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Ray Of Light 15th Anniversary Thread


cosmic_system

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rolflash_zps2485c9e6.png

I want that flashlight.

As long as we're sharing stories, I remember playing ROL (the song) in my basement studio when a friend of a friend came over. He was in an alternative band, pretty snooty, and looked down on anything mainstream (can't fault him for that but he was still a snob). ANYWAY we were standing in my kitchen and he asked me what I was playing downstairs and I said that was Madonna's new CD. I'll never forget, his eyebrows went up and he said, "That's a pretty good song."

She won a lot of respect during that era, from some of the most unlikely suspects.

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I was 14 going on 15 and this was my first release as a fanatic. It was LIFE. A true magical era. Nothing has ever compared. Everything was pure ART during this time, the videos, interviews, phtoshoots, performances....just brilliant. Ray of Light is Madonna's opus.

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Does anyone remember the MTV commercial for Frozen? I recorded it and watched it a trizillion times before the debut. My God, she was EVERYTHING during this era. What other artist had COMMERCIALS for their video premieres? The world was so hungry for her return at this time. She delivered beyond belief....so epic.

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Guest Not4Pussies

Does anyone remember the MTV commercial for Frozen? I recorded it and watched it a trizillion times before the debut. My God, she was EVERYTHING during this era. What other artist had COMMERCIALS for their video premieres? The world was so hungry for her return at this time. She delivered beyond belief....so epic.

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yes!!! i remember those commercials too!! such an amazing time. i was 14 myself.

i remember they would play Frozen on the radio a lot and then falling in love with the video

i told my sister to buy me the single at Target. they didnt sell singles so she got me the album instead

ive been hooked since then!!!!

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Does anyone have the limited collector's edition of the ROL fleshlight? :wow:/> I think there were only 300 released

:lol:

300 were made but the item was recalled and only about 50 made it onto the laps of collectors.

MINE STILL WORKS:

rayofflsh_zpsd2b42537.png

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I love ROL! I remember watching the ROL video and asking my sister who that woman was (I was 10), after she said Madonna I was totally in love with the video and the song. Couple months later found the cd in my mom's room and took it (that's the copy I still own). From that day on I've been in love with her!

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Such a brilliant and innovative album. I remember going to buy Ray of light and walking into the record store. Ray of light itself was playing on the sound system as they were promoting it in the store. Just hearing the beginning of the song and how it suddenly exploded into this wild sound was incredible.

Thanks Mattress for all the stuff on Ray of light you have been posting in this thread. You always post great pictures, interviews and information.

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I was late on the bandwagon. It was 1999 (I was nine), around the time of NRM video premiere. My father took my older sister and I to Tower Records (remember those?). I went straight to the Madonna section, picked up ROL and took to my dad so he could buy it for me. <3 As soon as I got home I went straight into my basement and put the CD on. My sister looked at the back of the CD and put on track 6 and said, "This is from her new video." I didn't care. I went back to track 1 and listened to the whole album.

That summer, that album became my anthem, my calling. I played it non stop from beginning to end. Shanti/Ashangi was my favorite track, I knew all the lyrics and would sing it non stop.

God I love that album.

She was soooo cool back then (she still is), but she made Henna look so cool. Yoga was so hip because of her, as was anything with an oriental/eastern influence.

I still think that Rolling Stone spread is so iconic.

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I remember buying the album at the time of the release, and being completely surprised by her voice and the music in drowned world & swim. I love that she released five singles & all the videos were excellent for the album.

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The day Frozen premiered on the radio was the same day I had to put my dog to sleep. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the radio with him on my lap crying when they started playing Frozen. I will never forget that moment. The album is perfection. It was the only thing I played for months!

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDJHQ0i7vI[/media]

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Does anyone remember the MTV commercial for Frozen? I recorded it and watched it a trizillion times before the debut. My God, she was EVERYTHING during this era. What other artist had COMMERCIALS for their video premieres? The world was so hungry for her return at this time. She delivered beyond belief....so epic.

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Never seen that, love it!

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LAP is still my favourite album EVER, but ROL is very close. It's absolute perfection (the music, the videos, THE PROMOTION, everything...).

I hope next time she decides to record a new album, she'll be as inspired and creative as she was during the ROL era (and with the MDNA tour she's proven that she still can make ART).

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The day Frozen premiered on the radio was the same day I had to put my dog to sleep. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the radio with him on my lap crying when they started playing Frozen. I will never forget that moment. The album is perfection. It was the only thing I played for months!

:cries:

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The day Frozen premiered on the radio was the same day I had to put my dog to sleep. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the radio with him on my lap crying when they started playing Frozen. I will never forget that moment. The album is perfection. It was the only thing I played for months!

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDJHQ0i7vI[/media]

That is so sad.

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The day Frozen premiered on the radio was the same day I had to put my dog to sleep. I remember sitting on the floor in front of the radio with him on my lap crying when they started playing Frozen. I will never forget that moment. The album is perfection. It was the only thing I played for months!

[media=]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDJHQ0i7vI[/media]

What a beautiful yet very sad story. I'm sorry that is your connection to Frozen. Still, it is a unique and personal memory.

I remember I went skiing for the first and only time with my family in Colorado, MTV News was reporting the title of the first single from the new album, Frozen, I found it so fitting as I was in the snow, etc. I can remember sitting on the chair lift with my little brother trying to imagine what the song would sound like. It debuted on radio the day we got home. I can honestly say, my imagined "Frozen" could never even hold a spark to the actual track....the lush, grand, dark and haunting track remains one of my top 3 Madonna favorites.

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Never seen that, love it!

They had a commercial for the Ray of Light video as well, but it wasn't as grand and mysterious as the one for Frozen. Ah, the good days, such memories. To think, the year ROL came out, I turned 15....this year, I will turn 30 :ohmy:

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Does anyone remember the MTV commercial for Frozen? I recorded it and watched it a trizillion times before the debut. My God, she was EVERYTHING during this era. What other artist had COMMERCIALS for their video premieres? The world was so hungry for her return at this time. She delivered beyond belief....so epic.

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Oh my god. Chills. I vividly remember seeing this in Boston while I was visiting friends. We were leaving some apartment and I was like "Wait! Everyone shut up!" And I remember getting back to NYC and watching the video on the tiny TV in the kitchen in my dorm room. I had just left home for college and was in this totally new world, scared and in awe. And then to have this new Madonna song/album was really special.

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Guest bluejean

Her greatest album, along with Purple Rain the greatest album of all time.

This was the first Madonna album I was old enough to buy on the day it was released. I was quite young and I rode my push bike to the store and bought it with my pocket money I'd been saving in anticipation :lol:/>

I remember the hype leading up to it. I was already reading daily updates online on that Madonna digest/discussion or whatever it was that used to clog up my parents email inbox. I remember 'Candy Perfume Girl' getting played at some fashion thing or something and people discussing it. The lyrics of Little Star being printed and people saying "What is this shit?" :lol:/> Then I remember the 1st version everyone heard of Frozen was actually the Stereo MC's remix, it was played on some radio show that I streamed online on that shitty realaudio player or whatever it was. I wasn't so sure about it actually. (I love that mix now obviously.) Then I remember waiting by the radio for 'Frozen' to get played for the 1st time, cassette ready and armed. All Saints 'Never Ever' came on and my sister's boyfriends mother said "Is that her? It sounds like it." *barf*

Then the real deal came on and her voice just blew me away. The song was magical. So haunting, so unique. And of course I bought the CD single, the remixes were amazing and the video was INCREDIBLE.

There was also alot of hype around the song 'Ray of Light' and her "operatic voice" in it. I heard a sample of that next and was all "whoa." Then I heard samples of every song online shortly before its release. The songs that excited me most were Nothing Really Matters, The Power of Goodbye and Sky Fits Heaven.

I remember putting the disc in my CD player beyond excited. Then hearing those swirls of Drowned World at the start. All those electronic bleeps on that album, it was like being transported to a whole new world. I'd lay there with my headphones on listening to it every night. It was just the greatest thing I'd ever heard. It was a revelation to me :lol:/> (Keep in mind I was very young and had only really heard mainstream pop music before.) I remember having a similar experience with Janet's Velvet Rope, but of course, Ray of Light blew that out of the water.

And this album was very special to me too because I became very sick in 1998 not long after its release and this album really saw me through all that. It's a life changing album.

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All these comments made me play the album at this very moment!! It certainly is her best album, IMO.

I remember being 9 when it was released and how everyone just LOVED everything she did during that time. It was my sister who bought the cassette and played it non-stop. I remember watching for the first time all the videos when they were premiered on MTV and both of us were like 'WOW, this is my new favorite track!' She was SOOOOO respected at that time and she was so cool, she made the news all the time!

Just a curious fact: Frozen, My Heart Will Go On and Getting' Jiggy With It were in the Top 3 of MTV's most requested videos for months, my sister and me had fun trying to guess which one would be #1!

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I was 22 and just starting my career when this album was released.

I had a friend who had a friend in LA that sent him a CASSETTE copy from the CD a month before it was released

so I dubbed a copy from his copy. Talk about LQ! I think every gay guy in Dallas had a cassette of ROL! LOL

When the album was released, I won a copy with the henna tattoo kit and a poster at a release party at a bar.

Then I went to Paris for 2 weeks for a work trip, and it was everywhere! I got the Frozen maxi single (which wasn't out in the US yet)

at Lucky Records and listened to the Stereo MC's mix on repeat.

That album and that time were truly magical for me. I was single, self sufficient, independent, and living my dreams.

In many ways, ROL felt like M's second debut album; her new powerful voice, excellent songwriting, excellent production, and

songs that still take me back to where I truly started my adulthood.

I can't believe its been 15 years already!!

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