Ray of Light - Background and Development

Background and Development

Following the release of her compilation album Something to Remember (1995), Madonna started taking vocal lessons in preparation for her role in the film Evita (1996). She also gave birth to her daughter, Lourdes, the same year. These incidents inspired Madonna a lot, as she began introspecting herself. "That was a big catalyst for me. It took me on a search for answers to questions I'd never asked myself before," she said to Q magazine, in 2002. Moreover, during the same period, she enrolled in Kabbalah and started studying Hinduism and yoga, all of which helped her "step outside and see the world from a different perspective." Another factor which inspired the record's conception was the vocal lessons Madonna took in preparation for Evita. Madonna felt that there was a "whole piece" of her voice left unused, which she decided to utilize for the album. By May 1997, Madonna had started writing songs for the album. She began collaborating with Babyface, who had worked with her on Bedtime Stories, first. The two wrote a couple of songs together before Madonna decided the collaborations were not going in the musical direction she wanted for the album. According to Babyface, the songs "had a 'Take a Bow-ish' kind of vibe, and Madonna didn't want, or need, to repeat herself."

After abandoning the songs she had written with Babyface, Madonna turned to musician Rick Nowels, who had previously co-written songs with Stevie Nicks and Celine Dion. The collaboration produced seven songs in nine days, but those songs also did not display the album's future electronic musical direction. Three of the songs: "The Power of Goodbye", "To Have and Not to Hold" and "Little Star", appear on the album. Madonna then began writing songs with Leonard, who had produced many songs for Madonna in the late 1980s. Unlike her previous albums, Leonard's song writing collaborations were accompanied by very little studio input. Madonna believed that Leonard's production "would have lent the songs more of a Peter Gabriel vibe", a sound that she did not want for the album. Guy Oseary, Maverick Records's partner, then phoned British electronic musician William Orbit, and suggested that he send some songs to Madonna. Orbit sent a 13-track digital audio tape to Madonna. "I was a huge fan of William's earlier records, Strange Cargo 1 and 2 and all that. I also loved all the remixes he did for me and I was interested in fusing a kind of futuristic sound but also using lots of Indian and Moroccan influences and things like that, and I wanted it to sound old and new at the same time," Madonna said. Madonna began working after Orbit had sent her tape of musical snippets he was working on, which were usually eight or sixteen-bar phrases and stripped down versions of tracks that would later be heard on the album. Madonna would listen to the samples, over and over again, until she would be inspired to write lyrics. Once she had an idea about the lyrical direction of the song, she would take her ideas back to Orbit, and they would expand on the original music ideas. As most of the tracks pre-existed, Madonna worked on the lyrics while at home or in car.