And I Feel – Happy Birthday Ray Of Light

Today it’s March 3 2009 and we are happy celebrate the 11th anniversary of the Ray Of Light album, originally released
March 3, 1998 by Warner/Maverick Records.

Ray Of Light was both a critical and commercial success worldwide for Madonna being her fifth best-selling album in the US and winning three Grammy Awards, including “Best Dance Recording”, “Best Pop Album”, and “Best Recording Package”,

For the album Madonna was looking for a new musical direction. After rejecting songs she co-wrote with Babyface, that were apparently too similar to Take A Bow in feel and mood, she started a collaboration with musician Rick Nowels, with whom she co-wrote seven songs, but not all of them made the final cut.

More songs were co-written with long time collaborator Patrick Leonard even if Madonna decided not to use him as a producer on this record. She took the Nowels and Leonard songs and brought them to
British electronic musician William Orbit, who “deconstructed them” and produced them in his unique style but also co-wrote more songs with him.

Singles from the album were: “Frozen” released in February 1998, “Ray of Light” released in May 1998,
“Drowned World/Substitute for Love” released in Europe, Japan, Canada and Australia in August 1998,
“The Power of Good-Bye” released in the UK, Canada Europe, Japan, Australia in November 1998. Final single was
“Nothing Really Matters” release in US, Japan, Europe and Australia in March 1999.
A bonus track called “Has To Be” was originally released only on the Japanese version of the album but later put as a B-side to Ray Of Light (The Single)

A few years later demo versions of the Rick Nowels songs “Little Star“, “To Have And Not To Hold“, “The Power Of GoodBye“,” No Substitute For Love” and the completely unreleased “Gone Gone Gone“, “Revenge“, “Like A Flower”
surfaced on the Internet. The fans especially loved “Revenge” and the lovely ballad “Like A Flower“. The latter was later given by Nowels with Madonna’s permission to Italian singer Laura Pausini who translated it into Italian and Spanish but both Pausini (who replaced Madonna’s melancholic lyrics with cheesy ones) and her record label (that didn’t release it as a single) were unable to understand the song’s real potential.

Happy Birthday Ray Of Light!