Madonna has come a long way both musically and mentally from her earliest forays into the pop music arena. Who can forget her first video where she romped around in a black '80s-inspired outfit complete with dangling trinkets and big hair trying to find her "Lucky Star?"
Spawning consecutive successful records, making a splash in the acting business with her performance in "Evita" and becoming a mother, Madonna is probably the busiest woman in show business these days. "Ray of Light" is her first studio album in four years -- excluding the "Evita" soundtrack -- and is proof that she has not lost her touch.
Each of Madonna's previous albums has had a decidedly different bent. Take, for example, her last few releases: 1992's "Exotica" surrendered itself to the basest of carnal desires and the album showcased a Madonna who asked her lover to "Justify her love" and the sensual groans from the chorus strains of "Erotic" left little to the imagination.
Madonna cradled listeners on "Bedtime Stories" with its lush, R&B-tinged score with the help of soul-meister Babyface. And now, "Ray of Light" unfurls a sonic carpet of sounds and beats and takes listeners to an ever-changing ethereal soundscape filled with synthesizers and drums.
Madonna takes on love in her first single from the album, "Drowned World/Substitue for Love." The song begins with a low hum of sounds seemingly as they streak across the sky. A listener can faintly make out the wind, stars and wind chimes and then those sounds are later joined by snatchets of guitar and piano.
And then Madonna joins this cosmic orgy with the words: "I traded fame for love/without a second thought/ It all became a silly game/ some things cannot be bought." It's pop for the 1990s, no bouncy necklaces and pointy breasts.
Thus begins the listener's journey into "Ray of Light." All the songs are pop-inspired but Madonna manages to redefine the sound of pop. With the help of musical collaborator William Orbit, Madonna blends both electronica and pop into one.
The sounds of electronica provide the background, but these soundscapes are created for the realm of pop radio. Think Chemical Brothers with their over-powering deluge of drum and bass, but then also think U2 where electronica comes together lyrically and musically. Madonna's "Ray of Light" is somewhere in the middle.
"Frozen," the first single released by Madonna, is indicative of the entire album. Although slower in tempo than the album in general, "Frozen" showcases Madonna's post-Evita voice -- it seems like those lessons paid off.
The stringed accompaniment provides a unique counter-balance to the emerging rifts of drums and synthesizers. It is a dark tune (which the video seems to emphasize in detail), but Madonna provides some light at the end of the sound via its chorus: "If I could melt your heart/ we'll never be apart/ give yourself to me/ you hold the key."
Madonna thus wins again with this latest album and her newest image. "Ray of Light" remains as fresh and as fun as the unpredictibility of Madonna's first forays in the music industry.
