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Ray Of Light 15th Anniversary Thread


cosmic_system

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I watched Hansel & Gretel a few weeks ago and there is a scene of a witch shapeshifting into a bunch of crows and I screamed FROZEN! :lmao:

Anyways is this true?

With a monochromatic bluish appearance throughout, the video shows Madonna playing The Morrígan, an ethereal gothic witch-like (though often hailed as a goddess or personification of nature), melancholy persona, with long black hair, black gowns designed by Olivier Theyskens (at that time a young and emerging talent), and mehndi on her hand showing the hindu word Om on her palm. She shapeshifts into a flock of crows and a doberman and like the legend of the Morrígan, presents herself as a trinity of sisters representing aspects of the same being.

Interesting.

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Anyways is this true?

With a monochromatic bluish appearance throughout, the video shows Madonna playing The Morrígan, an ethereal gothic witch-like (though often hailed as a goddess or personification of nature), melancholy persona, with long black hair, black gowns designed by Olivier Theyskens (at that time a young and emerging talent), and mehndi on her hand showing the hindu word Om on her palm. She shapeshifts into a flock of crows and a doberman and like the legend of the Morrígan, presents herself as a trinity of sisters representing aspects of the same being.

Interesting.

There are elements of that, of hinduism, of like celtic myth, or european devil-myths, I mean there's the whole the Grim type thing with the dogs. I think it's less specific, more a sort of general amalgamation of spiritualism, not quite light, not quite dark. As much as I love the video and the look and everything, it's one of her less interesting videos in that there's no deeper suggestion. Express Yourself, for example, with it's correlation to Metropolis, taps into all that film's gender politics but also the glamour of the era, it's strengthened by its references. Girl Gone Wild, with the mass of self references refers directly to her own legacy, her own gender politics, Gaga being a plagiarising skank, etc.

Don't get me wrong, all the videos from Ray Of Light are brilliant and beautiful and real examples of the Music Video medium, but with the exception of DW/SFL they all seem more style over substance (but if anyone thinks I'm missing a whole slew of points, please I'd love to know them)

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As a mega Madonna fan prior to Ray Of Light, I always thought it was fairly overrated. The entire period. I think Erotica was lightening years ahead of it. And Bedtime Stories equally as good.

I would agree with this. There something really fresh and magical about ROL, but I've grown to like Erotica a little bit more. There's just something raw and real about Erotica. I'm a big fan of Bedtime Stories, but ROL is ultimately a better album - more consistent, more inventive. I'd give all four albums 4/5, to varying degrees. LAP is till my favorite Madonna album. My top three: LAP, Erotica, ROL (ROL was #2 until very recently).

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I don't like LAP that much, it's all about the singles, but as an album it's very hit and miss.

Lyrically it's very interesting, but musically is good but not her best. For that reason I think MDNA and LAP are very similar.

M's holy trinity:

Ray Of Light

Erotica

American Life

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I may feel like an obsession but "Ray of light" is also very good and consistant because it has a great sound mixer :Pat McCarthy. MDNA is such a mess because the sound mixer is shit. Madonna MUST drop Demacio "Demo" Castellon !

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I must say, I always loathed Frozen back then. It did nothing for me. And I always detested the video as well, I thought it was nothing more than just a boring fashion video.

But over the years my opinion has completly changed. It's now my 5th favorite song!

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I must say, I always loathed Frozen back then. It did nothing for me. And I always detested the video as well, I thought it was nothing more than just a boring fashion video.

But over the years my opinion has completly changed. It's now my 5th favorite song!

:shock:

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It's funny but I'm so surprised to hear from many Madonna fans that they didn't like Frozen when it come out, and warmed up to it later.

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I think it's iTunes' fault. Most albums released recently sound quite shitty compared to old ones.

I agree. A lot of mixing engineers are more concerned with making albums sound "good" through cheap earbuds instead on actual sound systems.

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Just listen carefully to any album released by the younger whores and you will see how cheap it sounds. I'm just glad MDNA doesn't sound like some shit produced by Dr. Luke, RedOne, etc. The sound is not as desperate and obvious to the mainstream sound of 2012 like Hard Candy was to mainstream sound of 2008.

People complain too much about her career choices, but I don't think it's her fault that the music now sucks compared to a decade ago. Frozen would flop now because it would sound out of place and random and not radio friendly to many people.

I miss the days when alternative music (rock, electronic, etc.) was actually cool. The current scene SUCKS. It's all about this folk/indie shit.

I miss the days of NIN (not the best, but...), Portishead, Björk, Garbage, Massive Attack, Prodigy... Those were the days.

Even fucking Kylie Minogue was making some pretty good music! :lol:

Let's face it, people have shitty taste now more than never. It's like the charts are filled with Macarenas while back then there was only one Macarena. :lmao:

Ray Of Light worked amazingly well because the underground scene was great and exciting. Now it sucks.

At least for me.

If she will take some underground sound to the spotlight it will sound like that trap music or whatever it is. Or some Mumford & Sons / Fun. shit.

No thank you.

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I remember Madonna having huge flops prior to frozen, I still remember the Viva Germany Europe premier, I think it was a thursday or friday, after my first listen I thought this is gonna flop, then 2 days later she performed it on Wetten,dass? and it turned out to be one of her biggest hits ever, I adore frozen, it's too in my top 4 possibly maybe lol

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