Talk:Ray of Light (song)

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Ray of Light (song) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Ray of Light (song) is part of the Ray of Light series, a good topic. This is identified as among the best series of articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you can update or improve it, please do so.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 12, 2014	Good article nominee	Listed
April 6, 2017	Good topic candidate	Promoted

Current status: Good article

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TB-303?[edit]

Is it true that a Roland TB-303 was used for the A# note being played throughout the song? SquareShot97 03:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Musical inspiration for Ray of Light[edit]

Wish For Eden's song "Don't Know" which was released several years before Ray Of Light features a 'shockingly' similar song arrangement, both in terms of tempo, note progressions, etc. (see [1] ). William Orbit appears to be responsible for the Madonna arrangement but it's not clear where his inspiration came from for this track.

The bible says that there's nothing new under the sun, so it could be a amazing coincidence ( but I'm a doubting Thomas on this one).

Danielebush 21:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Release dates for Ray of Light[edit]

It wasn't released in april, the correct release dates are: Europe: May 21, 1998 / Japan: May 29, 1998 / USA: June 23, 1998 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.33.222.192 (talk) 19:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, its US "debut chart position" shows up in the July 11th Billboard charts. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 21:55, 11 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Origin of the song[edit]

I found this posted in a forum:

"Sepheryn was written by CLIVE Muldoon and Dave Curtiss (Curtiss Muldoon was the name they recorded it under, as a duo). It was later re-written by Muldoon's niece, Christine Leach, who re-titled it Ray of Light. After he and Madonna bought the rights to the track, William Orbit...erm, did whatever William Orbit does...then Madge did a bit of an overhaul on the lyrics to turn it into the song we know today. Phew. That's why all five are credited as co-writers." - littleoldme

Can someone who has authoritative knowledge substantiate this and add it to the article? I think it is relevant and interesting. 90.184.25.59 (talk) 19:24, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone made a similar post on the youtube page for the Curtiss Maldoon version, saying that Leach had performend it in London, before the Madonna version. The poster says "Check out Christine Leach's and David Atkins websites", but I can find no such sites. Meowy 00:19, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Christine Leach version is mentioned here. http://www.purplerecords.net/sepheryn/sepheryn.htm Then, in 1997 their song "Sepheryn" was re-recorded by Christine Leach, Clive's niece. Christine worked for a time with Madonna's creative co-worker, William Orbit. "I had always loved Dave and Clive's work. "Sepheryn" had a dream-like quality to it; that's how I always heard it - as a dream. I rewrote the chorus melody, removed a few bits - it was a kind of jam, really." Madonna heard Christine's reworked "Sepheryn", and raved about it. The rest is history. (The bit in quotations are the words of Christine Leach, not William Orbit). It is a record company website, so I think it would be suitable as a source. Meowy 01:38, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wow. Thanks for the update Meowy. — Legolas ^(talk2me) 14:45, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Genre[edit]

Dance music is not a genre. The composition section says "An electronic dance song,..." - surely that means it is from the electronic dance music genre? Furthermore, the citation used to verify this (O'Brien 2008) is missing (need a bibliography section). Adabow (talk) 19:17, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

She indeed said that and the citation is verifiable. I will add the bibliography for it. Thanks for notifying and it should be EDM. —Indian:BIO · ^{[ ChitChat ]} 04:23, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting the electronic dance music article you cited: "Electronic dance music (also known as EDM, dance music, club music, or simply dance)". Arguably "dance music" is a genre, as "EDM" is often (or mainly) referred to simply as "dance music", especially in the UK. ▫ Urbane Legend ^chinwag 01:14, 20 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A tilt at FAC sometime?[edit]

This article looks in not too bad shape really. Some bits could possibly be embellished a bit. The remixes are worth a mention if some RS can be found that discusses them....@SNUGGUMS:? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:00, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It needs many more development as content regarding its recording and composition is missing. Plus the chart performance section is also missing content. Curious @Casliber:, why did you think this was worthy for FA? I think there's much more complete FA worthy articles of songs by Madonna. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 10:16, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't think it was worthy now, but thought it didn't need a huge amount of work. I just happened to be listening to the song (as I think it is by far the best song she has ever done) and then read teh article and noted it was GA. However I myself have done very little FA work on songs so am not good on sourcing material etc. If you have more material I am happy to copyedit. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:19, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I wouldn't nominate now myself, but it ain't too bad at the moment. Snuggums (talk / edits) 12:20, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@IndianBio: if there are any others that are on hte cusp of being nominated I'd be happy to take a look at prose. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:14, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking something like "Like a Prayer" or "Like a Virgin" seems succinct @Casliber:? —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 22:39, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree they both look more ready than this, and I suspect they are both within striking distance of FA status (i.e. FAC fixes should be quickly doable) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Great, I will let you know once when I nominate it. Thanks for your interest Casliber :) —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 10:15, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That'd be fine, I'll probably see one of them pop up but ping me if you don't see me comment pronto....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New source[edit]

Madonna’s Ray of Light: track reborn as a dance hit. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 09:08, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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sound effects and bleeps?[edit]

I have removed this sentence from the lead:

"'Ray of Light' contains several sound effects such as whistles, bleeps and bells, the usage of electric guitar, and underlying synths."

The sentence is superfluous and wrong: there is no whistle played, bell effect does not mean a bell per the Wikipedia article linked to, the synth sounds played are not "bleeps" per the WP article linked to, even hinting that this is a synthesizer-heavy song is grossly misleading, using "bleep", "whistle" and "bell" to describe the synthesizer sounds (as opposed to saying, for example, "TB-303 drum sound", "Telstar organ" or "Rebirth synth") is uninformed and of little value, and we don't typically describe the individual instrument sounds used in a song, especially not in the lead of the article, unless they are one of the main hooks (like Anna Kendrick playing a cup, or the big drum sound on "We Will Rock You").

Thus I removed the sentence. Before reverting, explain yourself. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:35, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have amended to a sourced description with the guitar mention as that is a prominent instrument. —IB ^{[ Poke ]} 03:58, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]