Madonna’s Ray Of Light is an iconic reinvention that became iconic to my every reinvention. Everything happens for a reason and I hope that, by the end of this, the album that takes you home crosses your heart and you will miss listening to it. Home is wherever your music is.
When a record is out and I’m fascinated by it, I listen to it on repeat and an idea, usually, arises and runs through my head until I put it on paper. An Instagram post via Steven Klein on Madonna’s upcoming album, Madame X (Madonna’s 14th album), made me screenshot it, obviously, but then Ray Of Light (Madonna’s seventh album) crossed my heart and I, immediately, thought of what Ray Of Light has meant to me. The idea is here. Inhale. There’s her Music, too, hm.
I’m still fascinated by the effect the 1998 album, produced by William Orbit (a name I remembered forever because I liked how it sounded), has always had on me. It’s the effect of both escapism and familiar feeling art has on one that can not but fascinate one. See? Never stopping. Of course not. It’s Ray Of Light that we’re talking about – one of my all time favourite albums, songs and videos, and one of the things that are eternal in this world. Hello, Sun!
Ray of Light was one of the first CDs I bought for myself and the memory of holding the CD in my hands, barely into my teenage years, on the way home from the store, and looking forward to listening to it, as loud or as low as I wanted, on my brother’s stereo, has stuck with me. The CD came with the most beautiful booklet – shot by Mario Testino – and I remember, when I was a child, it always felt like the cherry on top. Stuff like this still feels like the cherry on top. Whenever lyrics were also inside, it felt like Christmas was coming.
Or, you know, like being right under le Tour Eiffel when it lights up at night.
It must’ve been on a Saturday morning, when the whole family was cleaning up the house, the music was blasting, that – cha-ching-ching! – Ray Of Light happened to be in the stereo and, slowly but surely, started to get under my brother’s skin. I was so happy!
I remember stoping from whatever I was doing and watching Nothing Really Matters, whenever it played on MTV.
Every song on this album is like a little piece of myself. I can’t even listen to it at all times, that’s how many emotions are involved at once. I do it every once in a while, though, when I want to feel like home or when it just happens. Writing this alone turns me into the fan(?) of emotions that I am. Using emotions to think is fun. Just don’t overdo it (later edit).
I still buy CDs, by the way. A friend asked me, a while ago: What? Who does that now? Why would you and where would you listen to CDs, anyway? Genuinely, I told him: In my car. The last CD I bought on amazon.com and had delivered to my brother’s house, for his birthday, was Justice‘s most recent CD, Woman Worldwide. He listens to it in his car, as well, and it might happen while he’s driving his girls to school, cha-ching!
I still have the CD. Anything related to it brings joy to my heart – seeing the case in my car, mysteriously bumping into the pictures from the booklet on the internet, hearing songs from it on the radio, dancing to them in a club and singing, for sure. On the inside. On the outside, too. It depends on the level of fun. Atmosphere.
However, there are a couple of songs that I can only listen to in intimacy. They bring me home wherever I am. There hasn’t been invented, yet, a word for what a song like Little Stardoes to one. Some kind of goosebumps, but more.
Madonna started to work on the album right after giving birth to her first child, Lourdes Leon, who happens to star in one of the coolest latest fashion commercials for Miu Miu, alongside Maya Hawke, Uma Thurman’s daughter, aww, shot by David Sims. The How Lourdes Leon, The Latest Miu Miu Girl, Became Fashion’s Quietest It Girl article on wmagazine.com is only a confirmation of the fact that Lola must’ve listened to Ray Of Light, involuntarily, a lot.
The itch of cutting my fringe is something else. This time, I want it even shorter! After just having it grown back, yup!
Music is Madonna’s 8th album and it’s pretty close to what Ray Of Light means to me. Don’t Tell Me was on it and the Don’t Tell Me video got me into the whole low rise flared jeans big time. I didn’t want to ever get out of the low rise flared jeans and this is how clothes are so much more than just fashion. The goose is decoding the style, hence the goosebumps all over the place.
Growing up and listening to Take A Bow, Justify My Love (Lenny Kravitz is among the writers of it and his voice is sensually something in the background of it), Beautiful Stranger and anything Madonna, basically, is a story for another time. Life. Heart and head on the same wave. Exhale.
Wak-wak…