When I saw Madonna, she was late. It was January 2024, and my mother and I had trekked across snowy Toronto streets into Scotiabank Arena where the Queen of Pop was scheduled to play her greatest hits. Despite numerous reports that Madonna rarely starts performances less than two hours after their scheduled start, my mom insisted we arrive early. For those two hours, I gazed upon the many elaborate stages before me and waited. As time dragged on, I noticed the people around me, including my poor mother, begin to fidget and fade. I sat still, honoured to experience Madonna’s tardiness first-hand.
When Madonna finally did emerge, she did so in an elegant black kimono, her blond hair cuffed into a crystal ring wrapped like a halo around her head. Stuttering synths duelled with warm ones, and it soon became clear she was starting the concert with “Nothing Really Matters,” the sixth single off her legendary 1998 album, Ray of Light. My favourite Madonna album; my favourite Madonna song. Once the song’s strutting beat kicked in, I knew the wait had been worthwhile.
Since Madonna wrapped that tour last spring, I have noticed traces of her best album permeating pop music. I’ve heard them on FKA Twigs’s Eusexua, with its dance-floor synths and corporeal beats and otherworldly pop melodies. I’ve felt them in Addison Rae’s debut LP, with its svelte and referential take on pop. They’re in the serpentine strangeness of Lorde’s Virgin and the meandering hooks of PinkPantheress’s “Illegal.” There are Rays of Light everywhere for those with eyes to see.
When Ray of Light came out, it was a total departure for Madonna. Her ’90s output prior to its release is probably best known for its graphic, no-holds-barred sexuality. There was “Justify My Love,” her 1990 single delivered in hushed orgasms and accompanied by an infamous Too-Hot-for-MTV video. There was her notorious 1991 tour doc, Truth or Dare. There was Sex, her scandalous and pornographic 1992 coffee-table book. There was its sister record, the 1992 album Erotica, which was all leather and floggers and begged us to go deeper and deeper. And then there was Bedtime Stories, her puzzling 1994 album, which at once pandered to bland mid-’90s adult contemporary radio (“Take a Bow”) and the kind of daring and bold and slightly perverse statements (“Human Nature”) that made Erotica so refreshing. Madonna is an artist who has always known how to be controversial, to shock and grab attention and still remain at the top of the pop game, artistically, aesthetically, commercially. But Bedtime Stories seemed to pose an existential question for Madonna as she entered her second decade of superstardom: would she choose the provacateurship that had always defined her, or compromise her artistic integrity in exchange for mass appeal?
Following the birth of her first child, Lourdes, in 1996, she discovered a third option. Madonna became heavily interested in eastern mysticism and Kabbalah, and sought to combine her newfound lifestyle with a singular mélange of the most cutting-edge sounds of the time: techno, British alt-rock, ethereal singer-songwriter stuff. The product was Ray of Light.
Despite its influences and Madonna’s stacked pre-’98 catalogue, Ray of Light sounds like nothing else that came before it and, though often imitated, has never been replicated. That being said, it’s clear that Madonna’s ears were open to the best music of her time. In the measured beats of “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” I hear the tranquil electronic thrum of Aphex Twin. The pitter-patter of “Little Star” brings to mind Björk’s “Hyperballad” and the lush strings and grand metaphors of “Frozen” could have been pulled right off Homogenic. Madonna’s odd and low delivery on “Candy Perfume Girl” sounds like something PJ Harvey would have put down on Rid of Me; the bluesy guitar riff that drives “Swim” would have fit nicely on Harvey’s To Bring You My Love. All over the album I hear Portishead and I hear Enya; I hear Tori Amos and Sinéad O’Connor.
Madonna dropped Ray of Light as these artists and more were imploding the very notion of what a pop song could and should sound like. When I think of the ’90s alternative movement that Ray of Light squared itself into, I think of singular artists writing songs that defied convention, that didn’t quite make sense. Their music was unpredictable and strange. It was free. But Madonna is the woman who made “Like a Prayer” and “Express Yourself” and “Material Girl” and “Vogue,” all perfectly rendered pop anthems that taste like candy. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these songs, not a note or lick or riff out of place. Yet none of these songs beguile and seduce like Ray of Light does. Its weirdness is tantalizing; it draws you in and coaxes you into listening over and over to try to unravel its layers.
“Nothing Really Matters” draws me in more than anything on the album. It’s a tease of a song, with its slow, simmering start, synths all moody and buzzing. Its club-ready percussion, which punctures the song in its first chorus, hits me like a smelling salt, rousing me from a trance and bringing me to my feet. I love its timeless hooks and the way its chorus descends to a tonic note; the song is both hypnotic and deeply satisfying. The same could be said for most of the album.
Then there’s the title track, one of Madonna’s most enduring classics. God, what a slammer. The song is a reimagining of the 1971 song “Sepheryn” by Curtiss Maldoon; Madonna transforms their strange folk diddy into an electrifying smash. Her guitars sound like money; her synths make me feel like I’m flying through space at light speed and the stars are sloping around me in great brilliant beams. This woman bellows and cries out the biggest hooks I’ve ever heard as if some god has commanded she expel all the air out of her lungs posthaste. The rest of the album is serene and thoughtful; “Ray of Light” is a war cry, one that has rung out eternal.
Last week, Madonna dropped Veronica Electronica, a companion album to Ray of Light that features remixes of some of its tracks. Madonna says she meant to drop it shortly after the release of its mother record but shelved it because of Ray of Light’s sustained commercial success. It’s fitting that Veronica Electronica is coming out at a time when Ray of Light feels more relevant and prescient than ever. The best things in life often arrive late.
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