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William Orbit reflects on Madonna’s Ray Of Light: “It broke all the rules”
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20 years ago this month, Madonna released with her seventh studio album Ray Of Light.
The record, which was helmed by acclaimed producer William Orbit, received widespread praise upon its release and is considered by many as her best and most adventurous album.
In 2015, on the album's 17th birthday, we spoke to Orbit about working on the record.
“It was a long time ago – can you believe it’s been 17 years?” Orbit told Official Charts. “I played all the guitars on that album, which was one of the first times I really showed that I knew how to get a guitar going. It was great to get behind an amp for once because it’s not something I do all the time.”
The album, which was released in March 1998, spent two weeks at Number 1 on the Official Albums Chart and to date has spent 137 weeks in the Top 100 (view its full chart run here). Its sales to date (including album equivalent streams) stands at 1.73 million. “I’m very proud of my work on that record - I think it still holds up today,” Orbit continued. “It still gets mentioned a lot, which always amazes me, even considering the fact it’s Madonna. I mean, you don’t just knock one of those kinds of albums out every year, do you?”
Reflecting on their four and a half months experimenting on sounds together in the studio, the producer said: “I’m not even sure the current environment would allow it now in the pop field. Something has happened to pop music at the moment. Back then, there was no fear. Now, everybody is terrified of doing something different and the music industry is stuck in a rut.”
Orbit believes there were “a lot of parallels between Ray Of Light" and the recent Queen Forever album he co-produced, explaining: "I recently watched back some of Queen’s videos, which were very cutting edge at the time, and there’s a definite parallel between what they were doing there and the mindset me and Madonna had when making Ray Of Light. We got in studio, broke all the rules and didn’t really think about the consequences.”
14 years later, the pair reunited on Madonna’s MDNA album. Orbit is credited on six tracks, but the process, he says, was almost the complete opposite to that of Ray Of Light. “All I’ll say is that MDNA was a very, very different process in all respects to that which we’d employed on Ray Of Light – from artistically, to time management, to technical approach. I’ll let you be the judge of the result, but it was a very different beast to Ray Of Light.”
Did the experience put him off working on pop music for good? “I wouldn’t mind having the chance to go in and lock out the bean counters for a bit and do something different. Right now it feels like the whole music industry is sitting in a corner and rocking itself into a coma. The pop world has become a bit toxic.
"That said, you can’t take the pop out of me. I like risk, and – like with Ray Of Light – when someone wants to make an artistic statement and be bold and experimental, that’s when it’s exciting. That's really what's it's all about."
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Pillex
His quote "Right now it feels like the whole music industry is sitting in a corner and rocking itself into a coma. The pop world has become a bit toxic." Typical of a jaded old man who has been fired off too many productions and has done nothing of relevance since the 90s
Pillex
Orbit gets so too much credit for this album. He tried to deflect this, which for an ego like his is quite rare. But the sexist music industry wanted to heap it all on him. And Madonna was surprisingly generous with him. She and Orbit's cronies had to push him to get him to work. He brought her a lot of material to write on, which she did. What doesn't get mentioned are the many people who had worked on that material before he took it to her. Those are the ones who seriously got ripped off for credit and money. Fortunately a couple of them had the drive to go ahead and sue orbit for what they were owed.
Fix
What is so sexist about this issue? I dont get it.
etin
my fav. record is "something to remember". I noticed that she lost uk community after divorcing guy richie
Dean Wilcox
my top 5 albums are
1- erotica
2- confessions
3- ray of light
4 - hard candy
5 - like a prayer.
LeeBag
The Erotica album has always been very much underrated and I think it is a stronger album than this. That said this was and still is a great album with The Power Of Goodbye being a favourite for me.
AUCF
Angry UK Chart Fan
“I’m not even sure the current environment would allow it now in the pop field. Something has happened to pop music at the moment. Back then, there was no fear. Now, everybody is terrified of doing something different and the music industry is stuck in a rut.”
What a load of . Pop music keeps changing every year and I hear people doing something different from before. And to put this in another perspective, there are some acts for the past 5 years that don't care about rules (Charli XCX, Marina, Dua Lipa, Justin Timberlake, Miley, Pharrell, Camila) and release stuff but don't have the same commercial success like Ray Of Light. This is what I dislike about reading old people's interviews: talking about the happenings today.
GF
Gary Feld
Any chance of a sales figure for this album?
Uwe B
Ray of Light is still my favorite Madonna Album. No Surprise that this kind of Masterpiece received Grammys and was the most successful of Madonna.
She released a lot of good Albums (Confessions, Rebel Heart, Like a Prayer etc) but none was as great as Ray of Light.
Hunders
, you forget to mention the excellent work he did with underestimated artist (and former lover) Beth Orton !!
Dion Tillmon
"Ray Of Light" is Madonna at her finest.
Madonna Best Albums
1. "Ray Of Light"
2. "Like A Prayer"
3. "Confessions On The Dance Floor"
4. "True Blue"
5. "Hard Candy"
And another thing, the song "Bedtime Story" from the album "Bedtime Stories" was a look at what was coming around the corner 4 years later.
professormouse
I can't understand why there's never any mention of her very first album in anyone 'lists'.
I doubt that without a certain mr.Jellybean, anyone would be arguing whether she's better than Kylie or not.
"Nothing pre-Vogue", she tells her daughter to check out in her back catalogue...
Is she embarrassed about these "weak songs" [her words] or something ?
I've loved virtually everything up until the recent I'm...phase.
I also don't get her Forget The Past attitude & that Only her Latest offering is worth buying.
I'd rather she released the out-takes from the LP's U mention than some of this latest guff.
T
Tyler
I love the "Ray of Light" album. One of her best. I put it up there with "Like a Prayer", "Confessions on a Dance Floor", "Music" and "True Blue".
Hunders
TB like so many 80's albums has aged terribly, Ray of light will always be modern !!!
YouNeedAThneed
W Orbit is a genious and his music has brought me great satisfaction
J
Jason
Kylie didi it before Fraudonna with her best album ever Impossible Princess!
A
At
Quite how that desperate album which contained indie-light nonesense is comparable to the trance and electronica of Ray of Light, is beyond me! Madonna ACTUALLY started the trip hop trance stuff years before Ray of Light AND whilst Kylie was still boxed in with the awful SAW stuff. 1994's Bedtime Stories and 1995's Massive Attack collaboration saw her begin a relationship with the genre. How you can compare Kylies 1997 indie flop with Ray of Light is a joke! Madonna's opus was an extension of her own experimentations from the early 1990's, so check your facts! She actually started working with William Orbit in 1990 and 1993 on Erotica, but lets not talk about how Confide in Me totally stole from Madonna's justify my love/erotica! Something its producers actually admitted on live UK TV!
TS
Tony Strong
are you kidding me, shes a soap actress. accident she ended up doing music and has no oppinion on anything. doesnt stand for nothing. you joke!
TS
Tony Strong
shes a bit of a joke musically. Get the facts before you make yourself look really silly
TS
Tony Strong
couldnt have said it better myself............go girl lol xxxx
scottjhnsn
one correction.....orbit didn't work with madonna on bedtime stories,that was nellee hooper,bjork's longtime collaborator,both whom also co-wrote with marius de vries "bedtime story" for madonna. but i agree with you....her fascination with electronica started around that time....pre-dating kylie's foray into that landscape.
T
Tyler
I've never heard of Impossible Princess unfortunately. The only thing I know about Kylie Minogue is that song "Can't You Get Out of My Head." Good song, but Kylie is no Madonna sorry. Most of the planet has never heard of Kylie. But they definitely have heard of Madonna AND Ray of Light. Nice try though. Oh okay, looked it up since I've never heard of it. Impossible Princess only sold 70,000 copies, whereas Ray of Light sold over 16 million. Yikes! That's a HUGE difference! No wonder I and others have never heard of that Kylie album.
Tosin
I can't get that song out of my head. Nor her legs. Very very hot.
de Sascha
I think Madonna and Orbit worked on 1994's I'll Remember??
Maybe I'm wrong? But I remember they've worked on something years before before Ray Of Light came out.
Jac Fossey
I think that American Life is also really good
L
luca
American life is wonderfullll llllllllll
scubaz
The very deep affirming lyrics matched with phenomenal music made this album something that seriously helped me cope with the most difficult moments of my life. Ray of Light forever.
Lee Chesnut
There is no question that "Ray of Light" was Madonna's finest moment. "Like a Prayer" is probably her 2nd-best album, but it's a distant 2nd. And then I'd likely nominate "Confessions on a Dancefloor" for 3rd.
JM
JET M.
Yeah, Ray of Light and Like a Prayer are definitely her best. Im not really into some of her songs but definitely these are two of her best
Fix
I was just wondering. Since I was very2 young when this album came out and I definitely have no knowledge about music at that time, I find it pretty weird how her singles from this album werent really that successful. I went through the singles charts all over the world and only Frozen managed to rank pretty high. The rest of her singles didnt do that well chart wise. However the album itself sold close to 20 million records which is huge. I find it rather weird how an album full of weak singles managed to sell that much. Hope somebody could explain to me.
N
Noah
You're right. All the singles from "Ray of Light" weren't as massive compared to her previous albums that produced massive hits. Though both "Frozen" and "Ray of Light" were top 5 hits. "The Power of Goodbye" clocked in within the top 20. Eventually, "Ray of Light" (song) did turn into an anthem for her and it's considered to be one of her greatest songs. So how did the album sell so much? I would say everything was lined up perfectly for Madonna at this time. The album was a huge buzz. She managed to turn her persona around from this " God" to this spiritual mother. People were fascinated at the change in her persona, look and her music. Not only that she was coming off the success of a huge successful musical. She recently became a mother. People were just very interested in where she was at the time. Also, a lot of promotion (especially on her part) was put behind it. This was the first album she went out and performed on many TV programs (such as Oprah), performing various songs from the album. In the past, she never really did that apart from the few awards shows she appeared on prior to this era. And even those performances were done after the success of previous albums. The album sold quite well when it first was released. Rather than just fizzled, it continue to sell. Being nominated and winning Grammys the following year for the album, helped as well. I wouldn't say the album had "Weak" singles. I would say radio was already trying to put her out to pasture. Her singles did as well as they did based on sales. People were still willing to buy her records. It's just the industry wasn't behind her as much as they used to be, specifically radio, especially in the U.S. I personally was amazed how "Frozen" and "Ray of Light" did so well on the charts because I rarely heard them on radio at the time. However, they were selling very well. It's one time that radio didn't dictate the sales of a popular artist. People were still willing to buy her record, even though radio was trying to put her out to pasture. In the end, Madonna won with "the people" with this record. Simply put, she produced a fine album that many enjoyed and still consider her best album to date. Over all, Madonna's legacy will always shine based on the albums RAY OF LIGHT and LIKE A PRAYER. Of course, there are other memorable albums, but generally speaking those two will always be considered her Opuses.