I guess I have a sorta love-hate thing with Madonna. Loved her at Live 8, loved the Blond Ambition era; didn't care for Drowned World era. But really, you gotta love Madonna.
Ray of Light is a great album. Usually she's hit or miss for me, but she hit it out of the park with this one. I still listen to this one a lot.
I also like her debut (I used to dance to it when I was six years old, haha) and Like A Prayer. When I was younger I had all of her tapes, even the dance remixes, lol.
I don't usually think of Madonna as an "album" artist, but I definitely love Ray of Light, I also I like Madonna's videos of that era and the Earth Mother image she had on the album cover.
I cannot stand some of Madonna's output but 'Ray of Light' (the track, haven't heard the album) is fantastic! Superb vocals, not to mention amazing production...this is where it ends!
I was looking forward to her performance at Live8 and when I heard she was going to play this track I was rather pleased...and being there should have made it even better, unfortunately the performance of this track nearly put me to sleep! It just lacked incredibly, and there was tons missing in my opinion...! I think the track relies heavily on William Orbit there!
Yeah, Ray Of Light... Great album...! Great sound-landscapes and musical type and vocals.
I also like American Life, Erotica (two very underated albums) and Like a Prayer
Ray of Light is by far her best album to date. It is solid from start to end. Ray of Light is Her Achtung Baby in that she explored new sounds and genres on many of the songs and attracted a whole new audience.
I'd like to just make more people read this comment (WO is the man, his version of 'Adiago for Strings' is a freaking classic).
Like many others have said, I too seem to have a love-hate relationship with Madonna. She's had some AMAZINGLY fantastic pop songs, but also some absolute crap to my ears (the 'American Pie' cover and that whole 'American Life' rap thing for example). But yeah, this is a really good album (at least what I've heard). Not sure if it's her best, but it's good stuff.
I adore that album, it was definitely the best thing she'd done up to that point. I think "American Life" completely surpassed it, though. I can't wait for Madonna's new album to come out at the end of the year (with a new tour next year!!!).
"Swim" is the best song on the album, but thw whole album is good.
Fansites says that her next album dues in November, and it'll be called "Confessions on a dance floor", but now the rumours are saying "Regression". The album was supposed to be a rock album, but it'll probably be a dance album. The first single's called "Hung up" (rumours).