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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand, I'm grateful you are here. I am also grateful to Kerry Nolan for sitting in for a few days. Thanks, Kerry. On today's show, our Black Art History Month series continues with a new show of the work of the late artist Winfred Rembert, whose depictions of the Jim Crow South via tool leather died brightly. His widow will join us, Patsy, as does Hauser & Wirth, Koji Inoue, plus the story of the first Black master potter who operated his own business in New York City at the turn of the century. That is the plan, so let's get this started with Madge.

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Alison Stewart: Today mark's 25 years since Madonna released the album Ray of Light, and it's the latest pick in our music anniversary series, Silver Liner Notes. Ray of Light dropped first in Japan on February 22nd, 1998, and then officially hit US shores on March 3rd. It would become the multi-platinum and one of the best-selling studio albums of Madonna's career. It came after a hiatus from recording. She'd gone into acting and gave birth to her daughter Lourdes in 1996. As my next guest wrote in a profile in the New York Times, the album represented the "Newest New Madonna". The trans-filled influence sound of the songs was paired with meditative inward-looking lyrics inspired by the singer's recent forays into yoga and Jewish mysticism. A 1998 New York Times profile of Madonna described the album as quote, "an hour plus look below the surface that will horrify those who prefer Madonna, down to earth and out to win". That profile was written by Ann Powers, today a critic and correspondent for NPR Music who joins me now to reflect on Ray of Light 25 years later. Hi Ann.

Ann Powers: Hello. I'm so excited to be talking about one of my very favorite albums.

Alison Stewart: So excited to have you. Hey, listeners, do you remember when Madonna's Ray of Light was released or when you first discovered it? What did you think about it then? What do you think about it now? Maybe you have a favorite track. Call us. Tell us about your relationship to the album Ray of Light. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Or maybe you want to tell us about your relationship with Madonna. 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC. Our social media is @AllOfItWNYC. That is both Twitter and Instagram. All right. Let's put this album in a time in place. Where was Madonna in her career in the late 1990s when this album came out?

Ann Powers: She had tried a lot of different things through the '90s. I wouldn't say she was in a lull exactly, but I think maybe hardcore fans were wondering, what's your direction, Madge? [chuckles] Before this album, her biggest project was starring in the movie version of Evita, which got mixed reviews. Before that, she'd gone through the whole controversy over her very explicit and I think wonderful Erotica/Sex Project, which was a book and an album. She'd recorded a beautiful album of R&B with Babyface called Bedroom Stories. It was definitely a dip in her influence, and Ray of Light brought her back to the center of things.

Alison Stewart: How did her personal life and its direction impact the album? How can we see it reflected in Ray of Light?

Ann Powers: Many things happened for Madonna in the mid to late '90s, including the birth of her first child, Lourdes Leon, who was born in 1996. That was a major event, of course, for her. Then as I talked about in that profile you mentioned, after delivering Lourdes via cesarean section, she needed a new routine to get back in shape. Honestly, that's how she got into yoga. Getting into yoga led her to explore Eastern mysticism and explore, as you said, Jewish mysticism. She was in an intensely spiritual phase. What's interesting is that that was a moment when, as often happens, Eastern mysticism come into the American mainstream again. I don't know if you remember that period in New York with places like Jivamukti Yoga. Everyone was trotting around Manhattan with their yoga mat in their little bag, slung from their shoulder, including me. I really love this record for that reason.

Alison Stewart: We noticed in a lot of the contemporary reviews of the album Ray of Light, sometimes the word comeback would be used, but as you described, she was busy during that period. Why would she even be in need of a "comeback"?

Ann Powers: I was thinking about these long-lived pop stars the other day, Alison Stewart. Thinking about how they're like the everlasting gobstoppers of music.

Alison Stewart: [laughs]

Ann Powers: You know those Willy Wonka candies that have lots of different flavors as you go through the layers?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Ann Powers: I think Madonna just needed a new flavor to get the public's interest going again. This was very sincere though. She didn't just put on either the mystical aura nor the interest in electronica and British dance music that permeates the sound of this record. These were sincere interests for her, and I think that's why it worked because it is a very much a genuine, deep dive into these thoughts and these sounds.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a call. Jeff is calling in from West New York, New Jersey. Hi, Jeff. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Jeff: Hi, Alison. Very excited to be on the show. Ray of Light came out when I was 13 years old. As a 13-year-old kid who had grown up with Madonna a little bit, this is the first time I really paid attention to this album cycle. The meditative qualities and the lyricism, I recognize that she was seeing the world in a brand new way through her daughter's eyes. It just made me realize how finite we all are in the universe, but also how grand we can be as a parent who's giving birth to something or someone. It's just a powerful album that's just stuck with me for the last 25 years.

Alison Stewart: To Ann's point, did you feel that it was authentic? Did you feel that it was Madonna in a way that was more down-to-earth than we'd seen her previously?

Jeff: I do. I don't know if down to earth is the right phrase, but I do feel like there was an authenticity there. I think that the birth of anyone-- I'm not a parent myself, but I'm sure that the parents out there listening can understand the seismic changes that happen to you when you have a child. I do think that authenticity was brought in this album.

Alison Stewart: Jeff, thank you.

Ann Powers: I so agree. [laughs]

Alison Stewart: I love that. Let's talk to Dara calling in from Harlem. Hi, Dara.

Dara: Hi. Thank you so much. I wanted to share that my favorite song off of that album, and maybe my favorite Madonna song of all times is Drowned World/Substitute For Love because it was really the first time that we saw a vulnerable Madonna. She was really introspective. I think the first time that she let on that maybe the way she had lived her life in the past might have been wrong, and that she was discovering a new way. A way that might be more enlightened. I think it's one of her most vulnerable songs.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Ann Powers: It's worth saying the lyrics from that song. It started out, "I traded fame for love without a second thought. It all became a silly game. Some things cannot be bought," which is rich coming from a millionaire, billionaire, [laughs] but which also I think is sincere coming from Madonna at that point in her life. That's exactly what you're saying.

Alison Stewart: Something else I want to point out, and we'll talk more about Madonna's appearance later on, but I remember the first time seeing the album cover and maybe seeing some of the early videos for this. She looked, I mean, it's like shot through Vaseline, Ann, some of the photography. It's very soft after the hard-edged helmet Newton-like photography in the book, Erotica, I believe that's the name of the book. That was a very stark and contrasty kind of image. This was very teal and gold and soft-focused. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about her presentation of herself at the time.

Ann Powers: Oh, yes, many thoughts. I think it worked on multiple levels. For one thing, as we're talking about it, she's getting into the new age as it were, and the version of new age that was happening in the late '90s. There's a sort of aura of exotica over the whole thing. This is where we get into issues around appropriation. For example, in her Frozen video, which is an amazing video, she is clad in all in black. This looks a little gothic, but to me it's really invoking Asian imagery, the ghosts in Akira Kurosawa films, for example. Then she has mehndi, the Indian henna tattoos. The intricate Indian henna tattoos are painted onto her hands, and she's doing a form of Indian classical dance.

She's doing that Madonna thing. She's absorbing everything and making it her own, as it were. [chuckles] That was very popular at that time. The mainstreaming of yoga, and of other Eastern philosophies which had happened several times throughout the 20th century was surging back in the 1990s in a lot of, let's just say it, a lot of White middle-class and upper-middle class Americans were pulling this kind of appropriation game and she was doing it too.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Bob from Brooklyn. Hi Bob. Thanks for calling All Of It.

Bob: Yes, hi. Thank you. I'm a big Madonna fan, especially the music, not anything else, but basically her music but I don't think she's just a good singer. She strikes me as being a brilliant musician in general, all aspects of music. I have the album Ray of Light. I don't care for the electronic part, but it's a good song. I like the beat, but could you comment about two other songs on the album? One I think is one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard in my life called Power of Good-Bye. The other one is Frozen. I don't know if you call those electronic, but I think those are two great songs.

Alison Stewart: Bob, thanks for calling in. Actually, let's listen to a little bit of Frozen and we can talk about it on the other side and The Power of Goodbye.

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Give yourself to me

Alison Stewart: That is frozen from the album Ray of Light. It's the subject of Silver Liner Notes today. 25th anniversary of Ray of Light. My guest is Ann Powers Powers critic correspondent for NPR Music. You are our guest as well. Do you remember Madonna's Ray of Light when it was released, when you first discovered it? What did you think of it then? Do you have a favorite track? 212-433-9692, 212-433-WNYC or you can hit us up on social media @AllOfItWNYC as we discuss Ray of Light. There was so much going on sonically there. It was really so interesting and layered. From your reporting, is that a Madonna thing or is that a producer thing? Mainly William Orbit in this case?

Ann Powers: Madonna, one of her great gifts, and I'm going to say this is a gift that Beyonce also has, in picking the right collaborators. She's almost more like a film producer than a conventional musician. She's casting her album. Connecting with someone like William Orbit, who is a British composer-producer, known for his work and the ambient chill space of British dance music and also classical music, gave her a chance to connect with what was happening in the underground at that time.

While, as you can hear, even in that song, and especially in Power of Goodbye, she still was also bringing in that kind of grand balladry that she had loved so much and had really gotten to explore by playing the character of Evita. You hear this interesting combination of a very sincere, very romantic balladry and this very playful and psychedelic dance influence in these songs.

Alison Stewart: We found an electronic press kit, an EPK from 1998 for this album. It was on YouTube. Let's listen to a little bit of Madonna talking about how she ended up working with producer William Orbit.

Madonna: I really didn't know who I wanted to produce the whole album. I knew what I wanted sound-wise, but it's hard. Working in the studio with somebody who's like a marriage and you have to-- it's a chemistry. It first started with the writing process. I wrote with Babyface Pat Leonard and Rick Nowels and William Orbit.

When I first spoke to William and I told him I wanted to work with him, I basically was fishing for information because I hadn't heard what he'd been doing lately. I said, "Why don't you send me some DATs or tapes or whatever stuff you've been working on? I just want to know where your head's at, pick your brain, and stuff. He sent me music and I just flipped over it and I said, "Oh my God, I've got to work with this guy now."

Alison Stewart: It is so interesting to listen to that EPK, Ann, because you hear her talking so much about process and we don't really talk about Madonna and her process anymore. It was just interesting to hear her think about music and think about music production.

Ann Powers: Yes. Well, not to raise the obvious point, but in a sexist society when a woman pop star comes to prominence usually the talk centers on either her surface, her look, her fashion, her style, or her emotionality, like her expressiveness, her the lyrics of her songs. Madonna is just a master of translating underground sounds to the mainstream, and that's what she did with this project. She is a musician after all.

Alison Stewart: Christine H. says on Instagram, "Oh my God, Ray of Light is one of my desert island disks. I listened to that album over and over about a bajillion times. I cannot listen to the title track without grooving. The album's music hits the soul intensely. The lyrics felt like Madonna's heart was so open and tender with strength and grace. Hard to pick a favorite version of Madonna, but this one is up there. Christina H. thank you for calling in. Let's talk to Zeff from Brooklyn. Hi Zeff.

Zeff: Hi. Hey, Alison. I called a lot long time ago about painting. Good to hear you.

Alison Stewart: Good to hear from you.

Zeff: I just had a funny story that back in the '80s, '90s, my dad was a yoga teacher in the Soho Village area, and he used to get really annoyed with this upstairs neighbor who was dancing all the time and making all this noise on his ceilings. He'd be the old curmudgeon and slam the broom on the ceiling until later found out it was his upstairs neighbor was Madonna, practicing dance routines.

Ann Powers: Oh wow. That's amazing. Did she ever take a yoga class from him?

Zeff: I wish I knew, I hope so.

Ann Powers: That was a thing in the village back in those days. You'd go to a yoga class and there would be a famous actor or famous musician sitting next to you trying to achieve the same headstand you were trying to achieve. I had that happen many times.

Alison Stewart: Let's talk to Mona from Nyack. Hi Mona.

Mona: Hi Alison, so nice to be on the show. I love your show. Long-time listener. I'm just calling to just say that I also loved Drowned World/Substitute for Love, but I love the entire album, every single song. I'm just a bit younger than Madonna, so I was around when she first came on the scene, and what I loved about the album was of course, what William Orbit brought to it, especially at that time when that kind of music was really transformative for a lot of people and really a vibe.

Also, it had an ethereal quality to it and her voice was such that we hadn't really heard before. It was just more developed and singer-songwriter as opposed to sort of poppy and produced. Yes, it was just beautiful. It had a spiritual quality to it, however, as authentic as Madonna can be. That's what I loved about it.

Alison Stewart: Thank you for calling. It's interesting this discussion about her vocals because we had somebody say on Twitter, "Madonna made some great music for sure, but a good singer know a lot of work done on her voice on the recordings to make her sound decent", but we should point out that this record, I believe, was recorded after she went through a lot of vocal training for Evita. Is that right?

Ann Powers: Yes, definitely. It's the Croner Madonna like I like to say. She definitely developed a different style after she had some proper voice training. That's where you hear that kind of heartfelt ballad quality in these songs. I think it was around this time that she also did her version of American Pie, which was for a soundtrack. She was definitely learning how to play guitar, learning how to sing in a different way. It's interesting because here we have this very ambient spacey, trancey record, but also she's giving a late '60s singer-songwriter vibe. Again, Madonna with the unexpected combinations,

Alison Stewart: More with Ann Powers and more of your calls after a quick break.

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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Ann Powers critic and correspondent for NPR Music. It is our Silver Liner Notes series when we celebrate the 25th anniversary of big albums that came out in 1998. Today we are talking about Madonna, Ray of Light. Let's talk to Patrick from Williamsburg. Hi Patrick.

Patrick: Hello there Alison.

Alison Stewart: You're on the air.

Patrick: Super big fan of Luscious Jackson as well, I have to say. Thank you for that. I got into that right at the same time as this album.

Alison Stewart: Nice.

Patrick: Yes, I love Madonna. Huge fan, so much so that all the people I grew up with in school knew that I was gay before I did. A couple of months after this album came out, they bought me the commemorative collector's edition, CD of the album that had a hologram on the front, I believe.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow. What did that mean to you?

Patrick: Well, they mean they all knew I was gay for sure, and I was just about to graduate high school and take off. As a huge Madonna fan growing up already from the age of four on, it was like, I could totally see Madonna butterflying at that moment, like everybody's mentioned, she just became a mother and I was about to blossom myself and take off to DC for collagen become me.

Ann Powers: Well, that's beautiful.

Alison Stewart: We're glad you became you, Patrick. Thank you for calling in. Patrick gave me a nice seg into a track that you wanted to talk a little bit about Little Star.

Ann Powers: Oh yes. I love this song. This is a song that Madonna wrote for her daughter, Lourdes Leon. It's just a beautiful little dose of mother wisdom, set to a gorgeous drum and bass bee. Ben Watt Everything but the Girl explained the drum and bass beat to me once in this way. He said, "it goes so fast that it becomes slow again". I think you really hear that in this song where it's a ballad but it has this insistent electronic beat that enraptures you, it hypnotizes you. It's also one of her sweetest vocals. Alison, you were talking about her vocal training, and I think we forget that vocal training not only allows you to sing big, but also sing small with control. I think the tenderness in this vocal reflects that training that she had received.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear Little Star from Madonna.

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Never forget who you are

Little Star

Shining brighter than all the stars in the sky

Alison Stewart: That is a Little Star from Madonna, from the album Ray of Light. After becoming a mother and after getting into yoga and spirituality, studying Sanskrit, that EPK, she talked about it on that electronic press kit, the connection between motherhood and spirituality. Let's listen to Madonna.

Madonna: The beginning of my search and my spiritual journey, my spiritual awakening, whatever you want to call it but I would say what really kicked it into first gear was the impending birth of my daughter. I started asking myself so many questions like, what's important in life? What really matters in life? What am I going to teach my daughter? Why am I here? Why is she here? I just asked myself every elementary question you could ever ask yourself.

I started studying the kabbalah and I started practicing yoga, and I started just reading lots of different literature that, and it all happened at once, and I don't think that there are any accidents. I think it happened to me for a reason. It happened to me like, the teachers arrived because the student was ready.

Alison Stewart: Sometimes music industry types can be cynical. How was this version of Madonna received?

Ann Powers: Well, I think it happened at the right time with her and also you have to remember that getting into especially eastern philosophy or mystical philosophies like Kabbalah. This is something that has happened throughout the history of popular music, and especially rock and roll. We remember the Beatles with the Maharishi, for example, going and studying with him in India. Even Dylan, like Bob Dylan, although he didn't get into the Eastern stuff, but his fundamentalist his Christian phase. Spiritual exploration goes hand in hand with being an artist, being a musician and there's a space for that within music culture. I don't think people were super shocked when this happened but at the same time, there's always questions around sincerity.

Definitely, she was getting into stuff that a lot of people were getting into. Some might have said was trendy, especially I think the interest in Kabbalah because that was very hot in Los Angeles at that time among the Hollywood set but every bit of evidence I could see showed me that she was sincerely doing this. That doesn't surprise me either, Alison, because if there's one word I would use to describe Madonna throughout her career, this might surprise you, it's disciplined like she is a worker. This kind of spiritual practice required work to become a great yogi, to become a great, even a mystic and I think the practice of the work of it attracted her.

Alison Stewart: Interesting. You should bring that up because we have a very interesting caller online to Ramsey, calling in from Hastings on Hudson. Hi Ramsey.

Ramsey: Hi, Alison. How are you?

Alison Stewart: Great.

Ramsey: Two quick things. I went to school in Los Angeles, I guess it was like '82 or '83, and a friend of mine who was a DJ passed on a cassette tape, just a plain cassette tape that had Madonna on it and a phone number that people were passing, or I think somebody was passing to him so he would play the music. What was interesting about that, before that first record came out was that there were already mixes, like dance mixes on that. I don't remember seeing that before, that they were completely different based on the songs on the record but the other thing that I wanted to say, and I enjoyed those tracks, but I wrote her off, especially when I saw her and all that stuff.

Then I was working as a carpenter for the union, setting up concerts, all that summer. I guess it was that first tour in '86 or '87 for that, I think it was Who's That Girl Tour, whatever. We were so impressed. The stage show that we had to set up took us days. It was so ambitious. It was unlike anything we'd ever seen. Then when they finally came to the stage to pre and make sure everything was ready, doing their tech rehearsals, she was demanding as hell. She knew exactly what she wanted, and she would not stop until she got what she--, it was like, there were 12 dancers. It was amazing, all the costumes and everything, but like, she got all of our respect because she was out there in the hot sun doing all the work, doing the sound check, making sure the steps were right. I'll never forget that. I was like, "Wow, she knows what she wants and she won't stop until she gets it, and she's doing it all herself." It was really impressive.

Alison Stewart: Ramsey, thank you for calling in. That's a really interesting perspective, Ann.

Ann Powers: No, it totally confirms everything I've heard and thought about Madonnas-- in some ways I think she's a perfectionist to a fault. Who of us doesn't remember seeing the documentary Truth or Dare? Her great documentary and her eating her meals out of a Tupperware. She was so disciplined even about her diet. She just controlled every aspect of what she did and the dance remixes tip that was a great story because of course, she remains loyal to club culture. The record after this one, which is called music, you might call it the cult or underground version of Ray of Light, in that it is a return to the clubs, a return to not so much the psychedelic rave thing, but just that classic club music. That is also a very beloved record among her greatest fans, and especially I think those who came up in club culture.

Alison Stewart: I want to circle back to your comment about the newest new Madonna from way back in '98. That could be said about her whole career, that she always is taking on new music, she's taking on new presentations. I think we have to, if we're having this conversation, talk about how many people remarked that she looks so different when she presented at the Grammy Awards.

She sent, put out a few responses, including saying, "Instead of focusing on what I said in my speech, which was about giving thanks for the fearlessness of artists like Sam and Kim, many people chose to only talk about closeup photos of me taken with a long lens camera by a press photographer that would distort anyone's face. Once again, I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny." Then on Monday, she posted a photo of herself with the caption, "Look how cute I am. Now, the swelling from my surgery has gone down, LOL."

One, what do you make of the way that people have commented on her appearance? Is it because who she is and the way she is physically has always been part of her art? Maybe it is up for fair game, and what do you make of the way she responded?

Ann Powers: Well, gosh my feelings about this are very complicated, but I'll try to make some comments. One thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is that this Madonna controversy over her appearance at the Grammys is happening at the exact same time that Bruce Springsteen is out on tour again. That we're seeing all these pictures of a preternaturally fit Bruce Springsteen with an interesting shade of tan. [laughs] I'm not saying I don't know anything about Bruce Springsteen and plastic surgery or whatever, but let's be real.

Why is it that not only don't comment on the way he looks but admire it and extol it? Then we look at Madonna and we think it's grotesque. I just have to point out that double standard. At the same time, I remember when Ray of Light came out and she was 39. Isn't that funny/disturbing that at the time that this was her mature phase? She was 39 but I remember thinking, I just love that Madonna takes me through all the phases of my life, and she's certainly projecting a distinctive vision of being in her 60s, but it's not what I wanted back in the day when I was hoping she would show the world how a post-menopausal woman, a woman in her 60s, could still be vital and be beautiful.

It feels a bit like she is trying to defy time. I think that we all have to make our peace with that and accept that this is who she is. She's always had a will of steel. She's going to be who she is, even if she's not giving us exactly maybe what we wanted.

Alison Stewart: Silver Liner Notes is the name of the series. We were talking about, Madonna, Ray of Light. Thanks to everybody who called in. Big thanks to Ann Powers critic and correspondent for NPR Music. Come back anytime, Ann.

Ann Powers: I'd love to. Such a pleasure.

 

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