Credits

Album

Ray Of Light

GHV2

Celebration

Single

The title track was released in April (UK) / June (US) 1998 as the second single. The tune got known very quickly. Only few people knew it was actually a rework of the much slower 1971 song 'Sepheryn' by Curtis & Muldoon. In the US the single debuted at #5 - which was her highest US single debut in her career - and was certified Gold. In the UK it topped at #2 (it was kept from the top spot by All Saints' 'Under The Bridge / Lady Marmalade'); in Japan, Australia and Canada it got to respectively #5, #6 and #7.
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Video

Fitting this fast-paced dance song, Swedish director Jonas Akerlund provided a high-speed video, showing ordinary people doing their daily routines: getting up, driving to work, having a quick lunch, working in the office, coming home and having a party in the evening. All these images are intertwined with the beauty aspects of life: playing children, an echography, two friends playing chess, etc. In between Madonna, dressed in casual jeans but looking gorgeous, shakes to a great dance routine. And at the party in the evening she's the star of the dance floor. The video - which was filmed in New York, LA and Sweden - was loved by the critics and received several awards, including 'Best Video', 'Best Female Video', 'Best Direction', 'Best Choreography' and 'Best Editing' at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards, and 'Best Short-Form Music Video' at the 1999 Grammy Awards. There are also two remix videos.

Tour

Madonna finishes the punk/rock-part of the Drowned World Tour with Ray Of Light, with all the dancers dancing and jumping up and down on stage on the guitar beats of Monte. On a big screen there's an extended version of the Ray Of Light video, adapted by Dan-o-Rama.

On the Confessions Tour Madonna made up for nixing the song from the previous tour. Again it ended up in the rock-part of the show, this time with Madonna herself on electric guitar. She urges all the fans to jump all through the song and we gladly obliged. The 6 male dancers, dressed in black & white, get to the end of the catwalk, giving away a great synchronious choreography. One of the dancing highlights!

As the Sticky & Sweet Tour got a lot of rock influences, Ray Of Light couldn't afford to be left out. Being part of the Futuristic Rave segment, Madonna gets kicking on the electric guitar at the end of the catwalk while the Hamutsun Serve dancers perform a robotic choreography next to her. While the performance already has a striking resemblance to past renditions of the song, the backdrop oddly seems like an almost identical copy of the previous tour. Nonetheless, the song gets the crowd dancing and raving along with this masterpiece. In the 2009 setlist, it moved to become the penultimate song of the show, which received an even better response from the crowd.