna is different in this respect because (a) she works with good people, like producer/remixer extraordinaire William Orbit, and (b) she commits to the new direction.  She doesn’t try and just do what she was doing before but adopting affectations of the genre she’s working with, she fully ‘leans in’ to it and changes her vocal style to suit.

Mads had recently become a mother and embraced Kabballah, which led to a more reflective approach to her songwriting.

There’s the moody, electronic minimalism of album opener “Drowned World” and closer “Mer Girl”.  Lead single “Frozen” is similarly restrained and moody but bursts forth into a beautiful string arrangement.

The euphoric poppy title track almost feels out of place among the other material, but does link into the more middle-eastern sound that is being explored elsewhere on the album.  "Candy Perfume Girl" has a nice funky, loping groove, and there’s a song in Sanskrit "Shanti/Ashtangi".

Though I’m less of a fan of some of her more recent work, with Madonna’ s mixing of genres, her acting work and releasing books ranging from children’s books to books of erotica, I hope that when she does depart the mortal coil that she’s remembered alongside other multi-faceted artistic chameleons like say ,Bowie.