Hit Parade: The Veronica Electronica Edition

Hit Parade | Music History and Music Trivia

Slate Podcasts

Music, Music History, Music Commentary

4.8 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2018

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1998, Madonna was at a career crossroads. After dominating the ’80s with hits like “Like a Virgin” and “Open Your Heart,” she spent the first half of the ’90s wavering between roles as a provocateur (Erotica, Sex) and adult-contemporary balladeer (“I’ll Remember,” “Take a Bow”). That’s when she took a sharp left turn, working with producers and deejays in the burgeoning electronica scene. If it even was a scene: The very term “electronica” was a music-business confection, and by 1997 it was more hype than hit. But the result of Madonna’s experiment—her acclaimed ’98 album Ray of Light—was not only one of her biggest smashes ever. It also helped turn electronic music into viable pop. Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:29.4	welcome to hit parade a podcast of Pop Chart History from Slate magazine about the hits from
0:36.5	coast to coast. I'm Chris Malamphi, chart analyst, pop critic, and writer of Slate's
0:41.6	Why Is This Song Number One series.
0:44.0	On today's show, 20 years ago this month, Madonna debuted on Billboard's album chart
0:50.4	with her first studio album in four years, the trippy yet maternal ray of light. home and I feel like a feel like a just just call and a feel
1:07.0	a feel like a just call and a feel
1:12.0	as that seemingly contradictory description indicates, Ray of Light was the culmination of multiple threads in the life of Madonna Louise Chaconen.
1:23.0	Going into 1998, Madonna was entering
1:26.1	her 16th year as a recording artist.
1:29.0	Already extraordinary longevity
1:31.5	for a woman whose career grew out of New York clubs in the early 80s and a post-disco brand of electric dance pop. By the 90s,
1:45.0	90s, by the 90s, Madonna had also become a mogul,
1:51.0	the co-founder and flagship artist of Maverick, a recording and media company distributed
1:57.7	by Warner Brothers.
1:59.3	It grew into much more than a so-called vanity label.
	...

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