Well, once again the world-famous "Material Girl" has astonished and thrilled her fans and the music industry with another original, amazing album. Obviously, Madonna's maternal duties to her precocious two-year-old daughter have not kept this precedent-setter from doing her stuff! However, Madonna's conspicuous absence from headlines for some time had led to speculation that she might be toning down her act. As "Ray of Light" shows, this is definitely not true!

The album takes a drastic turn from Madonna's previous pop-music and dreamy ballads, although some of that style is present, and enters new territory of awesome dance/techno beats. In fact, during an MTV interview, Madonna stated that her goal for the album would be to fuse techno with emotion, a goal that was definitely achieved. An especially contagious dance tune is the third track, which shares its name with the album. Then, of course, there is the well-known "Frozen." This original song has decidedly Indian influences, as does "Shanti/Ashtangl." These new influences stem from Madonna's recent interest in Middle Eastern culture and religion, specifically Judaism's Kabbalah, a source of mystical imagery meant to convey a certain image of the world.

Although I found Madonna's lyrics to be lacking in creativity at times, overall I felt that this was close to, if not the best, album that Madonna has forged. Who knows what's next from this amazing artist? A new tour, hopefully!.