However, maybe most remarkably of all, Ray of Gentle helped to usher underground dance sounds into the musical mainstream. Largely co-produced by Madonna and Orbit, with contributions from the singer’s longtime collaborator Patrick Leonard and one other forward-thinking British document producer, Marius de Vries, it minted a particular, sonically beautiful mixture of electronica, trip-hop, techno, ambient and new-age music. Author and editor Alex Frank, who reviewed Ray of Gentle for on-line journal Pitchfork in 2017, says this mix would have sounded particularly contemporary to US listeners who purchased the album when it first got here out.
