But, perhaps most remarkably of all, Ray of Light helped to usher underground dance sounds into the musical mainstream. Mostly co-produced by Madonna and Orbit, with contributions from the singer’s longtime collaborator Patrick Leonard and another forward-thinking British record producer, Marius de Vries, it minted a distinctive, sonically stunning mix of electronica, trip-hop, techno, ambient and new-age music. Writer and editor Alex Frank, who reviewed Ray of Light for online magazine Pitchfork in 2017, says this blend would have sounded especially fresh to US listeners who bought the album when it first came out.
